Derek hadn't intended to be confusing, or run hot-and-cold. He hadn't meant to let Allison know that he thought of her as his, because that wasn't supposed to have happened.
He looked down at her hand, closed around her wrist, through the bars, and slipped the lock back on, snapped the lock closed, then shifted to his knees. Whatever the future held for them, they could still take pleasure in this. In the surety of this.
Allison wasn't so different from his other slaves, when it came to needing to feel secure in her relationship to him. Maybe he was wrong to encourage her to pin her hopes on Scott. Maybe, as he suspected, Scott was incapable of giving her this subjugation that she craved. And maybe that impulse was stronger than the nostalgia.
He pulled free from her grip and grasped the hem of his shirt with both hands, pulled it over his head, let it drop to the floor, and then met her eyes. "And what do you need?" he prompted.