“I wasn’t trying to seduce you,” I lied, my mouth dry.
He laughed quietly. “You sat down to dinner with the intention of seducing me. Did you think I was too stupid to notice? Or that I forgot what you asked this morning?”
My body was on fire, desire pooled like lava between my legs. My breasts were tender against the lace of my bra and there was a strange, sweet ache in my clit. As if he read my thoughts, he slid his palm down my side and pushed it beneath my skirt. My skin tingled as he trailed his touch down my inner thigh and back up again, stopping just before he reached my panties.
“Do you want touched, kitten?” he breathed.
“Yes, God, yes,” I moaned, breaking for him the way he wanted me to.
His finger slid under the hem of my panties and his body froze. Stiffening.
“Jesus Christ, you’re soaked,” he said.
“Please touch me,” I begged.
He turned me around, taking my chin in his fingers. “Did it make you wet when I scared you?”
“No—I don’t think so.”
His eyes darkened. “We promised to be honest.”
“Will you just shut up and fuck me? Put me out of my misery.”
He clicked his tongue.
“Hmm, no. I’d rather watch you beg.”
A little surge of anger moved through me like electricity and I pulled back. God, he was so frustrating and it killed me that I hadn’t found a way to affect him the way he got to me, the way he dug his touch beneath my skin. He just stood there with his eyes heavy lidded and that smirk on his mouth, looking at me like he knew exactly what I was thinking.
“Fuck you, Peregrine,” I snapped, turning on my heel and taking off toward the door.
I heard his footfalls and I sped up, running across the room. I felt his touch graze my back as I pulled the heavy doors open and slipped through them. He was behind me, I could hear and sense his presence. But I didn’t dare turn around or he would catch me. The thought sent a hot thrill through my body as I scrambled up the stairs.
I saw my heels in a heap just ahead. My breath came hard from my lungs and there was a distinct wetness between my legs. It was distracting me and stinging my skin. And perhaps it was the reason I faltered and a hand slid around my waist, pulling my body against his hard chest.
His fingers dragged up under my skirt and he swore reverently as they came away wet. There was desperation in him and my body ached in response. Needing him to fuck me, to fill me until there was nothing but him, all hot and lean and cut with shadows over me.
I wasn’t sure what I thought he would do to me, but my heart hammered with arousal and a tinge of fear. He bent and his mouth barely brushed mine and then he took me in his arms and carried me up to the top of the spiral stairs. My head sank back and the basement floor fell away below us as we moved to the top of the house.
He spilled me onto the floor and fell to his hands and knees over me. The front of his shirt gaped and between the dark purple I saw a flash of his tensed stomach. He panted, crouched over me like an animal. There was a heady glaze of desire over his golden eyes.
“Why do you run from me, kitten?”
I swallowed.
He bent and ran his tongue up the inside of my bare leg, stopping just before my skirt. “Are you angry I won’t tell you what Merrick said to me?”
“We promised to be honest,” I whispered.
In a swift movement, he pushed his hands beneath my skirt and pulled my panties from me. Leaving my pussy naked and tingling in the cold air of the stairwell. His body pressed between my thighs, the fabric of his pants rough against my overstimulated nerves.
“Then be honest about how wet you are,” he breathed. “Be honest when I ask you if it turns you on when I frighten you?”
Why couldn’t I just say it? Why did the realization terrify me? I blinked up at him over me, at the devastatingly beautiful lines of his face, at his parted mouth, and his heavy-lidded eyes. A shudder moved down my spine.
He bent and his mouth hovered over my ear, whispering a single word into the darkness between us. When he drew back, he took me by the chin and forced me to look at him.
“You need out, say that,” he said. “That’s your safe word. Understood?”