I reach around and grab her ass, feeling the soft, warm, supple globes and running my hands over them. Desire spreads through me like wildfire.
She glares, her eyes twin slits of hate. “I didn’t say you could touch me.”
I suck her top lip between mine. “You didn’t say I couldn’t.”
“Don’t fucking touch me.”
But she’s not pushing me away. She’s standing here when Iget the impression that if she wanted to, she could easily beat the shit out of me. Or at least try to.
“Did I hurt you earlier?” I ask, moving to her neck and kissing the soft, sweet skin.
She pushes against me, but it’s not much. Barely a shove. “Don’t you dare do that. I’m not some fairy tale damsel in need of saving.”
“No?” I draw back and meet her gaze. “Then who are you? I’d love to know.”
She’s naked before me except for her towel, which is hardly covering anything. Her chest is heaving as mine is, the minuscule space between us charged. Maybe this moment was a foregone conclusion. Me coming down here. Us standing like this.
I don’t know what to make of any of it. I don’t know what to make ofher.
I should walk out of here and tell Gabe, my security detail, Javier, and Sebastian what I found in her room and have her arrested. But I don’t. There’s a vulnerability to her, same as there was the night at the chalet. It’s as if she’s actually one thing while being forced to be something else. The demand to tease and extract every secret she’s keeping from me is pervasive.
I cup her face in my hand, my thumb dragging along her cheek. The way she’s looking at me right now is meant to sear flesh from bone, but she’s not fighting me anymore. She’s not pushing me away. And there’s that something beneath her steely gaze. That unmistakable softness she covers with pithy retorts and sharp sarcasm.
She’s not going to tell me. I know that.
Past all her determined hatred and forced fervor is a woman who’s scared. I’ve seen this look on Bellamy before, and I see it in Marcella now. She’s strong. No doubt about that. You don’t get those kinds of marks on your back and still fight if you’renot tough. But never in my life has the need to protect someone and keep them safe been more pervasive.
With that, she’s even more dangerous to me than she was moments ago.
But looking at her right now, feeling her body, the slight tremble she’s trying to hide…
My lips sear down on hers in a kiss there is no coming back from. It happens the way lightning strikes—sudden, electric, and deadly. Every particle I’m composed of is tethered to her. It has been for months. Since that first giggle I heard. Since that first smile and dance and kiss. Since she gave me her first and made me hers.
A groan mixed with a growl climbs up my throat, and I squeeze her ass, lifting her with one hand and forcing her legs around me. I push her into the door, using it for leverage as I tilt her face with my other hand and take her from another angle.
“We can’t do this again.”
My lips trail kisses down her neck. “But we are, and this time, I’m not coming on your ass. I’m coming deep inside of you.”
Her head falls back, giving me better access to her throat. “This is a mistake,” she presses, even as she grinds her pussy against my pants. I’ll have the smell of her cunt on them. With any luck, a wet spot from her, too. Fuck. My cock surges with blood. With the need to be back inside of her, this time with nothing between us.
Except the millions of lies we’re keeping from each other.
She won’t tell me who she is, who she’s working for, or what she’s after. I’m playing dumb and pretending that I didn’t find the earring or know that she’s Ella. Nothing good comes from this. Other than me fucking her brains out.
“Probably,” I agree. “Definitely. I don’t care. I will later, but right now, I don’t.”
Her hands go for my shirt, ripping at the seam and sending the buttons flying. Not exactly how I’ll want to walk back across the palace, but again, I don’t fucking care right now.
She shoves the fabric over my shoulders, where it snags at my elbows. I don’t want to put her down. She’ll run or we’ll lose this moment if my hands aren’t on hers, and I don’t have her pinned to something. Still, I set her on her feet, drinking in the lines of her body, her large tits and smooth creamy stomach and pink pussy. She could barely stand when I ate her the first time. Her innocence radiated from her that night, but now there is nothing innocent about my siren.
My shirt hits the floor, and I take her hands and bring them to the belt of my pants to do this for me because I want to touch her. I have to touch her.
“Second thoughts?” I question when her fingers falter.
“A thousand of them.” She pauses. Swallows. And hits me with those green eyes through her lashes. “I’m choosing to ignore them. For now.”
“Good.” My hands cup her tits, and I lift them to my mouth. I sink my teeth into her plump flesh, biting hard enough to mark her.
