“Indeed, I do,” he whispers, “which would make fucking you even more fun. Because I wouldn’t care about what I was doing. If I was too rough, fucking you too hard, digging my fingers into your flesh too deep and bruising you. Or making you bleed too much.”
My breath snags as my knees threaten to give out. “You’re crazy.”
“Perhaps. But you are too. Which makes a part of me believe that you’d love every fucked-up second of me ruining you.” His hand reaches the very bottom of my stomach, fingertips so close to grazing my pussy.
My hand comes up to his chest to push him away, but the racing speed of his heart beneath my palm stalls me.
“I couldn’t love anything to do with you,” I say with zero conviction.
Caden’s eyes glimmer. His breath hot on my face, heartbeat thundering against my hand. It’s too hot, there’s no air in here. No air between us, no air in the entire world.
“I should lay you on one of these tables and prove just how much you’d love it. How much you fucking want me. Make your eyes roll and your toes curl, and I could put money on having tocover your mouth to stop your screams of pleasure reaching the entire restaurant. I should prove just how wrong you are.”
My entire body catches fire. So hot I feel my skin melting into him as he dips his face and his lips brush against my neck.
“You wouldn’t. You can’t come.”
He lifts his head again, relieving me of the tickle of his mouth against my throat that was making the ache between my legs so much worse. “I don’t have to come to prove that point. It would only take a few seconds to have you crumbling beneath me.”
I wobble and he pushes his body against mine to hold me up. “See? You’re practically falling apart just at the mere image of it.”
“Falling apart with disgust,” I whisper, voice trembling, bones shaking.
A complacent laugh heats my face. I’m sure he’ll see steam rising from my head soon if he doesn’t back up. It’s like he’s thrown me into a furnace. I have no idea why my body’s reacting to him this way.
“I’m not sure about that,” he whispers back, taunting and spine-tingling. “I know you disgust me, but it sure would be a spectacle to watch you quiver and cry from what I’d do to you.”
“You’re not as repulsed by me as you like to make out, either, Caden,” I say, feeling a boldness blossom in my chest. I reach between us and find exactly what I’m expecting.
He stiffens, eyes growing wide as I brush my fingers across his rock-hard erection.
His tongue pokes into his cheek, debating his next move.
It’s not something I’m prepared for.
His hand glides up beneath the hem of my skirt. “You want to play Chicken, Elodie? I’m telling you, you’ll tap out first.”
His fingers trail across to the inside of my thigh, all the way up. I squeeze my legs together. “Stop.”
He chuckles against my cheek. Then he shoves a knee between my thighs and wrenches one to the side, spreading me. “No.”
Before I can do anything about it, before I can thaw from this frozen state and shove him away, his fingers dip beneath my underwear.
The touch feels like an electric shock from my core to my brain.
I yelp and shove him away, snapped from my hypnosis.
He falls away, grinning. He lifts his fingers up. “Would you look at that glisten?” His lips part once more, and he pokes his two wet fingertips into his mouth and sucks. “Hmm,” he growls menacingly, “that’s the sweet taste of your betrayal, Elodie. Hate me all you want. Your pussy certainly doesn’t. Poor thing’s crying for me right now.”
“Fuck you!” I spit, once again repulsed by this bastard, all previous ambivalence obliterated. “I’ll never sleep with you.”
“It’s a good thing I’ll never want to, then.” He lowers his hand, shoves it in his pocket, a glazed look in his eyes. He’s as breathless as I am.
I throw a haphazard gesture at his crotch. “Seems like you want to dosomething.”
His upper lip curls slightly. “It’ll never happen, Elodie. Just the sight of you makes me sick.”
I swallow hard, wanting to wipe the sweat off my upper lip. “Yeah, well, ditto, Caden. I’ll go the rest of my life without sex and be the happiest girl alive, knowing my only other option would be you. It’s a no brainer.”
