I nearly gasp when I glance up again and find Aiden nearly naked in front of me, a pair of tight black briefs the only remaining clothes on his body. If my ears were burning red, now they’re scalding, despite my rational side screaming for me to close my eyes.
I wish it weren’t like this. I wish we were anywhere else.
You’d think I wouldn’t be affected by how absolutely devastating his body is since we’ve been sharing the same bed, but no. As much as I’ve been trying to delude myself, he is nothing if not a work of art.
My brain can’t decide which part of his body it wants to focus on. It computes only in flashes of understanding. The delicate, intricate black tattoo art decorating his body from his ankles to his collarbones, with only his nipples, hands, and face unmarked. The winking piercings from his nipples. But the more time I get to spend with him, the more I’ve begun to understandthe real story—one written on his skin by the man who forced us into this situation.
Underneath the swirls of black ink are the thin, raised lines of scars decorating rippling muscle. There are so many, I can’t tell if it’s from one injury or from thousands. I hadn’t been with him long enough the night we spent together to see them. Across his sculpted pectorals. Along his corded forearms and bulging biceps. All down his carved eight-pack and Adonis belt.
My hands are still in the process of wrapping around my body as I practically gape at him, then I stuff them under my armpits so I don’t reach out to touch them. Question him about them.
I will fuck this man, give him my body, let the others watch, but I won’t let them see him vulnerable.
When it becomes apparent he’s going to wait for my direction, despite Cian’s interest in seeing me cowed, I whisper under my breath, “I don’t—” in a hitching voice, and I point to the bed.
Without hesitation, Aiden turns to the bed and yanks back the stark white duvet and sheets. He gestures for me to climb on, and I slide under the sheets, unable to look away from him now. The only way I’ll ever be able to get through this, knowing anyone is watching, is to focus entirely on him. Pretend that we’re the only two people in the world. Imagine that I never left him in the first place. That the subsequent events never happened.
Aiden may despise me for tricking him, may tease me and torture me as retribution, but if there’s one thing I know for certain, it’s that he wants me. He has since the moment we met. He wants me so much that he nearly married my sister to prove exactly how much the thought of me being around petrifies him.
I’m completely at his mercy once again. To use. To overpower. To hurt, if he wanted. He could do anything tome, and I’d be completely powerless against him. It should be terrifying. I should be mindless with panic.
Aiden’s climbing on the bed, giving me a front-row view of the rippling muscles along his expansive chest and abdomen. Despite everything that’s going on, my breath hitches. My blood heats. He flicks the covers over our bodies, and a knot of tension inside me releases. It covers most of the important things, which doesn’t help much, but what the cameras can see of me is blocked by Aiden’s body.
He hovers over me, kneeling between my slightly parted legs. I’ve never felt more vulnerable in my life. Not even when he had a gun pressed to my head or when he had me on my knees in the limo. This feels like giving him a part of myself I’ve been holding in reserve.
“Ease up for me, love,” he says, his voice whisper-soft as he slides his hands up my thighs to grip my panties.
I nod while biting my lip and trying to control my emotions, my ears damn near burning with the force of my embarrassment. I’m grateful I styled my long, wavy hair down because it covers the blush that spreads from there to my neck and the top of my chest as he peels the material over my hips and down my thighs.
For a moment, his attention catches on the shadowy place between my thighs, and a shudder escapes his lips. Heat that has nothing to do with embarrassment glides over my sensitized skin in a rush.
The tingling in my fingers disappears completely, and I fight a whole-body shiver at the way he seems wholly consumed by the mere sight of me. I try not to watch and fail miserably as he shifts to shove his briefs down his legs and kicks them somewhere over the side. His cock bobs free, already hard. There’s enough light from the lamps on the bedside tables for me to see every delicious inch of him. The intimate flesh is flusheda beautiful pink, slightly darker at the head, which is already weeping with beads of translucent pre-cum.
I swallow hard as he palms his erection and squeezes the base. Fear and desire collide in a cataclysmic chain reaction. One ratcheting the other up in a vicious cycle primed by a history of this man and the way he’s always mastered my body. I still don’t know if this is an act for him dictated by Cian’s ruthless demands, but the wetness gathering in my core doesn’t seem to care. Even so, I find myself glancing around, searching for light reflecting off the hidden surface of a lens.
A hand wraps around my jaw. “You keep your eyes on me, you understand?” He punctuates the statement with a hard, thought-melting kiss. I can’t look away from him as his tongue dominates mine. When he pulls away, I’m already breathless. “Tell me you understand me, pet.”
Despite telling myself not to show those bastards my nerves, I jump at his command and nod vigorously. I do as he says and don’t look away from his hard, stormy eyes while he reaches under me to undo the clasp of my bra. My nipples pinch the moment they’re bared to his heated gaze.
Before I can protest—not that I can—he’s hinging at the waist to grip my arms and drag my body closer to his. It forces my thighs to part for him, making room for his powerful body between them. My anxiety disappears somewhere in the journey, forgotten. My gasp fills the too-quiet bedroom, but it’s not so loud I don’t hear Aiden’s huff of breath as my legs go around his hips. His cock thrusts between us, hard and impossible to ignore, and goddammit, I ache for him. I have been for weeks. Maybe months. Maybe even since the moment I snuck away from his bed.
For reasons I don’t care to comprehend, Aiden licks his thumb and applies gentle, but inescapable pressure to my clit and strokes it to life despite all my unvoiced objections. The lastthing I want is to enjoy any part of being forced to fuck this man, but that’s exactly what I do. I try to look away, think of anything else, but his frustratingly beautiful body is the only thing that fills my vision. His scent, masculine and clean, envelops me in that same strange intimacy until all I can focus on is how his skin is distractingly warm and smooth against mine even though his expression is cold.
When I can’t look away any longer, our gazes connect like they are magnets. I don’t want to crave the licks of fire that spark to life low in my belly. I don’t want its embers to travel along my nerve endings, showing me every place where we touch until my body revels in the brush of my thighs against his waist, the heat of his cock branding my skin, his thumb working me into an effortless frenzy.
It occurs to me that I may come from this, and the idea terrifies me, so I force myself to breathe with intention. I won’t give them the satisfaction, even if it denies me some slice of pleasure. My fingers dig into my thighs as I force myself not to move into his touch, but it’s too fucking good to ignore.
My eyes pop open when his fingers move from my clit to the entrance of my body, and he dips two fingers in to test my wetness. I bite back a groan at the sensation of his thick, wicked fingers stretching me. I haven’t been with anyone since… him, and this is a terrible moment to be reminded of how big he is and how much work it is to take him.
My cheeks blaze red, and there’s no way he doesn’t see, but he doesn’t taunt me. In fact, his light eyes darken somehow as he meets mine. His teeth bite down on his lower lip as his hand moves between my legs, thrusting in and out until he’s certain I’m wet enough that it won’t hurt.
Then his hands retreat, and he fists them in the sheets beside my waist.
“If I were a good man, I’d tell you to leave this room and run the fuck away from me,” he says through gritted teeth. It’s low enough that whoever is watching won’t be able to hear. “No decent person would put you through something like this. But you’ve known since the moment you met me that I’m not a decent person. I thought maybe I could keep you from the horrors of my life, protect you. The darkness in me was always going to stain you in some way. It should make me feel guilty.” His silver eyes flash in the half light, and a tenor of foreboding clamors inside me. “But I can’t deny the thought of claiming you in front of everyone has its appeal.”
“Aiden,” I protest, twisting underneath him. Wanting him to give me space so I can think straight. Wanting him to drive into me. Wanting to push him onto his back so I can sink down on him and show the bastards watching who really owns this man.
My hands go to his chest, and I try not to think about the way his muscles ripple underneath my palms, or the cold metal of his piercings as they rasp against my skin.
