"Vera." A command now. "Answer me."
"Just a book." My voice comes out smaller than I'd like.
Footsteps cross the hardwood floor. He stops beside my chair, and I can feel him looming over me. Waiting.
Finally, I risk a glance up. He's dressed casually in dark jeans, white shirt rolled to his elbows. The tattoos on his forearms are even more visible like this, dark ink twisting up toward his biceps. The wolf on his throat seems to be watching me.
"Let me see it."
I clutch the book to my chest instinctively. His eyes narrow.
"Vera. Give me the book."
And because some broken part of me can't help but obey when he uses that tone, I hand it over.
He takes it, turning it to read the cover. Then his eyebrows rise. A slow, dangerous smile spreads across his face.
Oh no.
"Interesting choice," he says, voice dripping with dark amusement. He reads the back cover aloud: "He took her against her will. Made her his. Bred her." His eyes lock onto mine. "Sound familiar?"
Heat floods my face. Of all the books I could have grabbed blindly—of course it's this one. Dark romance. Captive heroine. Obsessive, possessive hero who claims her body and soul.
"It was random," I mumble. "I didn't know what it was."
"Liar." He sits on the arm of my chair, too close, invading my space. "You knew exactly what it was. That's why you're blushing like that. That's why you can't look at me."
"I'm not."
"You are." He flips through the pages, scanning. Then stops. "Here we go. Chapter seven." His voice drops lower, becomes that dark honey that does things to my insides. "Let me read you something."
"Don't!"
But he's already reading, voice low and intimate: "He pinned her down and took what was his. She fought even as her body betrayed her, arching into his touch, begging for more. His mouth on her throat, his hands everywhere, owning her. 'Mine,' he growled. 'Say it.' And she did. Because her body knew the truth even if her mind wouldn't accept it."
I'm frozen, heat pooling between my thighs at the sound of his voice forming those words. At the parallel to my own situation. At how much I want to hear him keep reading.
"Is this what you fantasize about?" he asks, closing the book but not setting it down. "Being taken? Owned? Used?"
"No."
"Liar." He sets the book aside and reaches for me, pulling me up from the chair. Before I can protest, he sits down and pulls me onto his lap—not straddling this time, but sideways, my legs draped over one of his thighs. More intimate somehow. More vulnerable.
"This is what's going to happen tomorrow night," he says, one arm banding around my waist to keep me in place. "You. In my lap. Except you'll be naked and I'll be buried inside you."
"Let me go."
"No." His free hand settles on my knee, warm and possessive. "You had your escape time. Now you face what's coming. What you want whether you'll admit it or not."
His hand slides slowly up my thigh, over my leggings. Not rushed. Deliberate. Claiming every inch.
"Stop."
"Why? Because it makes you wet?" His hand reaches the apex of my thighs, cupping me through the thin fabric. I gasp at the contact. "You are. I can feel it even through these."
He's right. I am. My body is a traitor, responding to his voice, his words, his touch.
"I've been thinking about this," he murmurs against my ear, fingers pressing more firmly. "About touching you. Learning what makes you gasp. What makes you beg."
