“I do enjoy your fight, Aria. But you’d be wise not to speak to me like that.” My own voice is hard and deadly, but it does nothing to Aria.
“Would I now?” A simper graces her wine-stained lips. “I’m not sure there’s a single wise thing I could do, is there, Mr. Cross? Other than obey your every command.”
Her defiance is fucking beautiful and only makes me hard for her. My cock stiffens and strains against my zipper as I lean back to take her in. It feels as if we’re picking right back up where we left off and I couldn’t be more agreeable with that situation.
My breathing quickens as she stares at me, daring me to disagree with her.
“You love being angry, don’t you?” I ask her, although it’s not a question. “There’s so much more power in anger than there is in sadness.” The statement makes her lips purse.
“You have no idea what you’re capable of,” I tell her a truth that could destroy me. “Women like you were made to ruin men like me.”
“Oh?” she asks. “Us women who aren’t capable of changing anything?” She seems to remember her fight as she adds, “You’ll have to clear that up for me. I’m either too drunk or stupid to understand.”
“Or too blinded by your past?” I offer her. “So consumed with changing something that’s meant to happen. That will happen, so much so that you can’t see what lies ahead.”
“What’s meant to happen? As in?” she questions as she noticeably swallows. Her hands grip the edge of the table as if she needs to hold it in order to sit upright.
“You know exactly what I mean, Aria.”
“If it happens, if what I think you’re referring to right now happens, there will be no future for me. The willing whore of the enemy who could do nothing to save the people she loves. What kind of life is that to lead?”
My blood runs cold at her words. Numbly I watch her reach for the remains of the bottle closest to her, only to find it empty.
Would she kill herself? Is that what she’s saying? My blood pounds in my veins at the thought of her leaving me, let alone leaving me in such a manner. I can barely look at her as she sags back into her seat and turns to give me her attention again. “If you were me, what would you do?” she asks with genuine curiosity.
I’m still reeling from her earlier confession to answer quickly, but I finally find words that have a ring of truth to them. “I’d take care of myself and my own survival.”
“My own survival?” she asks with a sarcastic huff of disbelief. “If they’re dead, then who am I?”
My breathing becomes ragged, tense, and deep at her question. “You are mine.” My answer is immediate, stern, and undeniable. Each word is given with conviction.
But all they do is turn her eyes glossy. “And that’s all I’ll ever be. A possession.”
The sadness is what destroys my composure. She unravels me like no one else ever has. She’ll devastate everything I worked for, everything I am, but so long as I have her, it will all be worth it.
“I was meant to have you. I only fucking lived to have you.” I’ve never spoken truer words.
Her breathing is shallow as her chest rises and falls. “Carter?” She says my name as if I’ll save her from what she’s feeling, from the truth breaking down every bit of her own beliefs.
“You were made for me to have. To fight. To fuck. To care for,” I say as I lean closer to her, my grip tightening on the back of her chair as I lower my lips until they’re just an inch from hers. My eyes pierce into hers as she stares back at me with a wildness I crave to tame. “Do you understand that, Aria?”
“You’re a very intense man, Carter Cross.” She speaks her words softly with tears in her eyes that I don’t understand.
All I can do at this moment is crash my lips to hers, to silence the pain, the agony, all of the questions she has. The kiss isn’t gentle; it isn’t soft and sweet. It’s a brutal taking of what’s mine. What’s been owed to me for years.
The instant I capture her lips, she gasps, and I shove my tongue inside of her mouth, pushing myself out of the chair and hearing it bang on the floor as I take her face with both of my hands. My tongue strokes hers swiftly and she meets my intensity with her own. Her fingers spear through my hair and her nails scratch at my scalp, pulling me to get impossibly closer.
She moans in my mouth as I pull away, desperate to breathe. In one movement, I pull her down to the floor while shoving her skirt up her thighs, maneuvering her beneath me. Her belly presses to the floor and my erection digs into her exposed ass.