by Geneva Lee
My mouth fell open, mirroring the reporter’s. She didn’t know that. No one knew that. Because it was a lie.
The woman recovered and gave a half-hearted look of sympathy. “We hope she’s feeling better soon.”
“I’ll tell her that,” he said smoothly, “when I speak with her tonight.” His eyes pierced through the camera. How could he know I was watching?
“So…” Belle trailed off as the show went to commercial.
I clicked off the television and tried to find the words. There were plenty of them rushing through my mind at the moment. I cursed and fell back on the sofa with an exasperated sigh.
“You have to talk to him.”
“Do you think?” I snapped, closing my eyes and trying to center myself. She was right, and I was being bitchy. “I know.”
“I won’t wait up,” Belle said. “But try to call me sometime this weekend.”
“I’m not going to just disappear,” I promised her. “It’s over between us.”
“Why?” she asked. It was such a simple question, but it shredded me. Probably because I’d been asking myself the same thing.
“Because it has to be,” I whispered.
She didn’t say anything. We both knew I was lying to myself, but the wonderful thing about best friends is that they know when to push and they know when to shut up. “Call me.”
“No promises,” I warned her before ending the call. Talking to Alexander meant walking into the lion’s den. Who knew what would happen once I was inside?
I sat in silence. Twenty minutes ago I’d wanted peace and quiet. Now I could almost swear I heard each second tick by, counting down to the inevitable.
Chapter Six
My hands shook as I unlatched the gate and made my way to the front door. I’d only been here once before, and I hadn’t thought I’d return again. But I knew he’d returned to this house this evening. Waiting for Bennett to come home had nearly killed me, but now I was back at the one place I’d never wanted to be. The paving stones under my feet felt uneven as though any moment they might flip and turn my world upside down. Of course, that had already happened.
I should have been surprised that he’d called my bluff in such a public way, or at least shocked by his audacity, but I wasn’t. Had I been stupid enough to think Alexander would take no for an answer? But if he thought he could lie and pretend nothing was wrong between us, he had another thing coming. I’d walked out of here for a reason. It was the same reason that I’d managed to avoid him for nearly two months.
There was a deadline on our relationship—a ticking time bomb that lust, or even love, couldn’t defuse. His family had expectations for his marriage, and I’d grown up in the twenty-first century. I wasn’t about to become his mistress.
The door swung open before I’d climbed the final step, and there he was, still dressed in his evening attire. His bow tie hung loose around his unbuttoned collar, revealing the neck that I longed to run my lips down. I pushed the thought down into the darkest recesses of my mind and willed myself to maintain control. This wouldn’t be like the night at Brimstone. It couldn’t be—not after what he’d said and done.
“Expecting me?” I asked dryly, crossing my arms protectively over my chest and doing my best to ignore how my nipples stiffened at the slight contact. My body was a traitor in his midst, always responding to him.
Always ready for him.
Alexander stepped to the side, motioning for me to enter, but I froze on the stoop as his eyes raked down my body. The long, purposeful look, as though he was planning how to devour me, heated my blood until flames of desire licked across my skin. I knew this look, and I knew the second I stepped through the door I would be at his mercy.
And Alexander was not a merciful man.
“I’d hoped you would come.” He slipped his tux jacket off his shoulders and stepped forward to wrap it around me, but I backed away, nearly stumbling as my heel came too close to the edge of the step. Was this his plan? To kill me with kindness? To wrap a warm jacket around my shoulders and blanket me in the heady scent of him until I fell back into his arms? Because I knew it would work if I let him enact it. Alexander was a wolf in gentleman’s clothing, and I wasn’t a stupid sheep. I wouldn’t be such easy prey this time.
“You must have known I was coming. I didn’t even have to knock,” I said, each word more biting than the last. “Did you have someone follow me?”
“Clara.” His tone was filled with warning, but I raised my eyebrow, forcing him to add, “What I do is for your protection.”
“What you do is a cry for help! Has anyone told you that you have control issues?”
His lips twitched, but he kept the smile off his face. “Many times. But we’ve had this argument before. Tell me why you’re angry now.”
“Saying something in front of a camera doesn’t make it true. I don’t live here.” Though even as I spoke, my heart twisted. I could live here—with him. I shook my head, trying to keep my thoughts clear even in his intoxicating presence.
“You needed a commitment,” he reminded me in a low voice that dripped with sex, “and I want to give you what you need.”
“Christ, X!” I threw my hands up in the air and stomped into the house, telling myself I wouldn’t go past the foyer. “I needed you to be honest with me. That’s all I’ve needed from the beginning, but it’s been one lie after another.”
“Secrets are not lies.” His eyes flashed and he turned away, closing the door behind him. My heart jumped as the lock clicked into place. I’d stepped over the threshold into his domain and now he had me caged.
“And what was tonight?” I demanded. “What was the point of telling those leeches that I live here?”
“You wanted a commitment,” he repeated, “and I gave it to you.”
“Can you for one fucking second not be such a politician? I know you were bred to be one, but I’m sick of the spin, Your Majesty. You can’t sell telling a lie as doing me a favor.”
Alexander whirled toward me, grabbing my wrists and clasping them behind my back. His body pressed against mine, unleashing a torrent of longing that surged through my core. “This is not about who I am or who I will become. This is about you and me. Right here. Right now.”
A moan escaped my lips as his hips ground his erection against my belly. Even through our clothes I felt the heat of it. “You and me. Clara and Alexander. Who cares what the outside world thinks?”
“You do,” I breathed.
He released his grip on me, stepping back as though I had slapped him.
“You do,” I repeated more firmly. Now that he wasn’t touching me, I could almost think clearly again. Almost.
“I care what you think,” he said flatly, his words daring me to contradict him.
“If you cared what I thought, we wouldn’t be standing here having this argument.” But where would we be? Would I be here with him tonight? In his bed and living a lie? Or would things have ever gotten this far between us? Maybe it was naive to believe things could be different between us, but I couldn’t help thinking that if he did care, we would either be blissfully happy or long over.
Alexander moved toward me and I retreated until my back made contact with the wall. If he noticed that he’d cornered me, he didn’t show it. His blue eyes blazed like the edge of an inferno, and if I let him get much closer, I would be consumed by the fire burning through him. “I warned you away. I warned you about me.”
“And you took me anyway,” I accused. The indictment was pitiful at best. He had warned me and I’d chosen to take the risk. I’d plunged into this relationship with eyes wide open. That certainly meant I had no one to blame but myself.
“I took what you gave, poppet.” His thumb trailed over my lower lip, pushing between my teeth and opening my mouth. “You gave me this mouth. Don’t you remember?”
I swallowed instinctively—protectively—and my mouth closed over his finger for a moment. He seized the opportunity, plunging hi
s thumb against my tongue as though urging me to suck it, and I gasped at the familiar taste of him.
“You gave me this pretty little mouth to fuck,” he said as he pulled his thumb from it. “Your mouth remembers that. It remembers my cock pumping inside of it.”
I wanted to tell him he was wrong, but he’d seen the proof. I hadn’t been able to control my response—my desire. If he’d shoved me down on my knees and thrust his crown to my lips, I would have taken it and sucked him off. It was instinct—uncontrollable, animalistic instinct. But although Alexander might be a wolf, he wasn’t about to take advantage of that. We were playing a dangerous game. He was betting he could seduce me back into his bed and I was gambling that he couldn’t. Someone was going to walk away a loser.
Alexander shifted closer, his hand slipping under the hem of my shirt, but he didn’t stray past my navel. “Feel how your body responds to my touch,” he instructed me, “and then look me in the eye and tell me you don’t want me to take you upstairs to fuck you.”
I set my jaw and raised my gaze to his, forcing the words past my lips. “I don’t want you to fuck me.”
“You’re a terrible liar, Clara.” He laughed as his hand slid down and past my waistband, his fingers massaging through the lace of my panties. “You’re so fucking wet for me. Drenched. Are you always this wet when you don’t want to fuck?”
He knew the answer to that, because he knew my body well. Too well. He knew that all he needed was to run one finger over my skin and I’d respond. Alexander removed his hand from my panties and trailed his wet fingers down my bare throat. “That’s what you want. Now tell me. Which one of us is lying?”
“Maybe you’re right,” I admitted with a whimper. “Maybe I want you to fuck me, but I don’t need you to.”
His eyes closed and he dropped his forehead against mine. Our skin was slick from the subtle tug-of-war we were engaged in, and with him this close, I breathed in his scent, lost in his brutal, unadulterated sexuality. “You don’t need to fuck me. You never have,” he whispered, sending goose bumps tickling across my skin. “But I need to fuck you. I need to be inside you. I don’t know how to show you any other way. I don’t know any other way to show you that I need you.”
My lips crashed into his, my control obliterated by his confession. I’d spent months telling myself no and going through the motions, and I couldn’t do it any longer. Maybe I didn’t need Alexander, but I couldn’t deny I wanted him. His body. His words. His heart. I’d fooled myself into believing that if he couldn’t say it, he didn’t feel it. But had he been showing me all along?
Alexander shoved my pants down, lifting me up and out of them before I’d even entirely processed that we were kissing. I broke away, my chest heaving as I shook my head. “This doesn’t change the fact that I don’t live here.”
“I think you’ll find I can persuade you.” His lips slanted over mine before I could protest further. He dropped me back to my feet and pulled away. I watched, mesmerized, as he unbuckled his pants and pushed them to the floor. Running his fingers across the low neckline of my shirt, he paused with deliberation, then wrenched the fabric with his hands, ripping through the thin garment to reveal my bra. Without hesitation, his thumbs scooped under my breasts and popped them free of the restrictive lace. The rough pads of his fingers circled across the sensitive tips. My nipples hardened under his caress, stirring an ache that tightened in my chest.
“Has anyone touched you like this?” he asked. His breath was hot on my neck as he caught my earlobe between his teeth. Nibbling teasingly, he sucked it as he continued to fondle my breasts. The world around me swam, making it impossible to think, but I still knew my answer.
“No.” No one had touched me like this since I left him here. No one had ever touched me like this.
“Because you are mine,” he growled, his hands capturing my hips and lifting me against the wall. “And I am yours.”
He thrust inside me without warning, and despite the aching readiness of my sex, the rough entry tore through me as though he had cleaved me in two. I gasped and clung to him, allowing him to anchor me at my very core.
“You know what to say, and I’ll stop.” He rolled his hips, giving me the chance to utter my safe word. But I didn’t want him to stop, and he knew it. Alexander’s groin rocked into me, his shaft lodged snugly between my folds. Then he began to move, slowly at first. Each thrust was cautious and forceful at the same time. He was still waiting for my response.
“Alexander,” I breathed in welcome, and he responded by pumping swiftly in and out of me, leaving me breathlessly dangling between reason and ecstasy.
“You’re so tight,” he grunted between gritted teeth as he held me against the wall and drove into me with relentless abandon. “So fucking wet and so fucking tight like you’ve been waiting for me.”
“Oh god!” The cry spilled from my lips as he filled me. I had been waiting. Unable to move forward and desperate to not look back. I’d been hiding from him—from this—because it scared me, and as the pleasure ripped through my body, tightening and exploding through my limbs, the intensity mixed with that fear. I dug my fingernails into his back, clutching onto him as if he might vanish any second. My body spiraled into terrifying pleasure, lost in an abyss of reckless delirium. There was no hope. I was lost at sea and Alexander was pulling me under, luring me toward the dark, inescapable depths of our passion.
“Say it,” he commanded as I struggled to breathe.
“I love you.” The words were small, nearly lost in our frenzied lovemaking, but Alexander’s head dropped to my shoulder as they fluttered from my mouth. He groaned as violent spurts lashed inside my velvet channel, draining his seed and the last of my resistance.
Chapter Seven
Alexander lowered my feet to the floor, one hand remaining on my back to steady me. It was a good thing, too, because after that orgasm my legs were shaking like a newborn colt’s. He pressed his forehead to mine, sweeping a soft kiss over my lips, and I sensed the relief and fear in his touch. It mirrored my own. How was it possible that I couldn’t live without him, even when our whole relationship was tainted by dishonesty and repression?
“Stop thinking, Clara,” he commanded in a husky voice. His hand dropped lower, cupping my ass and hoisting me into the air. I wrapped my legs around his waist willingly. Desperately. This was how Alexander and I communicated best–through thrusts and sweat and moans. I needed the reassurance of his touch.
He carried me as far as the hardwood stairs before he lost patience. “I need to taste you.”
Setting me gently down on a step, he was decidedly ungentle as he pushed my legs open. His lips trailed along my inner thigh, teasing me with slow, deliberate kisses. My head lolled back, his tongue erasing the conscious world. There was only this. Only him. Only his mouth closing over my sensitive clit, his tongue circling it with erotic precision. I was lost to him. I thought I could conquer my feelings for him, but he had conquered me.
My muscles tightened in expectation, but my body ached. Even with his mouth closed over my sex, I felt hollow and unfulfilled. It didn’t matter that he’d been inside of me only moments ago, I was desperate for him to fuck me. Desperate for physical proof of our connection—the only proof I’d ever really had. I pushed against him, trying to stop him, but he ignored me. A moan escaped my mouth as I fought against the pleasure. This wasn’t how I wanted to climax.
“Stop.” My plea was nearly lost to another whimper as he sucked my clit hungrily. “I want you…I want you inside me.”
Alexander stopped and his face appeared before mine, his eyes blazing. “I say how you will come, poppet.” He dropped back between my legs, his hands wrapping possessively around my thighs.
I wanted to come, and I knew soon I wouldn’t have a choice in the matter as another wave of pleasure coursed through me. There was only one way to show him I was serious—to show him that I needed more. I needed him. “Brimstone.”
His respons
e was immediate. Alexander drew away, sitting back on his heels. Pain glinted in his eyes. If he was angry that I’d used my safe word, he didn’t show it. Instead he looked cautious, but under the veneer of control, I saw the wildness in his eyes. He was an animal—a mass of raw sensuality—and I had caged him.
Still he had stopped when I asked. Considering the delicate state of our trust, it comforted me to know he took the gift of my submission seriously. Baby steps.
No words passed between us, but I could hear the unspoken question in his eyes. Why had I stopped him?
Had he crossed the line?
My heart broke a little to see the anguish on his face. Alexander was scared to love. He was scared he would destroy me, and now I’d used what was supposed to be a last resort: my safe word. But I needed more than a quick screw on the stairs—we both needed more than that. I stood, my knees still shaky from our frenzied lovemaking, and held out my hand. I knew he would take it. Just as I had taken it the other night at Brimstone. We were powerless to one another. Control and dominance were merely a ruse to cover our feelings for each other. Neither of us could be certain what would happen if we let it slip away. I’d caught glimpses of the man behind the mask before. He was raw and broken, and in those moments he consumed me.
Alexander’s eyes met mine as he gently took my hand.
“It’s okay,” I murmured, feeling the need to reassure him and perhaps to also reassure myself.
I’d stayed one night here weeks ago, but the memory of this house was seared into my brain. During particularly lonely nights, I replayed the moments I spent here until I was too numb to cry. I knew exactly where the bedroom was and I silently led him there. My heart pounded, sending blood roaring through my ears. This place—this house—had been my nightmare for so long, but it had also been my fantasy. Now that I was here with him I didn’t know how to feel. Love and fear commingled in my blood. I had to trust my heart. I’d spent the last few months trying to ignore it.