“Anything else, but that. I am never bringing a child into this world so that it can be used like I was,” she says, with a razor sharp edge to her tone. She can go either way right now. Knee me in the balls or rear back and drive the fist she is forming at her side into my face. It’s going to be fun to find out which way she falls.
“Then here we are at the crossroads and the devil demands payment for the deal made.”
Eleven
Persia
The devil stands before me with my handprint blooming across his cheek and a smile that makes my blood run hot and cold at the same time.
“Then here we are at the crossroads and the devil demands payment for the deal made.”
His words hang in the air between us, heavy with implication and the kind of dark promise that should send me running. But there is nowhere to run. My back is pressed against solid oak, and Rafael Milano fills every inch of space between me and freedom.
I should be terrified. I should be screaming, fighting, doing anything other than standing here with my chest heaving and my pulse pounding in places that have no business responding to a man who just told me he wants to use me as a broodmare.
But my body has not received the memo that this man is dangerous.
“I already told you,” I manage through gritted teeth, “I will not bring a child into this world to be used. Find another form of payment. I thought my virginity would be good enough.”
Something shifts in his expression, a crack in the cold facade he has been wearing since he laid out his terms. “And if there is no other payment I want?”
Now he’s just taunting me to see how far I’ll go to deny him.
Game on.
“Then we are at an impasse, Devil. I was clear I only had one form of payment. Looks like you didn’t read the fine print even though it was written in red.”
He moves so fast I do not have time to react. One moment he is standing in front of me with that infuriating smile, and the next his hands are wrapped around my wrists and he is pinning them above my head against the door with one large palm. His other hand finds the column of my throat, not squeezing, just holding, his thumb pressed against the pulse that is hammering wildly beneath my skin.
His thigh pushes between mine, forcing my legs apart, and the pressure against my core sends a bolt of electricity straight through my center.
“Let me go.” I try to twist free, but his grip is iron and his body is a wall of muscle that does not budge no matter how hard I struggle.
“I swear to everything you hold dear, the second you release me I am going to kick you in the balls so hard you will never produce an heir with anyone.”
His chuckle is low and dark and rolls through me like thunder before a storm. “I expect nothing less from my little hellcat.”
The sound does something to my insides, loosens something that has been wound tight since the moment he told me what he wanted. I take a deep breath without meaning to, and I watch his eyes track the rise and fall of my chest with a hunger that makes my nipples tighten beneath the thin fabric of my tank top.
He notices. Of course he notices. This man notices everything.
“Agree to my terms,” he murmurs, leaning in close enough that I can feel the heat radiating from his skin. “Give me your word.”
“That I am going to kick you in the balls?” I spit back. “Done. Yes. I promise.”
Another chuckle, this one vibrating against my throat where his hand still rests. “Such fire. But that is not the promise I am after, and you know it.”
He turns his head and drags his stubble across the softness of my cheek, the rasp of it sending shivers cascading down my spine. The sensation is so unexpected, so intimate, that I gasp and my hips roll forward of their own accord, grinding against the thick muscle of his thigh.
The pressure against my clit is exquisite. I have touched myself before, in the dark of my bedroom at my father's house when the loneliness became too much to bear, but this is different. This is someone else’s body against mine, someone else’s heat and hardness and the intoxicating scent of cedar and smoke filling my lungs with every breath.
“Persia.” His voice is a command wrapped in the softest silk as his teeth find my earlobe and bite down gently. “Let me hear the words.”
I am trembling now, caught between fury and arousal and the desperate need to maintain some shred of dignity. “You want me to give you an heir for saving me from Magnus?”
“Sounds fair.” His lips trace down the side of my neck, leaving a trail of fire in their wake. “Given that would have been a lifetime of misery. I am offering you something better. A partnership. A place at my side. A life where no one will ever hurt you again.”
He has a point. God help me, he has a point.
