“I do. I find it fascinating.” I followed her through the rabbit-warren style of the rooms in the rambling apartment. “All those great people and great deeds and all too human mistakes.” She stopped beside a doorway that had countless custom bookshelves fitted around it. An endless amount of books were crammed in, carefully organized.
“And you like to read,” she observed. “Have you read them all?”
“What’s the point in owning a book, if you don’t read it?”
“To look clever,” she quipped. “Isn’t that what people do?”
“Not me. I don’t care if anyone thinks I’m clever or not, in fact, scratch that. I’d rather people didn’t think I was clever,” I mused, slipping off my heavy jacket. My skin felt warm and intensely aware of Hana’s presence.
“You mean you’d rather no one knew you were clever, there’s a difference,” Hana said, jumping slightly, when she turned to me, and found me just behind her, crowding her back against the bookcase.
“You see a lot, don’t you, pumpkin? I don’t think I’m the cleverest in this room by a long shot,” I murmured, reaching out to pull the heavy, black curtain of her silky hair to the side, so I could see her stalk of a neck.
“What makes you think that?”
“I’ve seen your textbooks,” I reminded her.
She chuckled, but there was a worried light in her eyes. “Does it bother you?” she asked, hesitantly, like she was nervous to hear my answer.
I stilled, considering that little nugget of insecurity she’d just bravely revealed to me. Gathering myself, I pressed forward, trapping her against the bookcase, and fitting my hard arousal up the center of her belly.
“Does it feel like it bothers me?” I asked, rocking my hips against her. Putting my hands to her hips, I held her in place, as I leaned in and licked her ear, biting it gently, until she squirmed against me. “Don’t make yourself small, Hana, to make someone else happy. Be the smartest person in the room if that’s who you are. It’s sexy,” I admitted, as I leaned in and captured her earlobe between my teeth, tugging gently, until she squirmed against me.
“Sexy?” she repeated softly as if it was too far-fetched to be true.
“Sexy as hell.Youare sexy as hell and the fact that you don’t know it is unbelievable. If you had met even just one other man with a real set of balls in your life, you’d already know how sexy you are. Instead, you have no idea… and that suits me fine.”
“It does?” she asked, looking up at me with guileless beauty.
“It does because it means I get to have something I should never be allowed… you,” I muttered, pulling her more firmly against me, and running my hands over her behind, gripping it through her short dress, my fingers slipping beneath the hem.
“Why shouldn’t you be allowed to have me?”
Because I’m not your Prince Charming, my little Cinderella, I’m the villain.
Instead of confessing that particularly cruel truth, I kissed her. My tongue pushed between her inexperienced lips and stroked along hers. Her hands curled into little fists in my shirt, as she pressed her lithe body closer to mine. I pinned her against the wall, rocking my hips against her, craving pressure against an arousal like I’d never felt before. The sensation of touching her was maddening. She moaned into my mouth, as I nipped at her lips, and sucked on one. A pure, perfectly unstudied response, and I immediately craved more.
“Tell me you’re on birth control, Cinderella, because I don’t want anything between us,” I murmured against her skin, as my hands went to the strapless neckline of her dress and I tugged it ruthlessly down to her waist.
“I am. I don’t know why I’ve bothered, but I am, and now I’m glad,” she murmured.
She was braless, and the swells of her small breasts, barely handfuls really, were rosy-tipped and tempting as hell. I leaned down and enveloped the dusky rosebud in my mouth, while my hands stripped off the damn dress and tossed it into a corner. She held on to my shoulders as I ravished her chest, her fingers biting into my skin, her mouth issuing the kind of small, breathless gasps and surprised moans that I could listen to forever.
When I’d left her skin flushed and pink, marked with my teeth and lips, I lowered myself to my knees before her. Her eyes went wide, her chest rising and falling rapidly with her excited breath, as I leaned in and inhaled the sweet scent of her through her panties, plain, cotton, as innocent looking as she was. I shouldn’t be allowed her sweetness. Her goodness wasn’t for the likes of me, but it was too late for that. I was taking it, and no one could stop me. I tugged the cotton down, suddenly impatient to get my mouth on her. I had to relax her first and make it good for her. Even if her first time was going to be with the wrong man, I’d make sure it was the best time of her life. Something she’d never forget. I’d make sure I was someone she could never forget.
Her legs parted willingly beneath my hands, and I propped one knee on my shoulder, leaned in, and tasted her. She was even sweeter than I’d imagined. Her hands delved into my hair as I licked at her, long, hot paths from the puffy, swollen bud at the apex of her core, to the tantalizing entrance to her body. I pulled her hips firmly against my face, holding her by the behind, to sink my tongue as deep inside her body as it could go. She was so tight, even my tongue felt her grip.
“I can’t – it feels – I feel-,” Hana was panting, her hips moving on their own against my face, pressing closer, needing more. I knew exactly what my girl needed, and I’d give her it, every single moment of pleasure.
“Yes, you can, and you will. It’s only the beginning of the things I’m going to do to you,” I promised her, pulling back for a second, only long enough to make her cry out with disappointment, before delving back in. This time, when I felt her muscles contracting, building and building, I pushed her right over the edge, and she came hard, letting out a scream that flooded me with pure, proud possession.Yes, only I can make you feel like this. Only me. Remember my touch and my name. Remember who this body craves.
While she was still pulsing with pleasure, I stood before her and kissed her hard, tangling my tongue against hers, letting her taste herself in my mouth, and lifted her into my arms. She was light as hell. I had a sudden, carnal vision of all the ways I could lift her, and bend her to my satisfaction. The positions I’d twist her into would destroy us both for any other.
Tonight though, for this very first time, I carried her to the bed and set her down. She lay back, completely bare and panting, as she watched me strip off. Her eyes ran like honey over my chest and my tattoos, all the scars from a lifetime of violence that decorated my body, and smiled. I was arrested by that shy, innocent expression.
“Do you like what you see, little Cinderella?” I wondered, barely able to believe it. Didn’t she see the blood on my hands, with those shining eyes? Couldn’t she see the desperation and violence, and brutal tenacity to live, etched on my bones? Shouldn’t it scare her?
She nodded, biting one of her full, utterly kissable lips.