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Anya sighed with obvious irritation. “Lift your arms…please.”
He raised his arms and let Anya pull his shirt completely off. As she took it off she turned around and held the sweaty garment out in front of her.
“What are you doing, Anya?”
“Looking for an open flame so I can burn this.”
Daniel laughed. “We’ll have a bonfire later,” he said, tossing the shirt into the corner of the steam-filled bathroom.
He stood before her shirtless. She stared at the floor. Poor girl. He really was torturing her. He’d feel bad about it if he didn’t feel so good about it.
He took her wrists in his hands again and pressed her shaking palms into the center of his chest.
For nearly a full minute Daniel said nothing, simply letting Anya’s anxiety build. He wanted her anxious, afraid. For her own good.
“Your hands are shaking. You’re white as a ghost. Think about how you feel right now. Imagine, Anya,” Daniel said in a low voice. Anya closed her eyes. “Imagine being with someone you’ve never even met before and doing this. Or worse. Any man who wins you will own you for the night. He might already have you tied to the bed at this point. He might already be inside you. Feel how afraid you are right now and multiply that by a thousand. At least a thousand.”
Anya finally looked at him, really looked at him. First at his eyes and then his lips. From his lips her eyes roamed down his neck and across his shoulders and chest, up each arm and down his stomach before grazing up his body again to look once more into his eyes.
“I’m not afraid,” she whispered. “That’s not why I’m shaking.”
“Not afraid? Really? Then why are you shaking?” he demanded. He had to get through to this girl before she made the worst mistake of her life.
“Because…” She stopped and swallowed again and stared at something over his shoulder.
Daniel lifted a hand to her face and caressed her neck under her ear. “Answer the question, Anya. Why are you shaking?”
She met his gaze. “Because…I want you.”
Daniel didn’t speak at first. He let her confession hang in the air between them.
“Say it again,” Daniel ordered.
“I want you. I can’t…since that day in the music room, I can’t stop thinking about you. I hate you so I must be crazy, too.”
“I don’t think you do hate me. I don’t think you hate me at all. I think you like me.” Daniel continued stroking her face, her neck just under her hairline and was rewarded with a shiver.
“I can’t afford to…likeyou.”
He gently grasped her chin and forced her face up to his. “Fine,” he said. “Don’t like me then. I’ll like you enough for the both of us.”
He brought his mouth down onto hers and waited. He didn’t have to wait long. Anya parted her lips and let her body relax into his. Tenuously at first she kissed him. And while everything in him wanted to push her against the wall, force her lips wider, and take full possession of her mouth, he held back and let her do most of the work. He cupped the back of her head and allowed himself the liberty of pushing the tip of his tongue against hers again and again.
Finally he wrenched his mouth from hers. He’d take her right on the bathroom floor if he didn’t get himself under control again. She watched him, her amber eyes wide as a frightened deer.
“No more stalling,” he said. “The water will get cold.”
He was dominating her right now, supposedly. He refused to let her see how much that kiss had affected him. He shouldn’t be doing this with her, not with his self-control so low and his need so strong. That note he’d found from Maggie had cut him open, bared his insides, left him too vulnerable to the scared kisses of beautiful young women.
Anya’s hands still shook as she knelt down on the floor in front of him. Now Daniel had to glance away. If he looked at her on her knees in front of him all hope for continued self-control would be lost. She fumbled with the laces of his running shoes. He raised one foot, then the other as she pulled them off, along with his socks. She must really be scared as she offered no commentary about burning his sweaty footwear.
As the seconds passed, Anya seemed to fall into her submissive role. She set his shoes aside neatly and tucked the laces into them. She put his socks in the far corner with his sweaty t-shirt. Daniel lost the battle of wills with himself and started watching her again. A veil seemed to fall over her eyes as the angry, scared, temperamental Anya disappeared and a new placid, contented, submissive Anya took her place. At that moment, Daniel wasn’t sure which Anya he preferred.
Submissive Anya reached up and started to pull his track pants down.
That Anya. Definitely.
She kept her eyes respectfully lowered as she brought his pants all the way down. Daniel studied her as he stepped out them.
