I clear my throat, mostly so I can breathe again, but also to let her know I’m here. She lets out a startled noise. Her hair flies as her head whips around.
“Steel!” she gasps, her voice all breathy.
She makes me feel as if a man like me, a man who hasn’t done much good in his life, a man who’s taken a life… she makes me feel like I am somehow worthy of her, even though we both know that I’m not.
I want to take her right here, shove her up against the cold, hard metal, plunge my dick into her sweet virgin cunt, split her in half, fuck up into her and spill my seed into her so deep that it takes forever to trickle down her gorgeous silk thighs.
Her tongue darts out to wet her lips, and fuck me, that tongue… that sweet tongue and her sweet pink lips. Iimagine her cunt is just as pretty, just as pink. I want to see it just as plump and swollen. I want to taste her. Everywhere. I want to plunge my tongue up into her and lick away her honeyed cream. I want to have my hands on her.
I want her to come to me, to lean into me, to crave the safety and protection of my arms around her slight body. I want to tuck her in against me, to breathe in her sweet scent and feel again how she fits just right. I have committed those few minutes from that night to memory, how she felt against my body.
I’ve clung to those memories until they’ve turned into something else. A fantasy of sorts, delusions of a man who thought he would never know any of it again.
I scrub a hand down my face, trying to erase the images behind my eyes. I swallow hard, my throat oddly closed up and parched. Leah seems to hesitate for a second, glancing behind her like she is trying to decide whether she should run to me or run away from me.
Because we both know this is it.
This is fucking it.
After tonight, everything changes.
Chapter Ten
Leah
“W-what are you doing up here?” I stammer when my tongue manages to unglue itself from the roof of my mouth. Shock keeps me frozen in place, even while wild heat curls through my belly.
The unexpected rush of finding Steel in my most private space turns my legs to jelly, and I have to slam my hand out to the cool metal to keep myself from sliding down to the hard surface below.
“Told you I’d be the one to find you.” He shrugs like this is his place too, even though I know it is not. No one climbs up to the tower. It’s tall. Really tall. And dangerous. People have been warned off of it. I remember as a kid getting lecture after lecture at school to stay away from it.
Surprisingly, for the most part, people actually listened.
Not Steel though. Never Steel. He does what he wants, and the town bows to his will. That’s one of the things about him that draws me in. He exudes power, but it’s not the power of money or bluster like my father has. It’s more that quiet power that makes people want to follow.
“How’d you know I’d be here?” I challenge.
He snorts. “That’s an easy one. You and me, darlin’, we were raised pretty much the same, minus all that money and privilege on your end. My parents never wanted me. I’m sure you’re suffering from the same neglect.”
I cross my arms just to ward off the way he is looking at me—not due to the sting of his words because he’s right, and after knowing it all my life, the pain of it has ceased to wear me down. No, that tremble at the base of my spine is only there because his eyes remind me so much of how they looked that first night we met up here. I always knew who he was. Everyone in Helena knows Steel, but I didn’t reallyknowhim until that night. The worst and best of my life.
“Yeah.” He nods hard but doesn’t blink. He keeps his eyes locked on me, and it does things to me. Creates a flurry of shivers and makes all my hair stand on end. Warms me strangely, even as it chills me to the bone. “That’s right, darlin’. I know what you’re thinking. That it’s fitting we’re here now, where it all began, because this is the real beginning. Of you giving me your all because I don’t just want your body. I wantallof you.”
My eyes grow even wider. But I can’t blink, I’m scared that if I do then none of this will be real. Like those dreams that I have of us together.
“You’ve fought this. You said you didn’t want me.”
“That’s true. I know what I said. Know what I really meant when I said it too. We’re gonna do this. You, me. I’ve kept away. You didn’t need someone like me in your life, but you’re the one who came after me. Remember that. You started all of this. This is a secret. Our secret. I’ll make you my queen in all ways one day, but not now. For now, you just get me. When I’m ready for it, that’s when you’ll stand with me. You think you can wait it out?”
I stare him down, hating his arched brow, hating the humor glinting in his eyes because he fucking loves being in control, and there isn’t anything I can do about it, because I wanthim so bad that it makes every single part of me ache straight down to my bones.
“Yeah,” I shoot back. “I’ve waited three years. All I ever wanted was a family. And you. But I wantallof you, Steel.” I parrot back his words to him and watch his harsh features change, growing darker. “You think you can give that to me, then we have a deal.”
“I don’t do deals.”
“That’s how it’s gonna work.”
Steel bunches his shoulders up. He doesn’t stand, but somehow, his size and strength take up the entire platform. His eyes burn into me, branding me, scalding me like they did that first night, creating invisible marks on me that will always bind me to him.
