Maya Banks - Sweet Addiction

“Ren, I loved you. I know you didn’t think so. Especially when I walked out on you. But for me there’s never been another woman who made me feel like you did. There were a few who came close and maybe if they hadn’t belonged to other men I would have enjoyed being with them.”

He caught her hand and pulled it to his mouth to kiss her palm. “I’ve been very successful in life. I’ve achieved all the goals I’ve set out to achieve. It’s brought me a measure of happiness. But there’s always been something missing and when I looked up in that restaurant and saw you for the first time in all these years, it all fell into place for me. It was like being hit by lightning. I can’t even begin to explain how it felt.”

She stared back at him in complete befuddlement. Her stomach knotted and she could barely squeeze air into her lungs.

“I looked at you and knew what was missing in my life. What I wanted in my life. I’ve never stopped loving you, Ren. I can’t make it any simpler than that.”

She swallowed but the knot didn’t go away. She had no idea what to say. How to feel. How could she make herself so very vulnerable when she was setting herself up for hurt no matter how this played out in the end?

Cole framed her face and leaned forward to kiss her lightly on the lips. “I’ve been brutally honest with you for one reason and one reason only. Because I want you to know from the start where I stand so that no matter what happens this week, no matter how hard I push you, no matter how far I take you out of your comfort zone, you know one thing if you know nothing else. You’ll know I love you and that I’d never do anything to hurt you again.”

He released her face but his gaze held her captive. “You can belong to any number of men. You can be possessed. You can be a possession. You can submit. You can be dominated. But none of that necessarily means you are loved and cherished above all else. You’ll know that with me, Ren. You’ll never doubt it for even a moment if I can help it.”

Tears gathered in her eyes. “Oh Cole.” She leaned forward until her forehead touched his and he swam in her vision as she tried to hold back the flood of emotion. “I’ve missed you so much.”

He tangled his fingers in her hair and held her close as their breaths mingled. “I’ve missed you too, darling.”

“It’s all so fast,” she murmured.

He nodded. “It is. We’ll slow down. I never thought it would be easy. You can’t imagine what it felt like to see you and know you belonged to another man. Really belong. I knew what that collar signaled and I knew that I’d have to fight for you. But there was no way in hell I was going to walk away again.”

She snuggled into his arms and laid her head on his shoulder. He was so strong and comforting. Warm. She needed that strength.

“I won’t be easy,” he warned.

She shivered at the dark promise in his voice.

“This time we have together will give you the opportunity to see who I really am.”

She glanced up into his eyes. “And you’ll see that I’m not weak. That I need your strength and the rigidity of a dominant relationship. It’s not just what I want, Cole. It’s what I need. It’s what I have to have.”

He nodded. “I understand. I’ll give that to you, Ren. I’ll give you everything.”

Contentment slid over her, loosening some of the tension in her muscles. She went limp against him as he continued to stroke her body, his touch tender and soothing.

“Now tell me about this career of yours,” he said against her hair. “Rennie Michaels? Children’s author extraordinaire?”

She laughed lightly. “It started as an escape. A way to deal with my unhappiness. My unfulfillment I suppose you could say. I would drift away, telling stories in my head and one day I decided to write them down. And then I began to draw the scenes, adding words to the pictures that danced around my mind. The second day I was with Lucas, after he moved me in with him, he came across my drawings and one of the books I’d put together myself. He insisted I submit it and so I did. To be honest I think he helped. He had connections. Before I knew it I had an agent and then an offer. They fast tracked that first book because it was already completed and little to no revisions were necessary. It released a few months ago and I’m working on the third in the series right now. The second will be released in four more months.”

“I’m proud of you.”

Her cheeks bloomed with heat and she smiled. “I love it. Sometimes I get too wrapped up in it, but I enjoy it. I have a purpose now. Job wise, I mean. Before I worked in marketing. I got my degree after you and I split up. But it’s so stressful and against my true personality. It was exhausting to make myself be this person I wasn’t and I finally quit trying. I owe a lot of that to Lucas. He was content to just let me …be.”

She glanced anxiously at Cole, already regretting that she’d brought up Lucas twice. It wasn’t that she was intentionally throwing Lucas in Cole’s face nor was she trying to make Cole jealous or make him feel threatened. The simple truth was Lucas had everything to do with the woman she was now. The woman she’d become over the last year.

She would have gotten there on her own eventually but Lucas had been a rock-solid source of support. She’d always owe him that.

“It sounds like Lucas recognized what a very special woman you were from the moment he saw you,” Cole said in a low voice.

Ren nodded, relieved that he didn’t take offense.

“What about your last relationship? Lucas said the man you were with hurt you.”

Ren could feel how stiff Cole went the moment he brought up the subject. There was a darkness to his eyes that told her how very dangerous he could be when provoked.

She swallowed and sighed. “A lot of it was my own fault.”

Cole scowled.

“No, really it was. I mean, it wasn’t my fault he was a dickhead, but it was my fault that I stayed as long as I did and that I settled for something I knew would never make me happy or fulfill me. That’s on me.”

“What did he do?” Cole gritted out.

“He wanted to change me. He had very set ideas—stereotypical ideas—of how a dominant submissive relationship should work. To be honest he’d watched too many porn flicks or read too many bad novels on the subject. Quite frankly he was a joke. He wanted to be king of the castle and for me to kiss his feet. His idea of dominance was abuse and disrespect. He felt powerful when he was humiliating me.”

Cole’s nostrils flared and rage built like a storm in his eyes. His grip tightened on her and just as quickly he began to rub his hand up and down her arm in a comforting motion that she was unsure that he was even cognizant of.

“That son of a bitch,” Cole hissed. “The little bastard. So he got his rocks off acting like an abusive asshole.”

Ren shrugged. “Basically, yeah. My fault. I mean, that I took it so long. I was at a crossroads and my problem wasn’t so much that I thought I wanted him. I knew I didn’t. My problem was that I didn’t know what I wanted and so I was afraid.”

He gathered her tightly in his arms and pressed his lips to her temple. “I’m so sorry you had to endure that. I’m glad you found Lucas. It sounds like he was a much better man.”

“He was—is,” she returned quietly. “In a lot of ways he saved me. From myself. He refused to let me settle.”

“It hurts me that someone hurt you. I’d like to kill the little son of a bitch. When a woman submits to a man, it’s the most precious gift she can give. Herself. Unreservedly. The man has to respect and honor that gift above all else. Even if he respects nothing else in the world, he must respect the woman in his care. It’s his sworn duty to protect, honor and cherish his submissive. To take care of her and provide a safe haven. Someone who would put his own needs above his woman’s is no man.”

She pushed herself up and rearranged herself so that she sat astride him on the couch, her knees resting on either side of him. She stared down into his eyes, touched beyond words at his vehement declaration.

“Do you know, when you say those things, I don’t believe they are just words,” she said. “You mean them.”

“Damn right I do,” he said with a frown.

For the first time, she looked to the next two weeks without a twinge of sadness and uncertainty. Anticipation licked through her veins, and more powerful than the anticipation, was yearning.

She didn’t just need what Cole would give her. She wanted it and him. She’d never stopped loving or wanting him. At times she’d thought that she was still caught up in a youthful fantasy and that the memories would never translate to reality.

But here he was in front of her. Strong. Demanding. Unyielding. Dominant, so very dominant. Hard and yet unbelievably tender.

He was everything she wanted and needed and everything she’d missed for the last ten years. Cole wasn’t as good as or the same as that young man she’d known when she was just a girl.

He was way better.

They napped and lounged in the sunroom. At some point, two men carried in the boxes containing Ren’s writing and art supplies, but Cole motioned for them to be quiet. Ren still slept soundly on his chest and he had no desire to wake her and let go of the moment.

There weren’t words to describe his contentment. His absolute satisfaction in holding her in his arms. It overwhelmed him and brought back so much of the past years when he’d searched in vain for what he’d been missing from the moment he walked out of her life.