I take a step back. “I’m not joking. You do that again, even think of it, and I’ll have you arrested.” Yet the orgasm had been spectacular. The best. Ever. For sure.
He stands there just in boxers, his ripped and cut body proudly bearing scars. So many. His thick black hair has fallen over his forehead, and the angles in his face are sharper than any blade. His aroused and apparently huge cock is obvious in the boxers. “You liked it. I heard you scream.”
“Did not.” I lie.
His arm snakes out to tumble us back onto the bed, and he grips my chin with his thumb and forefinger as he partially covers me with his big body. “Say you liked it.”
I blink and parts of me quiver. Yeah. Those parts. “No.” I stare up at his burning black eyes. How am I back under him on the bed? Why hadn’t I run to the damn bathroom?
“Say it.”
My throat dries up. “No.” My voice wobbles a little and softens as my heart rate kicks into a higher gear. Even my skin feels sensitized. I need to get away from him.
His gaze doesn’t soften. Not a bit. “I’m not that guy, Peaflower.”
I try and fail to swallow, trapped in place. “Wh-what guy?”
“The one who’ll see your vulnerability and protect it.” His finger scrapes roughly across my lips, and somehow, those black eyes darken even more. Deepen. “Give me an inch, and I’ll swallow all of you.” His voice is guttural. “Now say it.”
Feminine instinct slides through me. “Fine. I liked it.” When he doesn’t even twitch, I sigh. “A little. Not a lot. Now get off me before I scream.”
He ducks his head and scrapes his whiskers on my delicate cheek. “You’ll be screaming soon enough. My name, that is.” With one smooth motion, he releases me and rolls off the bed, landing gracefully on his feet. “Baby, I’m going to fuck you hard next time, and you’ll feel me forever. I gave you the truth in the shitty prison, and you made your choice. Now you’re mine, Rosalie. In every way that I want you.”
My lungs stutter. The muscles across his bare back, covered in scars, shift easily as he prowls to reach for his shirt tossed carelessly over my pink velvet chair next to a bag showing the top of a sketchpad? “You bought a sketchpad?”
He squares his shoulders. “Yep. I like to draw.”
That’s intriguing. Shouldn’t be but is.
Shaking myself out of it, I roll to the side and flee to my bathroom, shutting the door and locking it. Only when I lean back against the worn wood, my heart thundering, do I hear his soft chuckle from the other room.
The low tenor sounds sadistic.
TEN
Alexei
The fact that she thinks a locked door will keep her safe from me is adorable. Last night, I barely slept, unaccustomed to actual silence and a soft bed. Silence doesn’t exist in prison. On the rare nights when nobody talked to themselves or yelled in maniacal fits, snores and sleepy grunts still filled the air. I’m used to remaining alert at all times and, apparently, it’s going to take time to dream again.
Yet sleeping with a snuggling woman in my arms provided a peace I haven’t experienced in way too long. Or perhaps, it’s just my woman. I don’t remember ever feeling peace like this.
For now, I choose not to examine why I didn’t push things with her the night before. I could have. Shit, it’s been years since I fucked a woman. But touching her this morning was all about her pleasure.
So much so that she tempts me to be somebody else. Not a killer. It can’t happen, and I need to get myself under control before I draw her further into my world. We both need that control.
Last night I proved to both of us that I have it.
I dress in the cheap jeans and leave Rosalie’s as quietly as I arrived, climbing down the exterior stairs and avoiding a prickly rosebush at the bottom. Once I retake my organization, I’ll need to buy a couple of high-end suits like I used to wear. I even tried one on when buying the jeans. It felt wrong and not just because I lacked the funds to buy it. As if I was a panther trying on a deer skin. Now, in the jeans I bought, I still don’t feel like myself. I do know that I’ll never wear orange again.
Fuck. I don’t know what or who I am or how I should feel. At the moment, the only connection I have with this world, on the outside, is Rosalie. Her scent fills my head, and the sounds of her moans are carried in my chest. Deep. She’ll never make that sound for another man. While she remains unaware of that fact, it’s absolute. She’s my mirror image and doesn’t know it. I was wild and had to learn control in prison, and she’s way too controlled and needs to embrace her wild side.
I’m going to insist on it.
On the outside, taking back my birthright, I plan to create the very life I should’ve claimed when I was young and stupid. Carelessly unaware of the dangers around me. But this time, I know what woman I will have beneath me every night. My time with bar girls or bored older women is over.
I know what I want. Who I want.
And I will have her.
