“Then I show you.” My mouth hovers over hers. “Your choice.”
The silence stretches for five heartbeats. Then she lifts her chin, her eyes meeting mine with something that looks like defiance wrapped around surrender.
“Prove it.”
That’s enough.
I strip the robe off her in one clean motion and step back. She’s all curves and soft skin, breasts fuller than I’d guessed, hips that flare in a way that makes my hands itch. But what stops me cold is the evidence written across her body. Her nipples are so hard they look painful, dark and tight. And when my eyes travel lower, I see the slick sheen on her inner thighs.
She tries to cover herself—hands flying to her breasts, to the apex of her thighs—but I catch her wrists. “No.” I hold them at her sides, my gaze traveling over every inch of her. I walk her backward toward the bed. When the back of her knees hit the mattress, she sits down hard, looking up at me with wide, dark eyes.
I release her wrists to cup her face, tilting it up so she can’t look away. My other hand slides down her throat, over thefrantic pulse, between her breasts, across her stomach to rest just above the wet curls between her legs.
“Could I have you without paying for it?” I ask. “Answer me.”
She tries to hold out. “No.”
My hand slides lower. The moment my fingers touch her, she gasps. She’s already slick. So wet my fingers slide through her folds with no resistance. When I circle her clit, her hips tilt up into my touch.
“Stop—” The word comes out as a moan.
“No.” I increase the pressure, adding a finger inside her. She nearly comes off the bed. I work her with ruthless efficiency. Her hips rock up to meet my hand, inner walls clenching around my finger.
The orgasm builds fast. I feel it in the way she’s clenching, see it in the way her body goes taut. I curl my fingers, hitting that spot inside her while my thumb circles her clit. She shatters on a cry she can’t swallow back, her body arching off the bed.
I don’t move., my hand still resting between her thighs. Her breathing is ragged, her body trembling with aftershocks. When her eyes flutter open, they’re dazed.
I lean in close, my voice a whisper against her ear. “Could I have you without paying?”
The fight slips. When she finally answers, the truth comes out in a sob. “Yes. Yes, okay? Yes.”
“Say it properly.”
“You could have me without paying.” The words tear out of her, raw and honest. “You could have had me from the moment you walked into that club.”
I pull my hand away. The sudden absence of contact makes her flinch.
She’s trembling, pulling the corner of a sheet over her lap with a jerky, uncoordinated motion. Her gaze is fixed on the wall, refusing to meet mine, but her jaw is set. The words came easy.The rest didn’t. The words are what I wanted. The proof. But her eyes—those aren’t broken. It’s banked. Waiting.
I stand. Turn my back on her. I walk to the door without a word.
The latch clicks behind me, loud in the quiet I leave her in.
Chapter four
Jana
The sheets are too soft. That's the first thing I register when the door shuts behind him. The silk against my thighs, my stomach, my bare skin—it should feel luxurious. Instead it feels like an accusation. Every thread a reminder of what just happened. What he did to me. What hedidn'tfinish.
I lie still for a long moment, listening. My body hasn't gotten the message that he's gone.
My pulse still hammers at the base of my throat—a hard, insistent beat that I feel in my temples, behind my sternum, low in my belly. My core still clenches around nothing, that hollow, throbbing ache refusing to quiet no matter how many slow breaths I drag in. I shift against the sheets and immediately regret it. The silk drags across sensitized skin and I go rigid, jaw tight, a sharp exhale escaping through my nose.
Stop.
I press my thighs together. The pressure is a mistake—a small, electric reminder of exactly how thoroughly he took me apart without finishing what he started. My fingers curl into the pillow beside my head and I force myself to breathe through it. In. Out.The ache doesn't recede. It sits low and breathing, a pulse of its own, and I hate it. I hate that it won't cooperate. I hate that my body is stillwaiting, and ready, still expecting something that isn't coming.
He left me like this on purpose.
