Her happiness was what I lived for. My misery would be worth it. Because she deserved every fucking thing she wanted.
And if I wasn’t what she wanted, then I would slowly waste away to nothing. But at least I could watch her from the sidelines.
“Zachary, why were you scared to tell me you love me?”
Meeting her gaze, I gave her the truth. “I can stand in the cage and let a three-hundred-pound man beat on me. I can sit behind the bench and stare down murderers. I can look death in the face without flinching. But if I told you how much I love you and you rejected me, it would destroy me.” She stumbled back another step, and my heart lurched. “I was a coward, Elli. I’m still scared. You have all the power here, baby. Everything you do holds me in thrall. You can break me with a tear. And I willingly give up that control, to you and only you. Now and always.”
She sucked in a ragged breath and turned away. I couldn’t fight back my pain-ravaged plea. “Don’t go.”
With her back to me, she held up both hands. “I’m not going anywhere. Just give me a moment to digest all of this.”
“Okay.” My throat was so tight, it was impossible to swallow. I could barely breathe, but as long as she was still there, I would remain standing.
She bent her head forward, her hair falling over her shoulders. Standing behind her, unable to see her face, I had no idea what she was thinking. My body stayed tense, ready for the blow if she made a run for it.
She should. It was safer for her to get as far away from me as possible. My obsession with her was a sickness I’d spent years fighting. After I’d gotten the blissful taste of life with her at my side, in our bed, loving me, for a few brief months, my world had turned dark when she left. I wasn’t confident I would survive if she chose to go this time. Not even for our baby.
“Say it,” she commanded in her sweetly innocent voice, her back still turned to me, but something had changed in her shoulders. I could feel it flooding the room, and I wasn’t sure it was the outrage that I was expecting, which was why it confused the hell out of me. “Tell me you love me again.”
Carefully, I crossed the room and stepped in front of her, not wanting to make a wrong move and send her running. My hands shook when I lifted them to cup her face. It wasn’t set in hard, angry lines, but I still couldn’t read her mood. I couldn’t tell if she was going to bolt or let me love her, and that made fear clutch at my chest.
“I love you, Elli,” I told her, swallowing my fear in hopes that she wouldn’t use her power to bring me to my knees.
She tipped her head back, and I saw her, the confident woman she’d turned into when I’d put my collar around her neck. She’d disappeared when I’d hurt her with the truth about Georgetown. But right then, she stared back at me fearlessly, the glitter in those baby blues telling me loud and clear she was very much aware of all the control I had just handed over on a silver platter. Power she had held all along.
“I’m mad at you for trying to trap me,” she announced, her voice turning cool enough to chill me to my bones.
“I didn’t try,” I stupidly amended. “I did, sweetheart. My baby is inside you right now.”
When I decided that getting her pregnant was the only way I was going to get to keep her, I hadn’t allowed myself to think past using the baby as my key to hold on to the woman I loved. But once I’d guessed the truth, I’d felt a weird new excitement. After I’d gotten off the phone with her the night before, I’d been busy. I’d found an online baby furniture store that let me design an entire nursery, and I’d spent hours doing just that, wondering what Elli would prefer and coming up with half a dozen different mock-ups for one of the guest rooms in the same wing of the house as our current bedroom.
Once I was done with that, I’d gotten busy ordering her new vehicle so it could be delivered as soon as possible. Lyla’s convertible was safe enough, but it didn’t have all the updated features, and I wasn’t sure how sane I would stay thinking of a pregnant Elli on the road in a car that wasn’t built like a tank. No matter how good of a driver she was, there were stupid people out there who could make the smallest mistakes and steal my reason for breathing away from me forever.
Her eyes narrowed on me. “Was that the only reason you fucked me so often?”
Bending my knees, I put my face close to hers. “I didn’t fuck you.”
“I dispute that, Your Honor,” she argued. “I was there, and apparently I remember the events of our sexcapades differently than you do.”
“That wasn’t me fucking you, Elli. That was simply the way we make love,” I corrected patiently, still on edge from the fear that she would run at any second. “It was me so hungry for you that I couldn’t control myself. It was me trying to show you how much I love you. If you had paid attention, you would have caught on to how utterly consumed and obsessed I am with you that I couldn’t go a full hour without touching you.”
“Well, I’m still mad.”
Chapter 55
Judge
She folded her arms over her chest and tilted her chin in that stubborn, defiant way that told me she had gone into brat mode. My heart kicked painfully in my chest, hope choking me. “Elli.”
“You don’t get to make decisions that involve my body without talking to me first. Creating life is special. If you wanted a baby so badly, you should have at least asked me how I would feel about getting pregnant.”
A flutter of regret tried to invade my mind, but I wouldn’t let it fuck with my head.
She did such a good job of that without my adding more shit to the pile.
And I loved it.
“Now you’re going to have to make it up to me.”
“I don’t want a baby,” I breathed, trying to keep up when my heart was still trying to figure out if hope was plausible. Was she fucking with me, or was she going to be my spoiled little brat and let me truly make it up to her? Hurt filled those eyes that could turn my world upside down with just a blink, and I rushed to correct her assumption. “I want our baby.”
Her tongue swiped over her bottom lip, distracting me, but only for a moment.
“I’m sorry I didn’t talk to you about it. I apologize that I sabotaged your birth control, but I’m not sorry that you’re going to make me a daddy.” I slowly lifted my hand, giving her plenty of time to step away, and I wrapped my fingers around her delicate throat.
Her lashes fluttered, her mouth falling open in a soundless cry of need. I didn’t deserve her. “How can I make it up to you, sweetheart?”
She held up an index finger. “First, you have to tell me you love me.”
“I love you.” I gave the words to her without hesitation.
“I wasn’t done,” she complained. “First, you have to tell me you love me. At least three times a day. Six on the weekends. At least,” she repeated for emphasis. “Second.” She ticked off another finger. “I want my collar back.”
My cock was already hard, but at the mention of her collar, the tip began to leak. “Yes, baby. I love you, baby.”
If I’d known how much she would glow when I spoke those three words, I would have manned up and told her years ago.