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“Why would you do it, Maddux?” she asked, needing to hear his answer, his reasons. “Why would you bid on those books, pay a small fortune for them, then give them to me, of all people?”
He tossed back the rest of the amber liquid, set the glass on the desk, then rocked back in his chair, a slight frown forming between his brows. “Honestly?”
“Yes.” She wanted, needed, the truth.
“I bought them out of spite, because I saw that you wanted them and I didn’t want you to have them,” he said, his voice rough as gravel as he admitted his intentions. “Didn’t matter the cost, because it went to charity. It wasn’t about the amount of money . . . that night, it was about taking something you wanted because it gave me a twisted sense of pleasure considering everything going on with your father.”
There was no vindictiveness in his tone, just a regret that spoke volumes. His actions might have originally been based on anger and disdain, but that wasn’t the case now or he wouldn’t have left the books on her nightstand. “So
why did you give them to me?”
He paused a moment, as if he was hesitant about revealing his reasons, but finally gave her the insight she longed for. “Because now, I want you to have the books. Despite how much I hate your father . . . I don’t hate you, and those books are meant to be yours because I know you’ll treasure them.”
“I will,” she whispered, giving him a tremulous smile. “Thank you so much.”
A slight, bittersweet smile touched the corner of his lips. “You’re welcome, Bella.”
God . . . her heart couldn’t contain all the varying emotions she was suddenly feeling for this paradoxical man. And how much he’d come to mean to her in such a short time. There was so much goodness beneath all his pain, and Arabella wanted him more than she’d ever needed anything else in her entire life. Except for all his promises to fuck her, to do dirty, wicked things to her that her body longed for, he’d backed off when that was the last thing she wanted, and she decided to call him out on the way he’d been deliberately skirting that physical contact with her.
“Why are you avoiding me?” she asked.
“I’ve been busy,” he replied.
That was a crock of polite, easy bullshit to avoid the real reason he was keeping distance between them. This time, she looked him directly in the eyes and didn’t mince her words. “Let me rephrase that. Why won’t you fuck me, when that was part of our agreement?”
Her bold, direct question definitely got his attention, though she hadn’t anticipated the annoyance that etched his features. “Because you’re not ready for me to fuck you, and you still have a lot to learn,” he said, brusque and blunt.
She stepped in front of him, between his spread legs, and saw his pupils darken. “Then teach me everything.”
He groaned deep in his throat. “Bella, as much as I want you, I have no right to take your virginity. It doesn’t fucking belong to me.”
He sounded angry, and she almost laughed at the thought that somewhere along the way her assertive beast had grown a conscience, when she was desperate for the dominant man who’d held her down in the bathtub the other day and demanded her body submit to his pleasure. Just the thought of that provocative memory made her sex pulse with need.
“I’m going to be very clear about this,” she said, taking a direct and candid approach as she reached out and caressed the tips of her fingers along the soft, short growth of beard on his jaw, aching to feel that facial hair abrading the tender, sensitive skin of her inner thighs. “I’m not a prim, timid, innocent maiden from the eighteenth century. I’m a twenty-five-year-old grown woman who knows her own mind. You’re not taking my virginity like some antiquated caveman. I’m giving it to you, openly and deliberately, without any doubts or reservations, because it’s what I want with you.”
Beneath her fingertips, she felt his jaw clench. “I don’t fucking deserve it,” he said on a low, agitated growl. “You should save it for a man who does.”
“Shouldn’t I get to decide who deserves to be the first man to fuck me?” She swallowed hard, realizing she didn’t want Maddux to just be her first. She wanted him to be the one and only man to have that privilege, which was a ridiculous thought considering her time with him was only temporary, and there was no way he’d ever want anything more than just a hookup with his enemy’s daughter.
“I want that man to be you, Maddux,” she reiterated, and deciding to up the stakes, she pushed the thin straps of her nightgown off her shoulders, then lowered her arms and let the silky fabric fall to the floor at her feet, leaving her standing in front of him in just a pair of lacy panties. “It’s my body, my choice, my pleasure . . . and I choose you.”
His breathing deepened as his gaze raked over her bare breasts, his growing erection straining against the front of his slacks. His hands curled into fists on the arms of the chair, as if he was struggling not to touch everything she was offering. “The way I want to fuck you isn’t sweet or gentle or romantic.”
His words rang out like a warning, but it was a foreshadowing that was unnecessary because Arabella was already well aware that Maddux enjoyed exerting authority over her physical responses . . . and her body loved yielding to his commands.
“I know,” she said, and brazenly straddled his lap on the chair, tucking her knees on either side of his hips while her fingers finished unfastening the rest of the buttons on his shirt so she could touch his bare skin. “You have to know, based on the things we’ve already done, that sweet, gentle, and romantic isn’t what I want, either.”
His eyes blazed with frustration and fire as they stared into hers, but he didn’t touch her despite the fact that she was sitting on his thighs half-naked, her hair tumbling around her shoulders and curling right above the swells of her breasts. His entire body was tense, his restraint admirable, but she didn’t want his chivalrous gesture about saving her virginity, and she was determined to fracture his admirable control. The thought of him snapping and going all alpha male on her caused Arabella to shiver in anticipation.
“I have waited a very long time to come across a man who makes me feel the way you do,” she went on, parting the sides of his shirt to give her a better view of his wide shoulders, his broad chest, and those tight abs she wanted to lick. “A man who is real, and not just a figment of my dirty fantasies when I need to get off when I’m alone in my bed at night or a dominant, fictional hero I read about in one of my books.”
Upping her game, she placed her hands over her breasts, fondling them as he watched. “You touch me, and I burn and ache.” She pulled at her nipples, having learned from Maddux that she liked that edge of pain that arrowed its way down to her core. “You give me that dark, lust-filled look, the exact one you’re giving me right now, and I get hot and restless and wetter than I thought was even possible.”
A low, rumbling noise rose from his chest, his expression dangerously threatening. “You need to fucking stop,” he said though his clenched teeth.
“No, you need to give me what I want,” she said, smiling at him oh so sweetly, contradicting the naughty way she rolled her hips and rubbed her sex along the length of his rigid shaft. Despite the barrier of his pants and her underwear, the pressure and friction had him hissing out a harsh stream of breath.
She flattened her hands on his pecs and skimmed her thumbs over his hard nipples, then leaned in closer, until her lips touched the side of his neck without the scars, and moved up toward his ear. “You make me feel wanted and desired like no one ever has before,” she whispered, sharing her deepest secrets with him. “My body responds to your demands in ways that I always thought were forbidden or wrong, but how can something that feels so damn good be anything but perfectly right?”
