"Yes. It was all of those things. So why did you do it?"
"I don't know."
"Liar."
The word hangs between us, sharp and accusing. "You know exactly why you did it," he says, his voice taking on a low, husky note that makes heat slide over my skin. It sounds like he did last night, before he… before we…
"You did it because you wanted to. Because despite everything you know about me—despite the fact that I'm exactly the monster you think I am—you still want me."
I shake my head quickly. "No."
"Yes." He takes one more step forward, closing the distance between us again, and he touches his fingers to my throat. He doesn’t wrap them around my neck or squeeze, but I can feel that with one movement, he could. "And that terrifies you. Not what I am. Not what I've done. But what it means about you that you want me anyway."
My heart is pounding. I want to pull away, and I don’t. I feel my thighs press together, the heat of his touch burning into me like a brand. Everything we did last night comes rushing back, and I want more of it. I want to feel that good again. It was… I can’t even describe what it was, but it was nothing I knew existed before.
Why does it have to be him?
"If you wanted me gone," I hear myself say, "you wouldn't have fucked me."
It’s a challenge… a desperate attempt to regain some control over this conversation. And he knows it. I can see it in his eyes as they gleam, a smirk curling his mouth.
He laughs. The sound is cruel and mocking. "I fuck women I want gone all the time, Liesl. It doesn't mean anything."
Jealousy burns through me in a hot flash, and it’s so completely irrational that I hate myself even more for it. I have no right to be jealous. No claim on him. No reason to care who else he's been with or what they meant to him. I shouldn’t care if he’s ever fucked a woman without a condom before or if he growledminein their ear, if he told them how pretty they looked impaled on his cock. How good they were for taking it all.
I shouldn’t feel sick thinking about it. But I feel it anyway. And he sees it.
His smile widens, predatory and satisfied. "There it is."
"Fuck you."
"You already did." He's enjoying this. Enjoying my discomfort, my jealousy, my inability to hide what I'm feeling. "And you're going to do it again. Because despite everything you know about me—despite your moral outrage and your self-righteous anger—you can't help yourself."
"You don't know what I want,” I hiss, my stomach twisting as I try to pull back from his hand. It tightens on my neck, holding me in place, and it takes everything in me not to whimper.
"Don't I?" His thumb strokes along my jaw, the touch almost tender. "You have no idea what I want from you, Liesl. No idea what I think about when I'm alone. What I imagine doing to you."
My breath catches. His smile is dark and dangerous, full of promises and threats in equal measure.
"I want you on your knees.” His voice goes rough as his thumb slides from my jaw to below my lower lip, tracing it. "I want my hand in your hair and my cock in your mouth. I want to watch you take me. Want to feel you struggle with the size of me. Want to see tears in your eyes as you try to take me deeper."
Heat floods through me, pooling low in my belly. I should be disgusted. Should be horrified by the crudeness of what he's describing.
Instead I'm wet. And I’m already imagining exactly what he's talking about.
"I want to feel my piercings against your tongue," he continues, as his hand tightens slightly on my throat. "I want to hear the sounds you make when you realize how good it is. How much you like it."
"Stop." The word comes out breathless.
"You've thought about it." It's not a question. "You've wondered what it would feel like. What I would taste like. How it would be different with the piercing. You laid in bed last night trying not to imagine my cock in your mouth, and how it would feel compared to anyone else you’ve been with. The sex was like nothing else you’ve had, so what else would be?"
God, he’s so fucking arrogant. I glare at him, but he doesn’t stop. His fingers stroke the column of my throat, his thumb shifting to drag down the center of it, as if he’s imagining his cock there.
"A good man wouldn't want this," he murmurs, and there's something almost mocking in his tone. "A good man wouldn't look at his captive and imagine her on her knees. Wouldn't think about using her mouth. Wouldn't want to see her debased and desperate and begging for more."
His hand moves from my throat to my hair, fingers tangling in the strands.
"But we've established I'm not a good man, haven't we?" He pulls, not hard enough to hurt but firm enough to guide. "We've established exactly what I am."
