But I knew the way Eric’s body, taut and lean, had filled out in all the right places. How many times in the last month had I given myself permission to admire the smattering of gold hair over his chest muscles, run my fingers over the flat plane of his stomach, enjoyed the sandpaper hum of his unshaved cheek against mine?
Eric’s gaze didn’t waver. Instead, it captured mine right back. Boys, they couldn’t look a girl like me in the eye. But Eric wasn’t a boy. He was a man.
And now I couldn’t look away if I tried.
“No,” I said. “You don’t.”
Present
“Don’t,” I moaned, though don’t what, I had no clue.
My stomach hurt. Everything contracted, like menstrual cramps times ten.
Other things hurt too. My thighs ached, like they were bruised or overworked. My lower back felt like it was on fire. What was happening to me?
“She looks terrible.” Carson again, his voice dripping with something else. Disgust, maybe. “Is it done?”
There was that question again. Was what done?
“It is,” Jude replied. “Well, it should be in progress. Anton inserted the pills after I gave her the sedative. Took a little too much pleasure in it, if you ask me. She fought uncommonly hard for someone under that much dope.”
There was a grunt. “Give her the Valium mixture once it’s finished. She won’t cooperate if she’s too upset.”
There was another uncomfortable shuffle. “You know, Titan, I don’t think I would be quite human if I didn’t voice at least some concerns about your…tactics.”
“That is not your concern, Hermes.”
“God knows I can’t claim much of a moral compass for myself, but really, is this necessary? Disciplining obedience, I understand, but I hardly see what the child—or her, for that matter—has to do with Goseong.”
A long pause. A few cracking knuckles.
“Triton needs…convincing. Of my authority, which he has repeatedly refused to acknowledge. And he was also warned explicitly about the costs of procreating. That’s personal, yes. Deeply so. Eric, however, is even more incalcitrant than his father.”
“Funny. I’d heard that Jacob was a good man, all things considered.”
There was a scuffle. A bang as some kind of furniture fell to the floor, the thud of a body slamming against the wall.
“All right, all right!” Jude squeaked in a strangled voice. “All right. Message received. Jacob de Vries was scum of the earth, that’s the party line. I get it!”
“Jacob de Vries never met a single possession of another man’s he didn’t covet or outright steal.” Carson’s voice was strained as well, almost as if the name itself was too much for him to say. “He was a thief. A liar. A scoundrel. He took absolutely anything he wanted.”
“You mean anything you wanted?”
Another scuffle. The sound of broken glass.
“A joke, a joke!” It seemed Jude couldn’t help poking any bear himself, even if it was one of the most dangerous men on the planet. “Terrible family, terrible man. Rid the earth of all of them, of course, of course.”
“Just finish it. You have Anton at your disposal. I have a rendezvous at the border. When I get back, I want everything cleaned up. Torch the buildings. Nothing left. The boy is en route, and I don’t want him distracted by any of the evidence. Is that clear?”
Jude must have nodded, because the next sounds were of a door opening and closing as Carson departed.
My stomach cramped again, this time making me moan. A bloodstain blooming across the white sheets.
“Help,” I whispered as I watched my body fall apart. The blood flowered, a garden of red. “Help!”
A shadow appeared in the doorway.
“Anton,” Jude called. “Come in here. It’s started.” He turned to me with equal parts disgust and pity. “I wonder,” he said, “what will Triton do when he finds you like this? Will he still want you, ruined? Will you be his ‘pretty girl’? Will you still be his ‘Jane’?”
2009
“Jane. Jane!”
I broke out of my daydream, lost as I had been in the hum of the crowd.
“Were you even listening to me?” Eric demanded, now visibly frustrated. “It’s one thing if you’re going to push me away, but if you’re just not interested at all, I’d like to know right fucking now.”
I blinked with sudden panic. “No. No! That’s not…sorry, I was just lost in thought.”
Eric frowned. “I don’t deserve this.”
But instead of leaving like I expected, he snaked a hand around my waist and jerked me off my stool. Then he covered my mouth with a searing kiss. Every cogent thought I had flew from my head, and all I could sense was him. His lush, hungry mouth, his grasping, seeking hands, his hard, strong body pressed completely against mine.
When we broke apart, we were both out of breath, heaving like we had just sprinted a mile.
“I’m trying here,” Eric said as he pressed his forehead to mine. “I’m trying to make something real with you. I haven’t done that in a very long fucking time, but with you, I want it again. So fucking bad. With you, Jane. Is that clear enough?”
I swallowed. I wanted to say yes. Oh, God, I wanted to say yes to him, to everything he claimed. I wanted to believe.
But the room came back into focus, and we were suddenly the center of attention. People were staring. Many with confusion. The same question written clearly across their curious faces that was constantly running through mine: What is he doing with her?
“Don’t look at them. Look at me.”
Eric’s voice was strong, solid. The vibration of it rumbled through his chest and into mine.
“Pretty girl. Look. At. Me.”
So I did.
His steely gray eyes held mine as his hands roved my body, hiding nothing from any onlookers. His kiss swallowed me whole, daring me to think or feel anything else but him.
My cracks gaped.
My heart expanded.
Maybe the world was wider than I thought. I was so young, after all. Maybe this was what it meant to grow up.
13
2009
We toppled into my apartment, a writhing mass of arms and legs and mouths, our voices punctuating the dark through hot breaths and torrid kisses.
“Is Skylar here?” Eric heaved.
I barely managed to lock the door before I was shoved against it. “She’s in New York.”
Eric’s teeth found my neck with a sharp bite. I jumped, but he just held me tighter, his front pressed against my back, cock pressed against the curve of my ass.
“You’re such a vampire,” I teased when he nipped me again. “Ah!”
“Fair enough. I’d probably eat you alive if I could.” His teeth scraped over my pulse. “You are pretty fucking addictive, gorgeous.”
Before I could respond, I was flipped around, back to the door. With a movement that belied arms stronger than they looked, Eric picked me up and wrapped my legs around his hips.
“Not wasting any time, are you?” I asked playfully as he carried me into my bedroom. “Ahh!” I shrieked as he tossed me onto the bed.
“Get undressed,” he ordered. “You’ve made me wait long enough tonight. Do you know how hard I was, watching you dance?”
I raised an eyebrow as I rolled off the other side of the bed and stood up. “Come off it. I’m a terrible dancer.”
“You’re very…vigorous. And you sweat enough that your shirt was practically transparent by the end of the stupid concert.”
I looked down. Shit. He wasn’t wrong.
“Jane,” Eric said. “Take off your fucking clothes.”
For once in my life, I did as I was told, yanking off my boots, jeans, ripped t-shirt, tripping over things when I caught a look at him also hurrying out of his own garments. God, he was beautiful. Long, lean, fully formed. Not gangly like so many men my age, nor stacked with unnecessary muscle or bulk. He was…perfect. With one particularly pe
rfect appendage that I couldn’t help but crave as he removed the last of his clothing.
Eric noticed me ogling, and with a smirk, pushed his hair back from his face. “You have a condom?”
I sucked on my lower lip as I knelt on the bed. “How about a box? You know I’m always prepared, Petri dish.”
He rolled his eyes, then crawled across the mattress toward me. “Don’t remind me.”
“Do you need to double up?” I teased even as my hands naturally found his waist. His erection slid between my legs, hard and as ready as I was. Lord, it would be so easy for him just to slip in with nothing at all.
For my impertinence, I received a sharp pinch at the waist.
“Enough of that,” Eric ordered as he delivered a light swat on my ass. “Right now it’s time for some retribution.”
“Retribution? For what, pray tell?”
Another nip at my shoulder. Another sharp suck on my neck.
“For making me wait. Where’s the condom?”
I reached over to my nightstand and procured said condom, which Eric promptly rolled over his cock. Roughly, he shoved me to the bed, then arranged my legs around his waist so that the tip of him just teased my entrance. I arched my hips toward him, not willing to wait any more than he wanted to.
But his hands kept my thighs in place with an iron grip. Once I gave up the fight, one slid up my stomach between my breasts. His fingers spread wide across my chest, sliding up my skin gradually until they encircled the base of my throat. Eric looked me over, like a hunter appraising his kill. His cock twitched, just barely teasing me. I moaned.
He slid inside, maybe an inch, maybe less. The hand around my throat tightened.
“Have you ever used a safe word, Jane?” Eric asked. All humor had disappeared from his face, his tone. His eyes were sharp with desire…and something else. Something slightly dangerous. Something that called to my bones.
I stilled. I was young, but not completely ignorant. After playing it pretty damn safe through high school, I had gone a little nuts, exploring the sides of my identity that would have horrified my mother and gravely disappointed my genial-to-a-fault father. Chicago was a big pool to swim in. There were so many fish. Band members, TAs, frat boys, football players. They all had a little something different to offer. And they were usually more than willing to let me take what I needed and move on.
Safe words, though? They hadn’t really been a part of those…fishing expeditions.
“Have—have you?” I asked.
I had heard about situations like this. Dominants. Submissives. Secret underground lairs where men and women explored their kinks and penchants for leather and chaps safely. But hearing and seeing weren’t the same thing. And seeing and experiencing were miles apart.
Eric was suddenly guarded. “No. I haven’t been with anyone who’s…inspired them.”
What did that mean? Not for the first time, I wondered just how experienced Eric really was. He had moves that no man under the age of forty really should know.
I cleared my throat. His hand fell away. He sat back up suddenly, palms up on his knees in a strangely meditative posture.
“What if I told you that when I’m with you, I think about shit that has never crossed my mind before. Not with anyone.” He exhaled sharply. “It makes me…distracted.”
I swallowed and eyed him back, wondering if I should just come clean. What would Eric, this clean-cut image of perfection, say if I told him I imagined him tying me up on the floor and leaving me there, just to show me he could? That more than once I’d pleasured myself in the shower or late at night with thoughts of his hand pinking my thighs, fingernails scraping lines down my shoulder, or palm delivering a harsh slap across my face? That I’d spent more time recently perusing whips and floggers on a sex toy website than studying for our upcoming final exams?
Distracted. Yeah. He wasn’t the only one having unfamiliar fantasies.
Eric leaned in so that his nose touched mine. His hand returned to my throat. He was caging me completely—assuming complete and utter control.
“I’m becoming a man obsessed.” His voice rumbled against my skin, low, and sounding much older than his twenty-three-ish years.
“Is that healthy?” I wondered, though my voice was growing weak all over again.
“Is it healthy to deny yourself a basic need?” he asked. “That’s what it’s starting to feel like. What you are starting to feel like.”
I swallowed again, this time with more difficulty. My hands were in his hair now, gripping tightly. Whether I was keeping his mouth close or holding him away, I wasn’t completely sure. But I wanted…oh, God, I wanted more.
“I think…” he said as his fingers returned to my neck, pads pressing into my skin as if testing their imprints, one at a time. “If you’re willing…we should try it.”
“A safe word?” I asked. “What are you planning to do that would require me to have one?”
He inhaled, like a predator finding his prey after days on the hunt, but still holding off the impulse to simply dive into the feed. “I’m not sure yet. But you can trust me. Just…look, you let me do…whatever I’m going to do…and if you don’t like it, you say the word. And I stop. No questions asked.” He pulled back once more, the quick movement making his blond hair flop boyishly across his forehead. His eyes were suddenly earnest. “Call it a new beginning. Isn’t that what tonight is?”
I considered the tickets. The book. The fact that he had been waiting there for me, waiting to adore me in front of everyone we knew and everyone we didn’t.
Maybe he was for real.
Maybe people like me could find happy endings.
Or one. With him.
I tipped my face up and licked his lips. Eric growled again, and his other hand tightened on my thigh.
“What’s the word, pretty girl?”
I smirked. “Erie.”
He frowned, and I almost started laughing.
“As in scary?”
I shook my head, chuckling. “As in the lake. My folks like to visit there. I have very not sexy memories associated with family vacations.”
He considered it for a moment, then nodded with a chuckle. “Erie. Okay?”
Somewhat nervously, I nodded. “Okay.”
And then, before I could say anything more, he covered my mouth with a kiss that recalled all of the ferocity with which we entered the apartment. Eric stole my breath, and it had nothing to do with the iron palm at my throat.
I was completely at his mercy, and I had never been more turned on.
“Is it fucked up how I want every bit of your pleasure?” he asked as he sat back up, though the hand at my neck held me down.
His cock found my entrance and slipped in again, just slightly. He stared at it, his fingers tightening under my jaw, his thumb finding my clit. I gasped, feeling the excitement of ecstasy and alarm flooding my system. Who knew sex could be like this? So exciting. So all-consuming?
I shook my head. He wanted my pleasure? Well, I wanted him to have it. For the first time in my life, I was actually able to give some control to someone else. Without thinking too hard about exactly why I would want that—the effects of living in a society that always wanted to control me undoubtedly had something to do with it—I could freely and safely embrace the fact that I did.
The idea was intoxicating.
Eric pushed in deeper, finding his seat within my heat. Slowly. Methodically. The hand around my throat tightened a bit more while the other one intensified its movements over my clit. He started to move, started to drive me with each thrust, each pull. Mine, they all seemed to say as his eyes traveled over me, taking in each subtle response I gave to his ministrations. All mine.
It was too much. It was almost too much to bear. I squeezed my eyes shut. And for that, I was rewarded with a sharp slap across my cheek, followed by a tingling that seemed to be linked directly to the heat emanating from where our bodies met. I jerked, my entire body arching up un
der his as my eyes shot open again.
“Jane.” Eric’s voice was an omen. A promise.
I struggled slightly, fighting his touch. But he held me in place, constricted me deliciously against the mattress. His hands, his body, his cock all pinned me in place. There was no escape from this. My fight was only for me.
“Don’t you look away, gorgeous. Don’t you dare look away from me when I’m fucking you.”
Eric pushed forward harder, spearing me completely. The hand around my throat tightened that much more.
“Why?” I demanded, nearly having to croak. “Why does it matter so much that I watch?”
He stilled, hand braced around my neck, cock throbbing between my legs.
Then he bent down and kissed me, slipping his tongue in to taste all parts of me. He pinched my clit and drove deeper than he ever had before.
“Because,” he whispered. “I’m going to fall apart here, pretty girl. And I need to know you’ve got me when I do.”
“Oh!” I cried as I came suddenly, without warning, like a clap of thunder in a rainstorm. “Oh, God!”
Present
“Oh, God!”
The words escaped with a tortured breath as the world swam around me, luminous shapeless figures in a sea of dusty white cold.
It hurt. Everything hurt. I was a mess of pain.
“Help her! She needs help!”
My mother’s voice was throttled, a shredded version of its normal ferocity. I opened my eyes, and a blurry figure waved from a dark lump across the room. The room was a static rendition of itself, like an analog TV set with poor reception.
I moaned again and turned over, clutching my slick belly as another round of throbbing pain seized my midsection. “Ummmmmmm.”
Footsteps slapped the tile and pounded through my head. Harsh hands turned me onto my back and yanked the blankets from me. The cold wrapped me in its frigid grip, contacting the wet mess and wracking my body with shivers.
The Love Trap (Quicksilver Book 3) Page 12