She leaned forward, her breasts skimming against my chest. My shaking grew worse, and I closed my eyes, losing coherent thought as I focused on the feel of her softness. Her fingers trailed over my chest and toyed with my neck. I growled and fisted my hands.
“I’m sorry, Jim,” she said.
I shook my head, not wanting her apology. I’d be patient. I liked that she wanted to play.
Her lips pressed on the skin over my heart, followed by her tongue, then her weight settled more firmly on my hips. She moved a little. I struggled to hold still. Need pounded through me.
A moment later, I heard beeping. I shook my head, trying to understand and place the noise, but I didn’t open my eyes. I didn’t think I could look at her and not have her under me in the next second.
“He needs to know what I’m doing to you,” she said. “Tell him. Everything. If you stop talking, I stop doing.”
I frowned, not understanding. Before I could ask what she meant, she leaned over me again, nuzzling my neck in the sweet spot. I groaned.
“Talk, Jim, and I promise you won’t be disappointed.”
She nipped my neck.
“Do it again,” I begged.
“Do what? Say what you want.”
“Bite my neck again. Harder.”
She did. I growled in response and almost lost control when she trailed her tongue down to the hollow of my neck.
“Yes,” I panted as she licked her way down my sternum. When she pulled back, I knew she wanted me to beg some more. I didn’t mind.
“Keep licking me. Every inch of my chest. Then, it’s my turn.”
“And after that?” she breathed.
“After that, you’re mine.”
A howl penetrated the fog she’d created in my mind. The tinny, faint echo of it seemed wrong.
She slid off me and started talking.
“I warned you. Decide now. Push and lose everything, or wait and see what tomorrow will bring.”
Reality came crashing down on me. She’d used me to stop Blake, just as she’d promised she would. I sat up with a sick feeling in my stomach.
Twenty-One
OLIVIA…
“Tomorrow, your games end,” Blake growled before he hung up.
The phone fell from my shaking hand and hit the floor with a thud. The Others danced around Jim in a frenzy while I trembled from head to toe. In the shower, it had been fear. On the bed, it had turned into something so much more. At first, I’d only hoped that Jim wouldn’t laugh at my attempts. I didn’t know the first thing about real kissing or foreplay, only the bits I’d overheard the Urbat women say in the center while they watched their young torment me.
I continued to watch Jim and the Others with uncertainty.
“Was that my purpose?” he said, his voice so soft, low, and filled with anger that my shaking intensified. “To be used?”
“Blake was moving toward us. I had to do something to stop him.”
“I understand,” he said. He stood and moved to step around me. I caught his arm and stopped him.
“I don’t think you do. You feel used. I understand that too well. That’s my whole life.”
