I don’t miss the way she flinches or the tension that knots in her muscles beneath my touch. “Ihaveto.”
“Why?”
Blinking at me, she gives the slightest shake of her head, a sadness overtaking her features. The corners of her baby blues turn down, the flushed heat of our rushed encounter draining from her delicate cheeks. “I can’t be with someone like you.”
Be with me?Refraining from making a comment about how we’re not about to ride off into the sunset, I aim for the other part of her sentence. “Like me?”
“I’m not stupid, Kieran. I know all the rumors can’t be false. You proved today that there’s probably more truth in them than not, anyway.”
“By drugging you?”
“Drugging me, leaving me here to deal with it by myself. I dreamed—” Her voice breaks, a sob catching in her throat. She coughs through it, trying to gloss over the emotion, but it tugs at something in my stomach, making me nauseous. “It doesn’t matter. I don’t know what I was thinking, coming here. Getting involved with you. I’m really sorry I bothered you, but I don’t think I can go through with this. I-I won’t tell anyone about today, I swear. If you have to keep my locket as some sort of souvenir or trophy, that’s… fine. My dad was fond of his prizes, too.”
The fact that she just compared me to a man I murdered—a goddamn pedophile, no less—causes an ache to flare up in my chest, a rapid pounding I can’t shake, amplified by the disappointment she flashes at me.
But there’s something else there, too, something that still looks a lot like desire. A flame she can’t put out, no matter how she tries to justify letting me go.
Something begging me to fight for her.
To prove her wrong.
My fingers curl into fists, allowing her to disengage while I try to collect my thoughts.
As she slides off my lap, a possessiveness like I’ve never known rears up inside me, burning the edges of my already-charred heart. Instead of being normal and letting her leave, especially considering she’s only just coming down off an impromptu trip, I move with her.
She isn’t paying me attention when I push off the bed and stand behind her; as she plants her palms in the mattress, steadying herself, I grip her shoulders and shove her belly-down into the bed.
Her head comes up, mouth sputtering as she tries to free her hair from where it’s trapped against her lips, and she thrashes as I dig my knee into her back. “What are you—”
“I feel like there’s been some sort of miscommunication, sweetheart.” As she squirms beneath me, I plant my other knee beside her thigh and grip her leggings in my hands again. “I don’t care what you think of me, and I’m not asking for permission to fuck you. That’s not the kind of guy I am. I’mtakingyour body, because you already promised it to me.”
Instead of pulling her pants down, I clutch at the seam lining the crack of her ass and give a sharp tug in opposing directions, tearing a wide hole that has her crying out in pained, shameful pleasure. Her plump ass comes into view, the red lace thong she has on doing nothing to hide her from me.
“Oh, myGod, asshole! These are Lululemon, you can’t just—”
She cuts off on a startled gasp as I slip my index finger beneath the scrap of material covering her beautiful cunt, coating the tip in the wetness that’s collected on her pink, swollen lips. I stroke her center, loving how her hips buck up against me in both an attempt to get me off her and get herself off.
I can tell she wants more, can feel it as she strains into my touch.
She just doesn’t want to admit that she wants it, in true brat form.
So she’ll make excuses, poor comparisons, to try and turn me off. Because no one else has ever cared enough to call her on her shit. To make herownthe attitude she tosses around like a weapon.
“What happened to taking me out on a date? Treating me like a person?”
“Bad girls don’t get dates, kitten. They get fucked.”
Dropping my knee to the side of her other thigh, I lean down and wrap my free hand in her hair, nails biting into her scalp as I tilt until she meets my gaze. Never pausing my strokes against her most sensitive flesh, my lips curl into the shell of her ear. “Don’t even try to deny that you want this. You’redrenched.”
The flat of my index finger smooths over her clit, drawing a moan from her that moves through me like spun silk; my hips flex against her, nostrils flaring as wicked heat pools at the base of my spine and I struggle to maintain control.
Still, she’s not done fighting. “Fear is an aphrodisiac.”
“Are you afraid, baby girl?”
Her throat works over a swallow, and I fist her hair tighter; pain laces her features, but she pretends I can’t see it in the strain of her gaze. “That’s what you wanted, wasn’t it?”
My eyes narrow, and I let her loose from my grasp with a harsh shove. Her face bounces off the bed, and before I have time to worry if I’ve given her whiplash, I push back off her and drop to my knees on the floor.