“You bare yourself completely to me.”
“Hard no.” She spins in my arms, rage and anguish marring her features, which tells me she’s truly considering this. “I can’t. I have—”
“I already know it’s there, Merce.” I smooth her dress down and curl my fingers over the nape of her neck, my thumb dusting over her battering pulse point. I knew her scar would be an issue.“This is about healing. If you do this with me, you’ll get that daunting step over with, remember how stunning you are, and stop being self-conscious.”
Her brown eyes are glossy, reflecting the moon and city lights and fluorescent glow of the rooftop bar. And an abyss of pain, but she surprises me. “What else?”
“It’s only you. No reciprocation.”
Her jaw falls slack as she stammers, “What … why?”
“It’s for the best.” I don’t expand on that, and I can see her cogs turning. I’m guessing the hard-to-get strategy Axel had in mind didn’t only pertain to my dick, but I like my plan better. And I think it’s working.
“So … just a …” She glances at the party around us before finally peering at me beneath the fringe of her lashes. “For me … and not for you?”
“Yes.”
Almost there. Cross this line with me, and you’ll never want to go back.
“And … you don’t think that would confuse things?” She licks her lips, her gaze dropping to mine for a beat. “I, uh … no strings, right?”
I’m not sure why that infuriates me. It’s what I claimed I was offering. Maybe it’s that no matter what I fucking do, I’m never enough for her. Never worthy of being more. She’s the one who morphs what we could have into a delusion. I keep the hope alive, and she slaughters it. Again. And again.
My jaw clenches. “The strings are already there, Merce. You’re mine. Forever. Mine to care for and spoil. Mine to escort to parties, to tease, to shower with mind-blowing orgasms. Mine to keep under lock and key. Fucking mine.”
She mirrors my frustration. “A prisoner with aclimax contract. Huh? And yet I was hired to shut down trafficking cells. Seems like a conflict of interest.”
Fuck this. I’m glad to see her fighting, but if she wants to push my buttons, I’ll push back.
I lift her chin, my lips nearly caressing hers. I can taste her champagne breath. “You want to view this as you being my prisoner, then so be it. I’m themonsterwho will do whatever it takes to keep you whole. I’ll make any dream you have come true. Maybe the issue is that I’ll kill anyone who hurts you, anyone who touches you, anyone who even considers it. The way it should have always been. I’ll also removeanyobstacle in your way. Including thisneed. So, you can take it or leave it, but your options are me or your toys. And we both know which you’d prefer.”
She seethes, but her emotions are layered—hurt, anger, lust. “Why bring me back if all you were going to do is torment me?”
“Torment you? You’re doing that to yourself. Punishing both of us for fuck knows what. And you’ve been doing it for three goddamn years. Hiding, denying, giving up.”
Because she is the master of deflecting, like a well-trained lawyer, she comes out of left field with some grade-A bullshit. “Is this a creative way to distract me so I don’t discover whatever the hell you’re hiding or because you want to know what I remember?”
We’ll be circling back to that, but right now, I flatten her against the wall, keep one hand on her throat and slink the other beneath her skirt, bypassing her panties and plunging two relentless fingers into her weeping cunt. “Neither, but I do want to know something.”
She gasps, but fists the lapels of my suit jacket as her hips buck forward, fucking my hand right here in the shadows to the rhythm of electro swing music and the din of a cabal celebration.
My filthy girl.
“What do you want to know?” she whispers.
“What I’ve wondered for a decade, Merce. Whether you whimper or scream. What my name will sound like, moaned from those plump lips, and what flavor your sweet pussy will leave on my tongue. How desperate you’ll be when I shove you to the brink, only to make you wait. How much edging it will take for you to be a beautiful, begging mess, and how your pretty face will twist in ecstasy when I finally let you fly over that cliff.”
MERCY
“Ithink we’ve catapulted over any semblance of a line.” That emerges much like gibberish because I’m teetering on the edge of an orgasm in the middle of some gangster convention and utterly electrified by Ryker’s erotic queries. And his rock-hard erection spearing me.
He bends down so I’m concealed from the rest of the party. His scruff grazes my cheek with a tantalizing prickle as he continues to pump his fingers inside me, his thumb tangoing with my clit. “Nothing left to lose then. Take what you need, baby. You’re so wet, so tight, so desperate. Fucking perfect.”
Baby? How did we get here? Since his fingers are inside me, getting hung up on that is pointless, and …
Fuck, he’s sexy. All long limbs, wicked grin, steel pecs, and royal bravado. That cocky dimple and filthy mouth. Killer icy blues.
And hunger. So much hunger.
