She seemed to realize suddenly that they were alone inside her apartment in her semi-darkened bedroom. She turned on a lamp as if that could change anything.
He took the coffee cup from her hand and put it on the desk. Julie looked nervous, as though she might dart from the room like a scared rabbit. She worried her bottom lip and took an involuntary step back. Despite the thoughts running through his head, Gabe had a rational side of his brain that knew right from wrong and all the proper social conventions.
For example, he knew that when a woman looked frightened of him, the correct appropriate response was to back off immediately and find a way to make her feel comfortable and safe again. However, despite this social training, the reality was that when he saw her like this... nervous, unsure, taking steps out of the room, all he wanted was to take her. The primal, predatory, uncivilized part of his brain knew exactly one formal word: Mine. The rest was a series of indecipherable grunts and growls.
Before he could stop himself, he’d backed her into the living room and up against the wall. He kissed her, and grabbed her wrists, pinning them over her head.
“I want to tie you up,” he said, barely conscious those words had escaped his mouth. He loosened his grip on her arms but now pinned her waist as he rained rough bites and kisses along her neck, pulling back the sweater to get at her collarbone.
He wanted to take her back to the house where he had proper equipment. He wanted to put a collar around her throat even though a more sane and rational part of his brain tried to remind him quite reasonably that she wasn’t like him. And besides all that... she was so innocent.
“No! Stop it!” Julie shouted, shoving at him to get off her.
On reflex, Gabe covered her mouth and pressed his full weight against her to stop her thrashing. “Shhh. You’ll call all your neighbors to this door.” She’d gone tense and terrified beneath him, her hazel eyes wide. This went well beyond the level of light fear and trepidation that excited him. This was exactly the look he was afraid he’d get from her. You stupid bastard. She’s so inexperienced. This is way too much for her with a stranger. Think about what this looks like to her.
Even if he’d been coming to the bar for eight months... being in a public place together was very different from being alone with a man she didn’t really know. He had half a mind to turn her over his knee and spank her for letting a man into her house this soon. Even if he was that man.
He moved his hand away and took a few steps back. She looked trapped and was shaking like a poorly socialized chihuahua. Definitely too much fear. He didn’t want her this way with him. He wanted her to want this.
“W-what did you mean when you said you wanted to tie me up?”
“Forget it. It’s not important.”
“It is important if you wanted to rape me!”
“That’s not what I meant. Some people like to be tied up,” he said. Great way to introduce this to her, you stupid asshole.
“Not me,” Julie said.
He didn’t bother asking her how she knew what she was and wasn’t into when she couldn’t possibly know what her body could crave at his hands—what he could make her body crave with proper training. She might be willing to be led through a parking lot and ordered for at a restaurant, but she wasn’t willing to be led into his chains or ordered to call him master.
Gabe scrubbed a hand through his hair. “Julie, I’m sorry. That was far too much. I knew you weren’t ready for that and I would never...” He paced across her floor in brooding silence for several minutes. Finally he said, “I knew better than to ask you out.”
“What?” She sounded hurt and when he looked up, she was crying.
He moved back to her, and she shrank away. He’d never regain her trust. He brushed the hair out of her eyes with his fingers, but she flinched at what was intended as a soothing gesture. “I didn’t mean it like that. This isn’t your fault.”
“I’m sorry. I need to go slower than this. I-I really, really like you.”
He sighed. “I really like you too.”
“Then, will I see you again?”
He couldn’t believe she wanted to see him again after this. She was scared, probably a bit embarrassed, and yet...
“No. This was a mistake. I won’t be back at the bar. I’m sorry but this has to be goodbye, Julie.”
She began to cry harder, and everything inside his soul clenched in pain at that look on her face. She looked like she thought he was punishing her. Why couldn’t she understand he was sparing her? Sparing her... him. He was so tempted to lay it all out on the table—all the gory details of what excited him, what he demanded in a relationship. Then she’d run from him all on her own. But this was enough. He couldn’t handle revulsion from her on top of everything else.
It was bad enough the universe had teased him with the possibility of this girl he could never have because to take her would be to break her and pull her into what, for her, would be a dark and twisted world.
Gabe touched the side of her face gently and smoothed away her tears, then he put his hand under her chin and raised her gaze to his. “I’m sorry if I’ve hurt you. It wasn’t my intention. We aren’t a good fit. Trust me, it’s better this way. I’m a very bad man that you don’t need to know.”
He turned and went to the door, steeling himself against her tears.
“Wait. Please, Gabe. I do want to know you. Please, I’m inexperienced. I just need... I need time. Don’t leave like this.”
There wasn’t one in fifty women who would respond this way. Most would throw things at him or yell obscenities. But this girl? Every cell in her body demanded sweet submission. He was sure she wasn’t a doormat. He’d seen her yell at the drunk in the bar. But as far as she was concerned, fuck her dignity, she just wanted to please him. Most women would have gotten angry, and the few who cried like this wouldn’t have thrown their dignity at his feet to be trampled further.
For the smallest glittering moment, Gabe considered taking her with him. He knew enough of her story to know that while someone might file a half-hearted missing person’s report, nobody would be scorching the earth to find her. He could take her to the house. Keep her with him always. She’d come around to his ways. There was too much of the submissive inside her not to.
But what he’d almost said earlier was that he would never force her, and that was true. He might be a sick bastard who made endless moral justifications for his crimes, but he knew a woman who wanted what he had to offer from one who didn’t. And he couldn’t lie to himself about the kind of woman Julie was... and wasn’t. He cared about her too much.
“Julie, I’m sorry. I won’t bother you again.”
31
Julie wiped down the counter at Dani’s in a daze. It had been two and a half weeks since she’d seen Gabe on their one and only disaster of a date. She kept hoping like a fool that he’d walk through that door, but he never did. She was never going to see him again.
It had taken nearly a week for the bite marks he’d left on her to fade. Some fucked-up part of her held onto them, like it was the last piece of him, and once it was gone... he was gone. But that was crazy. He’d practically attacked her like a wild animal. If that was how he behaved on the first date... and to beg him like that... after the way he’d treated her...