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“Yes, I do. I’ve known since the first time I laid eyes on you.” She sauntered forward and planted a hand on my chest, pushing me backward onto the bed.
And I went. God help me, I went.
She climbed atop me, the wet ropes of her long reddish-gold hair brushing my chest. Even through the wifebeater, my skin responded. She straddled me and rolled up my shirt, her nails and the heels of her hands working magic, and I threw my head back and stared up at the skylight that slanted over the bed. Rain covered it in heavy splotches. The storm still raged outside, and in my head.
Bending, she licked my nipple, and I caught a fistful of her silky hair, bringing her face up to mine. “You’re getting what happened earlier confused with sex,” I said, voice low. As many times as it took, I would repeat this until she understood. “It wasn’t. We were forced to—”
“Yes, finally. Finally.” Triumph lit in her summer sky eyes. “We were forced. You didn’t force me, goddammit.”
“You’re twisting my words.” I reached up and gripped her shoulders, holding her back from resuming her task. My wet nipple tingled, waiting for her mouth. Every part of me, waiting.
“No, I’m not, and you know it. We were both forced tonight. That wasn’t your choice. But I’ll tell you a secret.” She struggled against my hold and I released her, because I couldn’t risk bruises. Not after all I’d already done.
She dipped her head and licked my ear, and my cock jerked against my boxer briefs. Desperate to be let free. To go right back where I’d been earlier tonight, in that sweet, tight pussy that had gripped me so fiercely. Not letting go for a second.
“If one of us forced the other, it was me forcing you. I’ve been trying to force you for nine months. That I was on my belly in front of you surrounded by guys with guns didn’t change what I wanted.” Her teeth grazed my earlobe and I shuddered, fisting my hands in the spread beneath me. I could grip the mattress coils themselves and it wouldn’t be enough to stop me from taking what she was offering. “What I want.”
A handful of her hair brought her mouth to mine again, and her eyelashes fluttered as she struggled to maintain my gaze. She wanted to close her eyes. Wanted me to kiss her.
That wasn’t the man I was anymore.
“I can’t be gentle. It’s not in me.” I rubbed my whiskered cheek over hers and absorbed another of her little gasps. “If I get my hands on you, I’ll be rough. I won’t be able to help myself.”
“I like rough.” Her eyes glowed into mine. “But I have another solution.” She moved like a blur, yanking at my shirt, tearing it apart. I was still blinking at that—what the hell? She wasn’t a fighter, how could she be so strong?—when she grabbed my arms and dragged them over my head.
Noticing my expression, she smiled faintly, the curve of her luscious mouth turning her from beautiful to unforgettable. “Chef-in-training,” she said, doing a quick knot around my wrists. Flexing her hands meaningfully, she eased back. “I know my way around a knife.”
“I could break that knot in a second,” I said, unsure why my breathing had sped up. Something about giving the power back to her let my desire come to the forefront and nudged aside the guilt.
It wouldn’t go away that easily. Tomorrow morning, I’d pick it up again and shoulder my burdens. They were my responsibility. And they would be heavier for my momentary escape.
But tonight, she would give me a reprieve.
“You had your way with me earlier tonight.” She ran her tongue up my midsection and eyed me hungrily. “Now I’m going to even the score.”
Five
He’d been reading the Bible.
I was supposed to believe he was the devil incarnate. Supposedly, he’d raped me and was capable of so much violence—toward me too, along with those men in that room tonight.
That I could believe. I’d felt every ounce of his hatred in their direction. If they didn’t, they were fools. Too cocky to realize they were toying with someone as lethal as they were.
But hurting me? Not happening. The knot around his wrist was to ease his mind, not mine. I wasn’t afraid of him. A man who whispered to me in Italian and carried me through busy New York streets to save my feet wasn’t dangerous.
Something had happened to make him think he was. He obviously had shit in his past I couldn’t begin to comprehend.
It didn’t matter tonight.
Tonight, I needed to replace what had happened earlier with a different memory. Not because he’d raped me or because it hadn’t been about him and I, even in the midst of the insanity of that room. But neither of us should have that memory as the only one of us being together. And if tomorrow came and he shut me out again, we’d have this.
We’d have given each other this.
I slid down his body, tracing his intricate tattoos with the tips of my fingers. He was solid muscle, his entire body honed to the maximum. Ink covered most of his skin, colors and shapes and black swirls that brought to mind some kind of Celtic knots. His rosary with the dagger that had cut me hung down his chest, dangling halfway to his bellybutton. But on his ribs there was another, the rosary’s beads a pearlized aqua green that drew my eye, then my mouth.
A woman’s name swirled beside the rosary. Anna. I sketched the letters with my nails and he shuddered, his fingers lacing together above his head. I loved that it took so little from me to make this enormously strong man weak. More, that he fought that weakness with everything he had whenever we were together and still succumbed.
For a girl who’d turned to stripping because she felt ignored by the world—oh and to get the money for school, can’t forget the money—this was heady stuff.
