Page 71 of Sins of Arrogance

We no longer hear his breath­ing like when he was a baby, but I’m not ready to give up mon­i­tor­ing him at night al­to­gether. Kara isn’t ei­ther.

If she were, she would have told me to turn off the sys­tem.

I carry her to the bed, but I don’t lay her down on it. In­stead, I re­lease her legs, let­ting her feet drop to the floor. She doesn’t lean into me, but she doesn’t try to move away ei­ther.

Her hazel eyes are filled with a pained vul­ner­a­bil­ity I can­not stand to see.

Cup­ping her cheek, I slide my thumb over her lips. “So soft. So per­fect. So mine.”

Her lips part and I push my thumb into her mouth, rub­bing over her tongue. Mov­ing her head back, she scrapes her teeth against my skin and then leans for­ward again be­fore suck­ing my digit as deep into her mouth as she can get it.

Plea­sure so acute it bor­ders on pain rushes straight to my dick.

This woman.

Her breath stut­ters when I bring her hand to my chest, press­ing it flat un­der mine and guid­ing her palm over my pecs.

Her fin­gers twitch. I feel it. Her strug­gle not to grip, not to cling like she usu­ally does.

She doesn’t want to need me. But she does.

Just like I need her and only her, re­gard­less of what she be­lieves.

The pike in my pants surges with blood as she al­lows me to di­rect her small fin­gers to brush over the nip­ple with a bar­bell through it. She bends her mid­dle fin­ger just enough so her nail scrapes over it.

Fuck.

This is the one thing we al­ways get right and have from our very first night to­gether.

This is where the feel­ings I don’t know how to process find ex­pres­sion. The crav­ing. The need. And some­thing else I don’t have a name for.

It’s not love, not what I feel for Fitz. Though there’s an el­e­ment of the same need to pro­tect. The same need to care for and see Kara happy.

But it also feels like weak­ness. So, like ev­ery other time it tries to sur­face, I shove it down deep and fo­cus on what I do un­der­stand.

The un­de­ni­able, al­ways com­bustible phys­i­cal de­sire be­tween us.

When I can’t stand teas­ing my­self with her touch any longer, I walk her back­ward un­til her hips hit the side of the bed. She doesn’t sit, still fight­ing the de­sire rag­ing be­tween us.

She’s breath­ing fast now, lips parted, gaze dart­ing to my mouth, down to the tent in my trousers and back up to my face.

I pull my thumb from her hot mouth. “This is your chance to say no.”

She jolts, know­ing what that means. If she says no, I don’t get out the cuffs

She takes a deep breath and holds it, her eyes clos­ing, be­fore she re­leases it slowly. She’s try­ing to re­gain con­trol of her body, but that’s not what ei­ther of us re­ally wants.

Tonight, I need her sur­ren­der. Her trust. And she needs to give it to me, to re­mem­ber she’s safe with me.

Al­ways.

Her and Fitz are the only liv­ing be­ings that I can say that about with ab­so­lute cer­tainty.

The war go­ing on in­side her is all over her beau­ti­ful face.

Even when she’s pissed at me for what she calls my high-hand­ed­ness, she doesn’t fight her de­sire for me like this.

Why is she do­ing it this time?