AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Here and now, it was like being forced back together. Cauterized and sealed by heat. Painful. Intense. Undeniable.
And with his name on her lips, she came, her nails digging into him hard, her eyes closed tight, her entire body rigid. And he could do nothing but follow, his blood raging in his ears as he poured himself out, spent himself. And when it was over, he was left hollowed out and breathless, savaged by the flame that had just burned through him.
He started to move and her fingers dug into his shoulders again. “No. Stay. Don’t leave me. Please.”
“Julia…”
“I need you.”
And because no one had ever needed him before, he stayed.
* * *
Julia’s breathing slowly normalized as she say curled against Ferro’s bare chest. She had really, truly, just jumped him in his office, with the door unlocked. And she had really, truly, begged him to stay and clung to him like she was a koala bear.
And she was still clinging. She didn’t know what had come over her. No, she did know. He’d been so calm. Acting like nothing at all had happened between them and so she’d wanted to make it so he couldn’t ignore her. Couldn’t deny that something had happened, that things had changed. Because she felt altered. Completely and utterly altered and the fact that he didn’t just…sucked.
“I… Oh.” She stood up, and almost fell back down again. All the blood had now rushed to her head and her thighs felt like overcooked noodles, thanks to the workout she’d just gotten. “I don’t know what… I just… I did that.”
Ferro was still sitting there, naked at his desk. She had to turn away from him because looking at him was making her all hot again.
“Don’t ever apologize for your passion, Julia,” he said.
She turned to face him, her heart thundering. “I don’t.”
“You do. It’s beautiful. Don’t apologize for it.”
“This is…incredibly awkward. I don’t really know what to say to the guy I just sort of attacked.”
“Let me make a deal with you, Julia,” he said, leaning forward.
“What sort of deal?” She started hunting for her clothes, knowing she couldn’t just stand there all naked like it was casual and whatever. She was so not casual and whatever about being naked beneath the bright lights of Ferro’s office.
“I will teach you,” he said. “And you will accept my offer for a larger share of the Barrows deal.”
“No. I don’t want to deal like that.”
“I do. I need it, Julia. In exchange, you will be my lover.”
“We talked about this in Alaska.”
“But you denied me my terms, and I can’t have that. Neither can I seem to keep my hands off you. It’s unacceptable. That means this attraction has to be allowed to run its course. I need my control, Julia.”
“Ferro, I don’t think I can do that.”
“Trading your body is beneath you, cara mia?”
“But I would be with you for nothing.”
“Everything has a price, that’s how life works. That’s how I understand it.”
There was something horribly cold in his eyes, where before there had been heat. Something disconnected when for a moment she’d felt so close to him.
“Use me, Julia. I am offering to let you use me.”
“As you’ll use me?” she asked.
“Yes. But it is still not a balanced trade.”
“Why not?”
“The one with the power in bed, the one making the commands, is always in control. And I will give you your due for allowing me this.”
“But I want it,” she said. “I want it like that. It’s part of you teaching me.”
“It’s still not the same. This is…beyond me. Beyond my experience. I want you so much it makes me ache. I have never wanted like this. Always for me it’s been survival. When I bought things for my office, it was because I could. A way of proving that I could have everything those women had in their homes, those women who were so superior to me. Everything that was in shops that barred my entrance could belong to me now. That I owned a part of the world that did such damage to me. But it wasn’t because I wanted it. I hate this trash. Gaudy, pretentious. Utterly meaningless.” He moved his hand in a sweeping gesture and brushed a plaster bust off his desk, onto the hard floor where it shattered.
