“Please what?”
She shook her head.Didn’t answer.Her guard was down but the stubbornness remained.She wouldn’t beg.Not yet.
But she would.Eventually, she would.
My hand slid down her stomach.Stopped just above the curls between her thighs.Close.So close.I could feel the warmth emanating from her core.Could smell how wet she was for me.
“I could touch you here.”I let my fingers trace the crease where thigh met hip.“I could slide my fingers into your cunt and feel how wet you are for me.I could make you come so hard you’d forget your own name.”
Her breath caught.Her hips tilted toward my hand.
“But not tonight.”
I pulled my hand away.Sat back.Watched the frustration bloom across her face.
“Why?”The word came out strangled.
“Because I want you to remember this.”I stood.Looked down at her sprawled on my bed, dress open, body flushed with unsatisfied need.The image would stay with me for days.Weeks.“Tomorrow night, you’ll think about this.You’ll lie in your bed and remember the way my mouth felt on your breasts.The way my hands felt on your skin.The way you wanted more and I didn’t give it to you.”
She pushed herself up on her elbows.Her eyes were bright with anger now, cutting through the haze of desire.
“You’re a bastard.”
“Yes.”I smiled.“I am.”
I crossed to my closet and pulled out one of my robes.Charcoal silk, heavy and expensive.I tossed it onto the bed beside her.
“Put that on.I’ll have Alice escort you to your room.”
She stared at the robe, then at me.“I have a dress.”
“Your dress stays here.”I kept my voice flat.Final.“You’ll walk through my house in my clothes.Sleep in my clothes.Wake up smelling like me.”
Her jaw tightened, but she was smart enough to recognize a battle she couldn’t win.She sat up fully, pulled the robe around her shoulders with shaking hands, and belted it tight.When she looked at me, there was something new in her expression.Not fear.Not composure.Something hotter.More dangerous.
“This isn’t going to work.”Her voice was quiet but steady.“Whatever game you’re playing.You can’t break me.”
“We’ll see.”
She left without another word.I heard her footsteps in the hallway, quick and angry.Then Alice’s murmured greeting.Then the sound of doors opening and closing as she was led to her quarters in the east wing.
I stood at the window.Watched my own reflection in the dark glass.My face was composed.Calm.The mask firmly in place.
Inside, the wolf was raging.
Why did you send her away?She was ours.She was ready.She wanted us.
She had wanted me.That was true.Her body had responded to my touch in ways that made my cock ache with need.I could have had her tonight.Could have spread her thighs and buried myself inside her and claimed what the contract entitled me to.
But something had stopped me.Something I didn’t want to examine too closely.
The piano.The way she’d played my mother’s favorite piece with her eyes closed and her soul wide open.The way she’d looked at me afterward with those knowing eyes and asked about my mother, as if she’d somehow seen straight through me.
You’re just lonely.
I pressed my palm against the cold glass.Let the chill seep into my skin, anchoring me in the present.
She was getting under my defenses.Finding cracks I hadn’t known existed.And the worst part, the part that made me want to howl with frustration, was that the wolf wasn’t fighting her anymore.
