“See?” I murmur against his lips. “I told you. You can’t resist me.”
And the best part? He doesn’t even try.
3
Alaric
Glass and fluorescents and the cold press of the arena hum around us, but none of it reaches me. All I can feel is the hard plane of the conference table beneath me and Magnus over me, grin raw and predatory, like he’s been tracking me every second since the puck slipped.
He pushes me back until the papers scatter—strategies and sponsorship sheets flutter like broken leaves. They fall across my chest, a ridiculous, impotent shroud for the man who’s climbing on top of me. For a second, I care about the paper; then his weight settles and everything else becomes noise.
“You don’t get to walk away this time,” he says, voice low, dangerous. His hands are at my shoulders, then sliding under my shirt. The touch is rough, immediate. There’s no gentle testing here, no tentative asking. There’s only deliberate possession.
My first instinct is to shove, to break him off with the same force I used earlier. I push, hard enough to surprise him, and his laugh is a deep sound that vibrates through my bones. Hecatches me before I can push him off, though; his one-handed grip on my wrists is iron. When he pins my hands down to the table it is not cruel—yet—but it is absolute. He is saying, without words, that he owns this moment.
“Stop,” I tell him, voice thin. I mean it. This is a mistake. I am a mistake. My mouth tastes of him and adrenaline and something ugly, and all I can think of is my father’s voice—Hales don’t make scenes—chiseling around my ribs.
Magnus leans in, his breath warm on my ear. “Do you really want to say that?” he murmurs. “After the way you kissed me? After you shoved me and made me moan like a whore?” The insult is meant to bruise; instead it lights some part of me on fire I don’t want anyone to see.
I thrum with fury and a darker hunger. I clamp my jaw, trying to shape a refusal that will feel like a victory. Instead my body answers him. It always does in ways my mind refuses to name.
He drags his mouth along my neck, slow, punctuating his words with pressure against my skin. The contact is shameless, like a claim made in ink that will not wash out. He moves with a confidence that says he’s given this plan thought—how to unmake me, how to make me confess with my body what I won’t with my mouth.
“Say it,” he demands, quiet but absolute. “Say that you want me.”
I can’t. I won’t. My arms strain beneath his hold; threads of outrage coil in my chest. But the desperation underneath that anger is a greedy thing. My awareness fragments into two jagged halves: the part of me that must be composed, respectable, untouchable—my father’s son—and the part that wants to tear all that away.
“Not here,” I snap, but the sound is soft and helpless even to my own ears.
His grin widens. “Exactly.” He takes his time then, intentionally, like he’s carving a memory into me. There’s no hurry—only the slow, cruel patience of a man who knows he can keep pulling me toward the edge.
When his hand moves to my thigh, I press my knees together instinctively. He laughs again, low and pleased. His fingers press lower, right at the place that betrays me. I shove him, yanking loose, and he stumbles back for a heartbeat. He doesn’t fall. He never falls. He just watches me with an expression so pure and rewarded that it makes bile rise.
I snarl and shove him again, this time out of habit, out of a primitive need to hurt, to reassert whatever control I still have. My hand finds his collar and claws at it. For a moment we wrestle, bodies up close and frantic, and there’s a heat to his skin that I hate and crave in the same breath. We tumble to the floor, the chairs crashing around us.
Then he pins me—this time with a force that’s brutal, and he drags me until my shoulders scrape the polished wood. He perches himself astride my thighs, higher than I expected, setting his weight with the kind of certainty that makes the room tilt. His hands trap mine above my head; the act is humiliating and oddly safe, like surrender disguised as punishment.
“Listen,” he says, voice rough. “Tonight’s not a thing you walk away from. Not after you flinched when I whispered. Not after you shoved me like a coward.”
“Fuckyou,” I spit. My voice barks with fury that overlays something slick and ashamed. I try to make the anger a shield.
He leans down and kisses me, not tenderly, but with a driving insistence that steals my breath.
Tongue, teeth, pressure—he takes no prisoners. He is precise, mapping the softness of my mouth like territory. The kiss is a question and an answer and a verdict. My resistance dissolves—because it always does, and that fact is the part Ipunish myself for later. I rub my cock against his thighs, my hips shamlessly grinding into him.
When he pulls back, his grin is triumphant. “You taste like a liar,” he says, and I want to throw the table at him and beg him at the same time.
Then he moves in a way that makes my stomach drop. He sets a hand at the base of my neck, fingers splayed, and leans down so his chest presses against mine. His other hand finds the edge of my shorts with a confidence that leaves no room for ambiguity. His hand works with a slow, deliberate patience, not immediately granting release but leading, teasing, testing. He is performing the cruelty with an artist’s hand.
I gasp at the sudden intrusion, but I don’t push him away like last time. No, his hand feels too good wrapped around me. His thumb wipes a bead of precum down my shaft, making my cock twitch.
“Flint—stop.” I groan, but I’m panting like a dog in heat. “I’m gonna?—”
“Not yet,” he whispers, and there is no question in his tone. “You don’t get to come until I say you can.”
The denial is sharp and hot and unfair. It folds the air out of me. A ridiculous, furious laugh escapes me, half-plea and half-curse. He’s going to make me wait. The thought lashes me to the bone with humiliation and a bloom of want that makes my vision spotty.
I claw at his shoulder. “You’re—” My sentence dies, dissolving into an angry, aching sound. He smiles into my hair as if he’s won something intimate and private.
