"Yes," I hear myself say it and there's no taking it back now. " Because I wanted to know what you'd do. Because some part of me, some fucked-up, illogical part that would never survive cross-examination, liked that you did this. That you wanted me enough to try something that desperate. That insane."
Something shifts in his expression. The tension in his body changes from coiled defensiveness to something hungrier.
He kisses me again. Harder this time, his hand tightening in my hair until the sting borders on pain. I dig my fingers into the muscles of his back and hold on.
He pulls back to stare at me. "You let me think—"
"I let you think exactly what you needed to think." My nails dig into his back. "I wanted to see what you'd do. How far you'd go. Whether you'd tell me or just…let it happen."
"You played me," he says slowly.
"You tried to get me pregnant without my consent. I'd say we're even."
"You knew what I did." His voice is low, strained. "And you let me believe it was working. Eight days—"
"Yes."
"You're not angry?"
I laugh. It sounds slightly unhinged. "I'm furious. I'm also—" I gesture at the lingerie, at my bare feet, at the wall I'm still pressed against. "Does this look like anger to you?"
His forehead drops to mine. We breathe together for a moment.
"This is insane," he says.
"Probably."
His hand loosens in my hair and slides down to cup my face. His thumb traces my cheekbone. "Fourteen days until someone tries to kill you, and we're doing this."
"Fourteen days." The absurdity catches in my throat. "I don't want to spend them pretending I don't want you."
"Angelina—"
"I didn't pretend to swallow your fake pills for eight days just for you to freeze up on me now. I choose you."
His control breaks.
And underneath it, he wants me. Not the lingerie, not the performance. Not the mess. The history. He wants the woman who discovered his plan and swallowed those pills anyway—or made him believe she did.
"Say it again," he says.
"I chose you." My fingers curl around the back of his neck. "I'm choosing you right now. What are you going to do about it?"
He answers by lifting me.
My legs wrap around his waist. His hands cup the backs of my thighs, and he carries me toward the bed like I weigh nothing.
I land on the mattress and haul him down with me.
His shirt disappears. His hands find the places Adrian used to criticize, my hips, my stomach, the softness at my thighs, and touch them like evidence he's been waiting to examine. When his palm slides up my inner thigh, I spread for him without being asked.
"Christ." His voice is sandpaper. "You're—"
"I know." I reach for his waistband. "Off. Now."
He deals with his jeans while I deal with the fancy bra that seemed so important twenty minutes ago. Now it's just in the way.
When he settles between my thighs, the press of him against my entrance destroys every argument I've been making with myself for eight days. There's only this. Only him.