by Luis, Maria
Slow heat thaws the perpetual chill in my bones when I say, “You should be thanking me, you know.”
“Is that so?”
His voice is deep, guttural, and matched with another deliberate perusal that starts at my feet and meanders its way up my thighs to the nip of my waist, and then, finally, to the delicate slope of my neck. I stave off a shudder. “Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because the man—the professor—that I-I—”
Saxon’s gaze collides with mine. “Say it.”
Heat of another kind kindles in my chest. Remorse. Shame. Disgust. “No.”
“This is why you first showed up to The Bell & Hand, isn’t it?” Slowly, he stalks toward me. One foot in front of the other, the soles of his shoes echoing in the quiet of the room. A predator on the hunt. My heart skips a beat, timed with his heavy step. “That first day you told me that you had a proposition for me. One that I couldn’t refuse.”
Unease coils in my belly, and I stumble back. “This isn’t—what happened today wasn’t . . . isn’t what I wanted—”
“Except that I saw you.”
With my heart in my throat, my stare leaps to his. “What?”
“Today,” he says, coming closer still, severing the distance between us with each long-legged stride that intimidates as successfully as it entices me to watch him and never look away, “I saw you, the real you.”
“I-I don’t understand.”
“It means that I underestimated you, Isla Quinn. When I had you slung over my shoulder, I underestimated you. When I had you cornered in the confessional, and you held your blade to my neck”—a dark smile curls his scarred mouth—“I never thought that you would actually slit my throat. I underestimated you then, too.”
“You didn’t. Not at all.”
He speaks over me, as though I haven’t said a word. “When we met, you said that you had something that I couldn’t refuse. It’s my own fault for not realizing you’d been offering yourself.”
In this moment, I despise him just as much as I hate myself. Silly, foolish me had honestly thought I could work for Saxon as a pay-for-hire. I’d killed once, hadn’t I? What stopped me from doing so again?
But now—but now—it’s so clear that I was absolutely delusional. My hand throbs from the knife fight and my heart hurts from taking another life, no matter that Coney tried to take mine first. In two months, I’ve not even managed to overcome the night terrors of what I did to King John. I toss and turn; I slip from bed and stare out the window for hours, as though expecting the king’s ghost to appear on my front stoop.
I’m being haunted, and hunted, and whatever I thought myself capable of just last week is clearly a moot point buried so far deep it’ll never resurface.
Saxon never underestimated me. Because, beneath all my bravado, I’ve never catered to the darkness lurking within. Until today.
I swallow, roughly. “I’m not a . . . I’m not a—”
“Say the word.”
Killer. Monster.
“I can’t,” I whisper, inching backward. Because then it’s true. Because then it’s real. Because then where do I go from here, knowing that I’m wholly irredeemable? “Saxon, I can’t.”
“Then I’ll say it for you,” he grits out, backing me against the wall. His hands land on either side of my head, blockading me in, and hell. His damp chest rubs against my breasts and his muscular thigh slips between my legs, trapping me in place. For a man who radiates a chill factor rivaling the Arctic, his skin is so hot I’m convinced that I might go up in flames.
“Murderer.” The word is uttered roughly next to my ear, for me and for me alone, even though there’s not another soul in this abandoned building. “It makes you ruthless. It makes you broken.”
I battle back a ferocious cry. “Wrong. It makes me strong.”
“Strong,” he murmurs, as though tasting the word on his tongue and finding it unpalatable. “Strong is strangling a man like you did today and finding no remorse, no part of your soul that feels fractured or missing for doing what had to be done. Strong is what you tell yourself when you’re fighting your own conscience.”
“Then that’s your definition, not mine.” When his nose grazes the shell of my ear, sensation erupts along my spine. Gooseflesh. Heat. Need. My hips curl out of their own volition, seeking his hardness. No! I freeze, immediately. Focus, Isla. Focus! “Obviously, we’re nothing alike.”
“And yet, just yesterday you said that we could be friends.” His hand drifts down, never touching my body. But oh, he comes close, so close, to the swell of my breasts, to the flare of my hips, until his fingers land on the wall beside mine.
“You turned me down,” I say, my brain threatening to short-circuit.
“So I did.” Blunt fingers circle my wrist and drag my hand up, pinning it above my head. The position forces me onto my toes, putting me at the disadvantage. He towers over me, surrounds me, until I see nothing of the shop beyond the broad stretch of his shoulders. Wide-eyed, my gaze flies to his, just as he murmurs, “Guy was right about me, you know. I don’t do pets; I don’t do friends.”
My fingers wriggle in his grip, but I’m not exactly pulling away. Because you want it. The heat. The tension. The taste of fear from the unknown. I swallow the truth, keeping it buried. “I don’t imagine your charming personality keeps people around long enough to find out if they’d want the same of you.”
His thumb presses on my inner wrist, as if testing the pace of my pulse. Fast. It’s pounding so, so fast, a fact that Saxon must know because his eyes gleam. “Ask me why, Isla. Ask me why I don’t want you as a friend, as a pet.”
The feminist in me wants to spit in his face for assuming that I’d want to be a “pet” to any man. Him, most especially. But the rest of me . . . the rest of me trembles, and the shaking isn’t rooted in fear. Heat blooms between my legs and, beneath the confines of my wet shirt, my nipples bead into hard, little points. If I give this man even a sliver of what he’s asking of me, I’ll surely drown.
But like when he ordered me to get in the car, or the confessional, or this blasted, run-down building, I succumb to the ice in his veins and the blistering heat that tethers us together.
“Tell me why,” I echo.
It’s not a question.
It’s not me falling to his feet and worshipping the very ground he walks on.
But it’s enough, because his jaw locks and his grasp on my hand tightens and his pale green eyes sear me on the spot. “Because I would take everything that you are and make it mine. Your beauty, your humanity, your fire. I’d fill every broken and misshapen part of me with you until there’s nothing left.” He laughs, a dark, gritty sound that tangles my fear and desire into a web that has no exit point, or understanding, but just is. “A man like me steals what he wants, Isla, and with every piece of you that I took, I would still demand more, until you begged me for freedom.”
The word DANGER might as well be dancing around us in neon lights. I close my eyes, breathing sharply to override the aching need in my core, and I see it: the danger. I open them, and meet green and yellow, and there, in his tempestuous gaze, resides danger at its most visceral.
If I were smart, I’d nail him in the balls and run for safety.
If I were smart, I would do anything but what I do next, which is lick my lips and whisper, “Tell me what you’d steal—from me. Tell me everything.”
His nostrils flare and then I feel it—him.
Oh, God.
Behind the prison of his wet trousers, Saxon’s hard-on is huge. He leans into me, giving me his whole weight, as well as the delicious outline of his cock against my stomach. Sweat coalesces on my back. Bloody hell, the devil has come out to play and I’m burning. I nearly whimper as I struggle, one-handed, to rid myself of my coat. Saxon rips it from me, and, to the chorus of this shouldn’t be happening singing in my brain, he repositions me against the wall, keeping me restrained.
“Your taste,” h
e growls, rolling his hips against me in a sensual glide that promises orgasms and good times for all, “right off the wet lips of your pussy.” I do whimper, then, and he takes my captive hand and splays it over my right breast, so that I’m cupping myself through my shirt. Beneath my fingers, my nipple pebbles. “Your cries,” he rasps, turning his gaze down to our hands. “I’d own them, each and every one. When you scream at the top of your lungs; when you’re rendered silent because my cock is stroking the back of your throat and it’s either scream or choke.”
Fuck.
Arching my back, I shove my breast into my palm, urging him to let me squeeze, to pinch my nipple. Something. Anything. Desperation rips a moan from my throat. “Saxon.”
His eyes darken.
A tick leaps to life in his square jaw.
In any other man, those small tells wouldn’t be enough to imply how much he wants this, wants me. But in this man—this cold, stoic man who breathes ice and detachment—those ticks reveal everything and more.
“What else?” I ask, shamelessly. “Saxon, what else?”
As one, he moves our joined hands south. We trace my stomach and detour left, to my hip, which Saxon makes me squeeze, as though, through my touch, he’s memorizing every line and contour of my body. Seemingly satisfied, he continues our downward path, over the waistband and metal tab of my trousers, past where I’m throbbing and needy, to my thigh.
“Squeeze,” he commands roughly, and I do. I clutch my inner thigh, letting his fingers slip between mine to graze the denim. It’s wet, painted to my skin from all the rain we trudged through. I can’t find it in myself to care, not when I’m hanging on by a thread, following Saxon’s every move.
I’ve lost my damn mind, is what this is.
And, as if he’s actually read my mind, he drags our hands up, centimeter by painstaking centimeter, until we’re covering the triangle between my legs and I’m shaking so hard that I might combust. He curls my hand, allowing me to cup myself. The slight pressure is everything and somehow not enough, all at once, and I throw my head back, ignoring the bite of the brick wall colliding with my skull because I need more. Right now, right here. I need more.
“Your will.”
Saliva gathers in my mouth. “What?”
He molds my hand within his, guiding me into a rocking motion that aligns the seam of my trousers with my clit. He’s manipulating my body, putting me exactly where he wants me, and the pleasure is so sharp, so acute, that all words take a hike and I simply exist. Here, with him, for as long as it’ll last.
“Just like that,” he grits out, “just like this. I’d make you want me, Isla. I’d make you beg. I’d make you so hard up to come that you’d do anything I demanded. And you would, no questions asked, because you’d get this in return.”
Pleasure slices through me, the orgasm so close that I ride my hand—Saxon’s hand—hard, fast, needy.
Please, please, please.
His hot breath fans over my temple. “I’d grab your hair, like sunshine captured in my fist, and fold you over my lap. Spread your legs, wide, to make room for my cock, your pussy so wet you’d take me in one thrust. And I would fuck you, Isla. I’d fuck you so hard that you’d always remember that it was me who did this to you, me who made you come undone. The man with no heart. The man you vowed that you would never, ever fuck. But you did, with my name on your lips—a prayer, penance—and—”
I come, as promised.
With his name on my tongue and our hands sandwiched between my legs, in a building that was meant to be a safe haven from the police but has become something else entirely. Something that I fear will be the death of me as I know myself.
“Tell me, Isla.”
My chest heaves raggedly. “You want me to beg.”
He removes our hands, keeping them clasped as he shifts them back to the wall. “I want to fuck you.”
“I thought you’d never sleep with a woman like me.”
“Ruthless. Broken.” His voice turns darker, grittier. “It’s what I see whenever I look in the mirror—today, I saw it in you.”
Is that how he sees himself? Misshapen? Broken? Ruthless? A lump grows in my throat. “Saxon, you can’t—”
“Let me steal that too.” His gaze drops to my mouth, lingering there. “I’m not gentle. I break everything I touch, but maybe—with you—I’d piece all the fractures back together. And, if not, then at least we’d be ruined together.”
Everything in me shouts to walk away.
He made me come, yes, but we could go back to our version of normal if we stop now. Right?
Except that I don’t want to stop.
I want to feel the ice chip away from his emotional armor. I want to feel his cock slam into me. I want him to take me, his soulless eyes locked on my face when he crashes his scarred mouth down on mine. I want all of him—the savior, the devil, and everything in between.
Even now, I feel myself growing wetter just at the thought.
“Yes.”
The obedient word slips out and Saxon smiles. It’s slow and not particularly kind but it’s laced with expectation and hunger, and if he were to demand that I get down on my knees, right now, I’d do it.
Except he doesn’t ask me to beg and he doesn’t ask me to get down on my knees. He only watches, trailing his heated gaze from my damp hair to my equally damp clothes, and then he growls a single word that sends a chill dancing down my spine.
“Strip.”
My heart thuds rapidly. “Here?”
“Here.”
“What about you? Turnaround is fair play.”
Something in his gaze shuts down, some of his always present coolness resettling into his expression. “Strip, Isla.”
I want to press for more but when he fingers the hem of my shirt, giving it a short tug that says more than a thousand words could, I concede. I strip. First my shirt, which I toss to the side. Then my thin bra, which I send in the same direction.
Warmth tears through me when I catch Saxon’s wide shoulders heave with a sharp inhalation, his cheeks crested red with lust. I’d once wondered what it would take to set a man like Saxon Priest on fire and now, I know.
Me.
All it takes is me.
Boldly, I cup my breasts, thumbing my stiff nipples. “What next?” I ask softly, as though I’m playing his game instead of orchestrating it.
Jaw clenched tight, his lips barely part when he makes his next demand. “Your finger—lick it.”
Like a good girl, I put my finger in my mouth and swirl my tongue around the tip, enjoying all too much how Saxon’s gaze flares. Oh, Mr. Priest, how easily the tides turn. With a pop, I give my finger a little twirl in the air to signal next-order-please.
Brows knitting together, the corner of his mouth hitches with competitive spirit. “Tell me, is that how you suck cock?”
I squeeze my legs together. “Never had any complaints before.”
It’s the wrong thing to say—I recognize the mistake immediately.
That half-smile on his face grows, wicked and predatory in its very essence. Swiftly, he clasps my still-wet finger and tugs my hand down to the button of his trousers. “Get on your knees.”
“Is this the moment where I beg for forgiveness for acting like a spoiled brat?” I ask, blatantly teasing him. “Should I cry? Shed a tear or two for dramatic effect?”
He hooks a hand around the nape of my neck, dragging me close. “No, this is the part where you admit that you’re scared.”
“And if I’m not?”
A small pause that I can’t decipher. And then, “You will be.”
Maybe it’s the conviction in his husky voice that does it or perhaps it’s the events of the day finally catching up with me, but I shiver—and Saxon notices. His expression shifts, stiffening, before he nods, as though coming to some decision. “On your knees, Isla.”
Slowly, I lower to the ground.
My trousers protect my skin from the dust and grime, but the
re’s no protecting the rest of me from what’s about to happen. We’re crossing a line—a line that can’t be redrawn. We aren’t friends. We aren’t really lovers, either. We’re two lonely people who faced death today and won.
Liar. That’s not all this is, and you know it.
With nervous fingers, I ignore the fluttering in my belly that tells me we’re feeding the beast instead of cutting off its head, the way we ought, and flick the button through the hole. The zipper sliding along metal teeth sings in my ears as I part his trousers. His briefs are black, much like his soul.
I drag my finger down his veiled length, secretly loving the way his cock twitches under my touch. “Tell me how you like it,” I say, my gaze locked on the thick crown already thrusting out from the top of his pants.
He curses beneath his breath, his palms settling on the back of my head.
Hooking my fingers over the elastic waistband, I tug the fabric down—and just barely hold in a gasp. He’s thicker than I expected—longer, too. The plump head already beads with pre-come and I have it on good authority that he wasn’t exaggerating when he said I’d scream or choke—doing both, simultaneously, would mean instant death.
“Open your mouth.”
I do him one better. Wrapping a hand around his base, I glide my tongue from root to tip, along the ridged vein that begs for attention. Saxon’s fingers tighten in my hair, tugging on the strands as though he’s torn between yanking me away completely and pressing me deeper.
Taking the choice for my own, I wrap my mouth around his crown, lapping the pearl of moisture away, and swallow him as deep as I can go.
“Fuck.” He releases a throaty groan that sounds wrenched from his soul. “Fuck.”
I lift my gaze to find that his is already locked on my face. Shock mingled with possession flits through his features, twisting his mouth in a snarl. Holding his stare, I draw him deeper, bobbing my head. I moan around his length because it seems like it’s something he might like, and yes, he absolutely does.
