“Then what did you imagine?” she snapped. “What makes you think I’m not smart enough to see what goes on around me?”
“I never imagined such a thing, Paige. ” Frustration filled his voice as he glared back at her. “I simply do not imagine that it is within my right to limit your contact with a man I have brought to the bed with you. ”
Not limit her contact? Tariq was his third. The very idea of it implied, at the very least, a sense of possession in regards to a lover, if not a woman he had some feelings of depth for.
But evidently, that wasn’t the way it was for him.
The pain of that realization, the realization that whatever was happening between them was only physical, that it was without emotion tore through her like a searing flame, burning through her heart.
“Go fuck yourselves!” she hissed back at him as fury whipped through her along with the knowledge that he was showing no possessiveness, no dominance whatsoever in regards to either her body or her heart.
She slapped at his hands as they lifted to her, disgust and ragged emotions slamming a sense of pain through her senses.
“Don’t touch me. Don’t speak to me and don’t either of you think you will ever sleep with me again,” she cried out. “There’s not a chance in hell I want you now. ”
She was dying for him. She was aching for him. She wanted to cry out at the knowledge that what she thought had been mutual desire had been something far different. Perhaps so different that it meant he hadn’t wanted her at all.
“The hell you don’t,” he growled.
“You’re damned right I don’t,” she cried out painfully. “Just kiss my ass and get the hell away from me, Abram. Damn you. Damn you!”
She wasn’t crying. There were no tears. The pain went far too deep, and hurt far too much for tears, yet. … instead of getting away from her, instead of leaving her in peace, Abram jerked her to him andpinned her in place against his chest.
“Kiss your ass?” He snarled down at her. “I’ll do that and more. ”
10
God, what she did to him. She thought he had no intention of talking to he
r? That he could sleep with her much longer without losing his mind?
It wasn’t fucking her that he had no intention of doing. It was loving her. And he could see in her eyes that she hadn’t been merely talking about sex. She had said fuck, she had referred to sex, but she meant so much more.
Her heart was involved and she intended to involve his as well.
Holding her to him he turned his fingers into her hair, pulled her head back, and as he fought the grief he felt at the thought of never loving her, his lips covered hers.
Sweet heat, fiery feminine anger and passion overflowed from her lips. Her fingers curled into fists and pressed into his shoulders, stopping just the second before true rejection. She wasn’t saying no, but the threat of it was there.
Give her a chance to consider the true reality of what he might very well intend and she would be screaming her rejection from the rooftops, and he wouldn’t be able to blame her. Hell, he would agree with her.
He had no intention of giving her a chance.
As his lips covered hers, his tongue brushed the seam. He considered for less than a second the seduction he had actually considered each night
he lay with her, her naked body curled into him.
He decided against it.
Dominance rose inside him. The need, the overwhelming hunger for her sexual submission rushed through him like a tidal wave of epic proportions.
Need beat at his brain. Control disintegrated. Only instinct remained. The instinct of a primal animal, determined to fully possess his woman on every physical level that could possibly exist.
He tugged at the strands of hair he tangled his fingers in. Just enough pressure to drag a moan from her lips and have her arching into his hold.
This was her acceptance of him and her acceptance of what she had to know was coming from him.
He wasn’t her lover, and easy had never been a part of him.