Total pages in book: 74
Estimated words: 80139 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 401(@200wpm)___ 321(@250wpm)___ 267(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 80139 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 401(@200wpm)___ 321(@250wpm)___ 267(@300wpm)
I slide my hands down his back, feeling his muscles tense under my palms. He kisses my jaw, my throat, the place beneath my ear that makes me go insane.
“Don’t stop,” I whisper.
“Not planning on it,” he grits out.
Something inside me twists. “Then take off those fucking pants.”
24
CRUZ
I’m not stupid. I know what this is. Another transaction.
A different room. Cleaner sheets. But the same bargain. Her body for my loyalty. Her mouth for my protection.
I know it as clearly as I know the weight of the pistol I left within reach on the bedside table. As clearly as I know there are men in the world who would slit my throat for touching her, and others who would do the same for not delivering her back in chains.
This is Robin Bellamy refusing to surrender to her circumstances.
But Christ.
What a transaction.
Her hands are in my hair, her mouth hot beneath mine, her body arching under me.
Sex is always good, even when it’s bad. Even when it’s paid for. Even when it’s empty.
But this isn’t empty.
She’s responsive beneath me, but she seemed more herself in the cell. In that filthy room, with danger breathing down both our necks, she was furious and reckless and fully present. She hated me. Wanted me. Fought me. Dared me.
Here, in this clean bed, with her hair spread over the pillow and her body offered up on a platter, part of her is somewhere else.
I break the kiss.
She glares at me. “Don’t.”
I go still. “Don’t what?”
“Don’t treat me like I’m fragile.”
“I’m not.”
She steels her gaze. “Yes, you are.”
I look down at her.
Her cheeks are flushed. Her eyes are bright. Her lips are swollen from my mouth. She looks alive and angry. Fragile? Not a chance.
“I’m treating you like you were imprisoned a few hours ago,” I say.
She scoffs. “I don’t need reminding.”
She moves beneath me, impatient, trying to drag me back into heat and away from whatever softness she thinks might ruin this.
She doesn’t want soft? She doesn’t want to be treated like she’s fragile?
She doesn’t know what she’s in for.
I catch her wrists before I can think better of it and pin them lightly above her head.
She looks up at me, breathing hard. Not afraid. Not the way I expect. Not the way I dread.
“That’s it,” she says. “Get rough.”
My stomach drops. “What?”
“You heard me.”
“No.”
“Yes.”
I shake my head. “Robin—”
“Don’t you dare tell me what I want.”
“I’m not.”
She scoffs. “You are.”
“I’m not playing prison guard with you.”
Her eyes flash. “Why? Because it makes you feel guilty?”
I pause. “Yes.”
“Good.”
Damn.
She wants my guilt in the room with us. And part of me gets it. She isn’t trying to pretend the cell didn’t happen.
I stare down at her, horror and desire tangling so tightly I can barely see straight. “You don’t know what you’re asking.”
She sniffs. “I know exactly what I’m asking.”
“No. You’re asking for what you think you need.”
She huffs out a laugh. “I don’t need therapy, Cruz.”
“It’s not therapy.”
“Then shut up and give me what I want.”
Fuck.
I’m not made of steel.
I look at the faint marks on her wrists from being tied down. On her ankles too. I hate that I had a part in marring her perfect flesh.
“You need to tell me if you want to stop,” I grit out.
“I won’t.”
I grip her wrists again, pin them above her head.
“Harder,” she says. “I’m not made of fucking glass.”
And finally I allow it to happen. The darkness that has always existed in me—the part of me that allows me to follow Vega’s orders, the part that will eventually let me kill—rises.
My cock throbs between my legs. I could take her now, hard and rough. I could flip her over, fuck that gorgeous ass. I could do anything.
Is that truly what she’s asking for?
Because I want it. I fucking want it all.
I kiss her again.
Not softly this time.
She meets me instantly, biting at my mouth, arching into me, trying to provoke, trying to push, trying to make me lose control. I let her push. Then I push back.
A moan tears from her.
Not fear.
Not regret.
Want.
She wants rough.
I’ll give her rough.
I flip her over and bring my palm down on her ass. Hard. So hard my hand stings, and my hands lost sensitivity to violence long ago.
“That’s it,” she says. “There he is.”
“Who?”
“The man you’re trying so hard not to be.”
Cold slips through me. For a second, the room tilts.
“Robin—”
“No. Don’t retreat now.”
She breathes hard beneath me.
“Slap me again.”
My palm goes down again, harder this time. God, the sting. It flows through my fingers and up my arm, through my whole body, and lands in my cock.
Slap.
Slap.
Slap.
Her ass is a gorgeous pink now. Warm and beautiful.
Slap.
Slap.
Slap.
She moans, arching her back, sliding up onto her knees as if she’s presenting herself.
Her ass gleams. A few more slaps and the rosiness will be crimson. And fuck, that’s what I want. I want to make her beg for it. Beg me to stuff my big cock into her pussy.