That’s what all of the other things had been. Him pulling me into his arms in bed. The touches, gentle. The way he had looked at me. He was buttering me up.
“You’re not fighting this, Anastasia,” he growled, lips on my neck.
My knees quivered and threatened to give out on me with just that. The memory of our kiss assaulted me, and I needed his lips on mine like I needed oxygen. But I stayed on course.
“Yes, I am, Duke,” I snapped, hands at his chest trying to push him away.
He stopped kissing my neck, but he didn’t move from the wall.
There was still a butt-load of desire in his gaze, but there was irritation peppered through it. Irritation I could handle. It was familiar. I just needed to tease some more out of him.
“We’re not doing this,” I said.
“We’ve been doing this since the second you told that fuckin’ story to my family after two margaritas,” he growled.
That gave me pause. Since the first night? No, that would mean that this was something more than him being horny. And I couldn’t deal with that.
“Stop,” I said. “Stop with all this shit! You’re trying to mess with me just so you can fuck me.”
He reared back. Not completely, but enough to show just how offended he was by my statement. “Come again?”
I swallowed my unease at seeing the dangerous version of Duke come out so easily, so close to me, caging me in—with no one else around. Not that he would hurt me. I knew what those men looked like. How they spoke. How they touched women. Too gentle when they were trying to woo them and much too rough when they thought they could get away with it.
Duke wasn’t that.
But he was dangerous nonetheless. He was trying to intimidate me, and it might’ve worked if my self-preservation wasn’t as solid as it was. “Don’t gaslight me, Duke. You’re trying to make it seem like you actually give a fuck about me so you can get sex out of the job you’ve made it very clear that you don’t want to do.”
That didn’t help.
Not at all.
Duke leaned in. His eyes captured mine. His fury coated my body. “You’re so fucking full of shit,” he murmured against my lips.
That was not the response I’d been expecting, at all.
I’d been expecting him to be offended, to throw some nasty words, to yell, then to storm out and we’d be safely back in our corners.
But no.
“What?” It was little more than a whisper and I hated myself for how small I sounded.
“You are full of shit,” he repeated, face hovering inches from mine. “You starve yourself in every facet of your life that means something. Sure, you live in a ten-million-dollar mansion, own bags that cost more than people’s first cars. All that shit is in excess, but the stuff that really means anything…you won’t pay the price for.”
His hand moved to brush along the fading bruise on my cheekbone. “I get it, baby. Some of it, because I only know some of your past. And even some of it is enough to understand why you’ve lived how you have, why you’ve fucking starved yourself. I get it, but I’m sure as shit not accepting it. It’s time you feasted and I’m gonna be the one to fucking serve you.”
Serve. Me.
My panties were obviously drenched at this point.
I was only human.
I knew he was smart. I knew he was strong. But I didn’t know he could see that deeply, string such substantial stuff together. Put me on a fricking hook and reel me in.
I was squirming now, desperate to get away to preserve the pathetic life I’d led prior to him.
“I used to do porn,” I blurted.
That got him. His face turned blank. Carefully blank. But he didn’t immediately let me go in revulsion as I’d expected. “Excuse me?”
I swallowed. It was easier now, since I didn’t have a single lie left inside me. Well, maybe one and it was a big one, but it was nothing to do with my past and everything to do with the man in front of me.
“When I first moved out of my foster parents’ house, I was poor—ten dollars to my name kind of poor. I had couches to crash on, but welcomes quickly wore out and I was on my way to becoming homeless.”
The past surged forward, the memory of that fear clutching me. I never knew where my next meal would come from, my next shower, where I’d sleep. And that had been better than my entire childhood. At least I was in control then.
“But I was beautiful,” I continued. Even before the cosmetic procedures, I had been pretty. Something my foster mother had hated. She’d been a cheerleader who’d married an asshole and pissed away her future. My beauty had been just another reason for her to treat me like shit. But it was somewhat of a currency in the real world.