His lips curved against hers. “No, baby. I won’t. Do you like that?”
“Yes,” she breathed.
“Such a good girl.” Silas stroked his hand down her throat, then down under the collar of the shirt she’d borrowed from him. He cupped her breast. Teasing her hardened nipple with his callused thumb, he asked, “Do you like it when I have the power? When I tell you no?”
Petra’s bare toes curled. “Yeah.”
“My powerful little goddess needs me,” he murmured, teasing her with the tip of his tongue and those gentle touches. “You need me to make you feel small and safe. You need me to tell you what to do. You need me to make you come.”
None of those things were questions, so she didn’t bother denying it. He knew it was true no matter what she might have said. Still, she couldn’t help but poke at him just a little bit.
Slowly moving her head back and forth, stroking her mouth against his, she gave into the urge to tease him just a little. “I could make myself come.”But I prefer when you do it.
In an instant, his delicate touches to her nipple turned into a cruel pinch. Petra gasped, back arching, as a bolt of heat arrowed down her spine to settle between her thighs.
Silas’s soft croon didn’t change, but she felt the tension in his body and the corresponding tightening of the shadows around her throat when he replied, “You touch that pussy without my permission, little goddess, and I’ll introduce you to my belt.”
Good gods.Her heartbeat pounded between her thighs as she squirmed there at his feet. She’d never had any inclination toward letting a partner discipline her, but if it was Silas…
Her head filled with a pleasant sort of static and her spine lost its tension as she leaned into him. It wasn’t the idea of punishment that made her go soft and wet, but the understanding that Silas had the power to do it if he wanted to. He could take whatever he wanted. Give whatever he wanted.
But he wouldn’t hurt her. At least, not in any way she wouldn’t end up liking.
Her trust in him was, much to her astonishment, complete.
“Do you like the sound of that, baby?” Silas sucked in a deep, deep breath. When he released it, that rumble in his chest turned into a purr. “Yeah, you do. You’re dripping for me right now. What a perfect mate I have.”
Her heart skipped a beat. It was one thing to know she was his mate, but to hear him say it aloud with so much desire in his voice was quite another. Reaching up to feather her fingertips over his curls, she whispered, “Is this how it’s going to be with us?”
“Do you want it to be?”
Petra’s instinct was to say yes immediately, but she stopped herself. This thing,them,deserved more thought than that.
Slowly, she asked her own question, “If I didn’t, could you live with that?”
Would you still want me?
The hand on her breast moved upward to cover the spot over her heart. “You know the day we made our deal? You were looking at me like you wanted to rip my head off with your bare hands and I thought,I don’t care if I never get to fuck her. She’s mine.”
He pulled back enough to look her in the eye when he continued, “I like dominating you. If I could shrink you down and lock you away inside of me, I’d do it. But if that’s not what you need, what’ll make you happy, then I don’t give a fuck. I’m not giving you up, so you better tell me how to do this right.”
“I don’t want you to humiliate me or anything like that,” she said, forcing the words out through a tight throat. It was weird to have to talk about these things, but freeing in its own way. “But the rest— I like it. It makes me feel…”Like I’m taken care of. Like I can relax for a second.“Steady. It makes me feel steady.”
As much as she wanted him to move his hands elsewhere, Silas returned to stroking her throat. The look in his eyes waswarm with approval. “I’d never humiliate you. You giving me this power is heady as fuck. You trusting me is a gift no one else has ever or will ever give me. I’m not going to blow that by pretending you’re not worth a thousand of me. So no degradation, no humiliation. Just control. I won’t give you an inch of space, baby, because that’s what you need.”
Petra searched his expression. “And what about your rut?”
The muscles around his jaw tensed. He took a second to breathe before he answered, “The only reason I’m holding off is because you need to recover. If it weren’t for you almost dying, I’d have my cock in you right now.”
“I’m pretty sure I can handle sex.” And gods, shewantedto. Not only because it was what her body craved, but because she desperately wanted to ignore reality and everything in the horrible red trunks for a little while longer.
Silas gave her a narrow-eyed look. “I said no. Not because I’m some fuckin’ saint, but because it’s not just sex. The rut lasts weeks and is brutal even when it’s normal. This one won’t be normal.”
“Why?”
“Because you’re my mate,” he answered, as if she could have forgotten, “and all my instincts are telling me to spread you out, fill you up, and breed you so nothing and no one will ever take you away from me. I’m gonna stake my claim, baby.”
Petra’s brain briefly fizzled out at the thought of children. Talk of breeding was all fun and games when she didn’t have a future, but now everything was different. The high of knowing she might actually be able to do that was immediately followed by a crash and a thousand questions. Now she was a murderer, she had no idea what kind of father Silas would be, and she wasn’t even certain what her next few days looked like, let aloneyears.
