His tongue darts out to lick his lips while his heavy gaze dips over my body. I manage not to shudder under the sensual perusal, knowing my nipples are hard and visible. He finally makes eye contact with me.
“I just woke up to the sound of my name and thought you might need a little help.”
If I thought I was embarrassed before, I’m now so deeply mortified that my mouth dries up and words won’t come to me. I exhale, turning away from him and closing my eyes.
I count to ten in my head before speaking. “What did you just do? Is this a part of your game?”
“What amIdoing? You were the one touching yourself in bed with me, Cupcake.”
I flip back around to face him, embarrassment being replaced with annoyance. “I thought I was sleeping alone, okay? This ismybed,mystudio, thatyouinvaded without an invitation! I wasn’t even fully awake until you pulled my hair back and—” I cut myself off when his eyes darken and he shifts his weight, looking away shamefully.
Holy shit…
“Pulled your hair back and what?”
I swallow, unable to answer him.
A devilish grin cuts across his face. “All I did was pull your hair and look at your face, Cupcake, and you shattered beside me.”
My limbs are shaking. I can’t look away from him now. Arousal is pooling in my already-sticky shorts—again. He can clearly see that my nipples are begging to be touched by him, and he knows it.
He’s winning his stupid little game because he makes up therules as he goes, and I have no choice but to blindly follow along.
I grit my teeth, rolling onto my side and rising up on all fours. I stalk toward him. His expression morphs from evil-overlord victory to frozen shock. I crawl to him, my long hair cascading in waves over his thighs when I reach them.
I extend a hand forward to peel back the comforter, hoping he can’t see my pulse jumping in my neck. His chest rises and falls steadily, but he doesn’t move otherwise. His eyes are trained on my lips.
“What’s under here? I want a little peek.” I’m possessed by a spirit of bravery devoid of embarrassment as I pull the covers back to reveal the erection tenting his shorts. It’s my turn to flash a victor’s smile when I see the spot of wetness clearly seeping through the pale gray fabric.
“Are you telling me that all it took for you to come in your pants was pulling my hair and watching me touch myself?” My voice drips with satire and satisfaction.
One second, I’m poised over him on all fours, hair brushing the tops of his thighs, just below his erection, and in the next moment, he lunges for me, grabbing my wrists in an iron grip to push me back and pin me to the bed. The oxygen swooshes out of me in a gasp. He’s in full control now, of my heart rate and my body. He has my attention.
His erection presses into my hip as he leans down to whisper in my ear. His warm breath heats the side of my neck, making me squirm against him. It’s no use; he could pin me down here for as long as he wanted to. He’s all muscle, heat, and I’m so fucking turned on that it’s making me ache despite the orgasm I had five minutes ago.
“It could take a lot less, Cupcake. I could come right now just from the look of lust in your green eyes on me. I could come from just knowing your naked body was in the showerright before mine, wet and perfect. I could come from just looking at your tan lines in a picture of you that was meant for another man.”
My thighs would be shaking if they weren’t pinned underneath him. He’s fulfilling every fantasy I’ve ever had that I was too embarrassed to even allow myself to wish for.
He could come at the thought of my naked body …
He’s just saying these things to fuck with me.
But still … his shorts are stained with the evidence.
I don’t trust him. I never have. He’s screwed with my head before. He spent the last two years of high school trying to make my life miserable. He’s spent the last month doing the exact same thing, coming back here like a tyrant, just to cause a stressful home renovation to be even more difficult.
“Get off of me,” I beg.
I can’t take it.He’sway too much. I just had my first birthday without my mother. I’m going through a breakup, and I moved to this island on a whim. Battling my unwelcome romantic feelings for the stepbrother who bullied me isn’t something I feel like adding to the pile of trauma.
He inhales deeply, breathing me in, before he pulls back away from me and stands beside the bed. I roll over, escaping to the safety of the bathroom without looking at him again. Unexpected tears prick the corners of my eyes once I’m safely inside with the door locked.
How is it that the first time I’ve ever felt desired and more than that—trulyseenby a man—it’s with thisasshole?
When I finish showering and open the door, the room smells like cinnamon. I’m wearing a short forest-green cotton dress with palm tree leaf patterns printed on it. I look around the studio, rubbing my hands over my arms to ward off the chill from the mini-split AC system mounted to the wall, apparently running at sixty-seven degrees. There are no hallways or other rooms in the studio, so Dayton’s absence is clear.
Maybe he left.
