I check my watch subconsciously. “She’s fine,” Ryke assures me. “Look, you can pretend to know everything about me, but you can’t understand Lily the way I do.” I’ve watched her cry and shake in a bathroom because she craved sex—because she couldn’t have it. And she wouldn’t turn to me for help back then. Now that we’re together, I should have the power to take her pain away. But I don’t. Because she’s trying to control these impulses. And so I’m back where I started, watching her shake, watching her eyes grow big and wide, pleading for something more. And I have to deny her that pleasure.
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