by Maisey Yates
She had loved an illusion. And now before her was the man. Or part of him anyway. She wanted the rest. She wanted all of him. She wanted to know him. To know the things about him even he didn’t know, the things he wouldn’t acknowledge.
And she realized something suddenly. That she was selling them both short. Yes, she’d purposed not to protect herself quite so much. To view him with realism. To accept he couldn’t love her. That he couldn’t love.
And in turn, she wouldn’t love him. She wouldn’t be vulnerable to him. She wouldn’t give what she couldn’t get.
She was taking half willingly. Pushing him for nothing, because if she pushed him for emotion, for love, she would have to acknowledge that she wanted it. That she wanted more than sex and companionship.
She would expose herself to the kind of pain the media had never come close to doling out.
She had just thought of him as a man denying himself, but was she any better? She was protecting herself. Protecting herself by denying a piece of her that was bound up, gasping for breath.
The part of herself who believed she deserved to try for it all, pain be damned. Who believed her happiness was worth risking her heart. Who believed Ajax’s happiness was worth risking her heart.
“So...” She swallowed. “What you’re saying is, if you could go back to the moment you proposed, knowing what you know now...you would ask me instead?”
He nodded slowly, still swaying, almost in time with the music. “Yes.”
She sucked in a sharp breath. “I...I’m not sure I would say yes.”
His brows locked together. “Why?”
It was time to let her guard down. Really. It was time to have expectations. To believe she could make him change. To believe she wasn’t the Backup Bride.
“You give this big talk about knowing me, Ajax, but I don’t feel like I know you. I can’t even explore your body when we’re in bed together. Which means...you don’t really know me, either. You have me on a leash. Following your rules so you can hang on to that control you love so much.”
“I don’t mean to leash you, Leah. It’s myself that I—”
“That might be what you mean to be doing, but the fact is, when you impose rules like that, stop me from doing what I want, from showing you what I want, you’re only making me the person you expect me to be, the person you think you need me to be. Rather than the person I am. No wonder it’s been so good for you. But you could have what you have with me with any other woman. Any obedient woman, that is.”
He spun her out from his body, then pulled her back in, dipping his face close to hers.
“Not bad,” she said.
“Thank you, I learn fast.”
“Yes, you do.”
“So you think I don’t allow you to be who you are? Have I stopped you from saying...any and everything that comes to your mind? You, daily, take strips off me with your tongue, my dear, and I’ve hardly done anything about that, now, have I?”
Yes, she’d done that. Often. Self-protection. An attempt to push him away. To derail him. But she wasn’t doing that now.
She gritted her teeth and pulled her fingers from his, took her hand from his shoulders and cupped his face. He stopped moving, his expression confused. She found it endearing. That big strong Ajax Kouros was confused by little ol’ her.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I do that because sometimes when you hurt my feelings it’s easier to yell at you than it is to show you that I’m hurt. And tonight, Ajax, just tonight, mind you—I can’t put a moratorium on the sarcasm forever—I’m going to stop. But I need something in return.”
“What?”
“I need you to play by my rules. Just for tonight.”
“After everything I told you about me?” he asked, his voice rough.
“If you lose control are you going to hurt me?”
He looked scared. Haunted. “I don’t know.”
“I do. You won’t. That isn’t what you are. Men who delight in hurting women...it’s not about desire. Or losing control because they’re around a woman they can’t resist. Those are lies. Those men want to hurt. They want to make themselves powerful. I have never seen those desires in you.”
“Leah...”
“My rules, okay, not yours. Tonight. Come on, you’re already dancing. It’s nothing but a little quickstep to hell after this. We might as well have some fun on the way.”
“What are your rules?” he asked. His face was like stone, immobile, unreadable.
She leaned in, her lips touching his ear. “I was thinking, my hands, untied. And I get to do whatever I want to you. And Ajax, my darling, I have about ten years’ worth of fantasies stored up for you.”
“Ten years?”
“All right, we’ll skip the early years. That was a lot of running through meadows and you braiding flowers in my hair. But things started getting good about the time I was sixteen.”
“Fantasies? About me?”
She smiled. “You didn’t think I left candy on your desk just to be nice, did you?”
“I did, yes. It meant a lot to me, as I said. Are you telling me you were baiting me?”
“A little candy trail that I hoped might lead you to my bed.”
“Subtle,” he said. “Too subtle.”
“I realize that now.”
He frowned. “Why me?”
“Because I thought you were perfect. And gorgeous. I was wrong.”
His frown deepened. “Were you?”
“Not about the gorgeous part, about the perfect part. I made you something in my head that I shouldn’t have. You aren’t perfect, Ajax. But the thing is, I’m not a girl anymore. And I don’t need you to be perfect.”
“What do you need?” he asked, an edge of desperation to his voice.
“I just need you. The man you are. The man you have become because of your mistakes. Because of your scars. Not the man you are with all those chains on, but the man you are.”
“You say that, Leah, but you don’t know.”
“You told me.”
“I told you who I saw myself becoming, and why, but I don’t even know what would happen now...I don’t even know if I could change the way I do things, the way I see things. And I doubt you would like me if I did.”
“Here’s the thing—I don’t know if I would, either. But you have to give me a chance to know you. Give yourself the chance to be you. And I’ll give you a chance to know me.”
He lifted his hand, cupped her cheek, then slid his fingers through her hair, letting the strands fall around her face. “But there is every chance that once you know me, you won’t like me.”
She took his hand and turned his palm toward her face, pressing a kiss to his skin. “Ajax, you danced for me. So that the press wouldn’t say horrible things about me. I like what I know of you. A lot.”
“Even knowing my past?”
“Your past breaks my heart. I can’t imagine what it must have been like to be a child in a place like that. To have a father like that.”
“What if...what if you dig so deep, Leah, deep inside of me, and you find out the darkness just keeps going? That there’s no end to it. What if this is all I am?”
She blinked back the tears that were stinging her eyes. And she didn’t try that hard to hold them back. Her heart ached, her throat burning.
Because she didn’t know the answer to that question. If her husband could only ever give her this, what would it mean? If, after deciding to give it all, she could only get crumbs in return, what would she do?
It made her want to fold in on herself and start building new armor. To push him away. To retreat into a place where she was safe. From comparisons made by him, made by the media. From the deep fear that one day she would look into his eyes, searching for the
truth of his feelings, and see nothing. From anything that might hurt her.
But she couldn’t do that. Not now. Never again.
“Then I will take everything you are,” she said, the words heavy on her tongue. The vow heavy in her heart, on her shoulders. Because in that moment she knew it was true. And she knew she couldn’t go back on it.
But as she looked into his dark, fathomless eyes she wished she could. She wished some other man had claimed her heart years ago so that she wasn’t so vulnerable to this one.
But there was no other man. There was only Ajax. It had always been that way, and she knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that it always would be.
* * *
Every muscle in Ajax’s body was locked tight, ready to release at any moment. To pounce on Leah, maybe? Or to run. That was the other possibility.
They’d driven back to the penthouse in total silence, Leah wringing her hands in the seat next to him, looking out the window and most definitely not at him. And he wondered if she was already regretting what she’d asked of him.
He was at war. He wanted her. Wanted her hands all over his body, her mouth on him. But he knew that if that happened, in one blinding moment years of hard-won control could be undone, and he might never get it back.
That he could become the monster he had always feared he was.
The beast he kept chained inside of him, was him. He knew it, had always known it. And it terrified him down to his soul. That if he ever let it go, those parts of himself would meld back together, and there would be no more separating it.
That he would become the thing he hated most. Oh, he didn’t think he would become a drug lord. But a man consumed by the desire for power? For success? At the expense of all else?
Yes, that lived in him. That horrible, conscienceless drive lived in him. Strong and black, seeking to devour whatever it could on the path to success. Not just success, to ultimate, unquestionable power, and damn who was hurt in the process.
He didn’t want that to have free rein. Ever.
But now he was standing in the bedroom at his penthouse, and Leah was looking at him with wide golden eyes, fringed with dark lashes. Her lips were painted red, her dress, a deep green, molded to her curves, and he stood ready to trade everything in for the chance to taste her with no limits.
To have her with no ties to hold her back.
Yes, that was what he wanted. So badly he ached with it. And he didn’t have the power to fight it anymore. Suddenly, having her seemed to be the most essential thing he could imagine. The embodiment of a dream, buried so deep, for so long, that unearthing it was nearly painful.
“Show me, Leah,” he said. “Show me what you want. Show me who you are.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
“YOU FIRST.” SHE tilted her chin up, her hip cocked to the side, her eyes glittering. “I feel like I’ve been doing a lot of giving here lately. Not that you don’t...give admirably during our encounters—you do. But I feel like I’m the vulnerable one, so now it’s your turn. Get naked, Ajax.”
Her command felt like it was for more than skin. Like she wanted the kind of nakedness he was most afraid of. The kind that would reveal more than his body. The kind that would reveal what was left of his soul, and the state it was in.
But for her he would.
He started unbuttoning his shirt, then his pants, and he stood before her, naked. Shaking. She was unbound; she could do with him what she wanted. He was at her mercy, and he didn’t regret it.
She approached slowly, a low flame burning in her eyes, gold flickering in the dim light. She reached out and put her hand on his bare chest, nails raking over his flesh, lightly. The slight pain was, as it had been their first time, a welcome gift to help temper the pleasure that was holding him by the throat.
And then she kissed him there, her lips hot on his neck, her teeth grazing him slightly. A testament of her power. That she held him in thrall using no force, only touch.
The beast rattled the chains.
“Careful,” he said, his voice rough.
She bit him harder, scoring sensitive flesh. “I don’t think I will be. I’m tired of being careful. I’m tired of holding back. I’m tired of being...I’m tired of trying to seem unaffected by the crap that gets written about me in newspapers. I’m tired of trying to keep my head down so I can avoid it. I’m tired of trying to make myself more attractive or more palatable to the public. I’m tired of hiding myself. Of changing myself to suit people who will always find me wanting no matter what I do. But most of all, I’m tired of not having my way with you.”
“Then take me. But I can’t be responsible for the consequences.”
“Oh, I hope there are consequences,” she said. “Don’t make promises you can’t keep.”
He grabbed her wrists and pulled her forward, bringing her breasts up hard against his chest, his erection pressing against her belly. “There will be, agape. Make no mistake.” He lowered his head and claimed her lips, sliding his tongue between them, delving deep.
When they parted, they were both breathing hard, Leah’s face flushed, her eyes bright. She looked down at him, aching for release, her admiration open, her desire obvious.
“Right now, you’re about to face some consequences of your own,” she said. “I feel like I’ve been on a diet for years. And I am starving now.”
She leaned in and kissed his chest, kissed a trail down his abs, lingering at his hip bone, biting him gently there, making him jump. She wrapped her fingers around his shaft, squeezing him gently, and he jerked beneath her hand.
“Are these my consequences?” he asked, his throat constricted.
“I’m just getting started. I have really, really fantasized about this. You have no idea.” She leaned in and touched her tongue to the tip of his length, and a shot of heat scorched along his veins. Too much. It was too much.
He could feel something breaking loose inside of him. Could feel the walls starting to crumble. Chains starting to break.
When she slid her tongue along his length, he nearly lost his grip. On his control. On everything.
He pulled away from her, his heart pounding, his breath ragged. “I can’t... Leah, stop.”
“Why?” she asked, sounding dazed.
“It’s too much. I can’t...I can’t breathe.”
“Now you know how I feel. All the time. Every time I’m with you. Let me.” She leaned in and pressed her lips to his hardened length, then her tongue. Then she sucked him deep inside of her mouth, and he was plunged into darkness, a world of absolute pleasure. Of nothing beyond what she made him feel. It roared through him, consuming him.
He clung to her, his fingers buried in her hair as she licked and sucked him, poured out her desire to give him pleasure. It humbled him. Sent him to the edge of reason, of thought.
And when he felt his climax surging through him, he pulled back.
“Not like that,” he said.
“Why not?” she asked. “You’ve done it like that for me plenty of times.”
“I know. But I want to be in you,” he said, watching her face as he told her in blunt, descriptive terms, just what he wanted from her. “I want you to ride me.” One position they hadn’t been able to accomplish with her hands bound.
She smiled, a vixen’s smile. Leah was pure seductress. A woman. And he felt for her what a man should feel for a woman. But beneath that was a warmth he couldn’t explain. One that had always been there, one that had built and built from the moment he’d first met her. When she’d left candy on his desk.
The reason he’d turned his focus somewhere else as soon as possible. The reason he had never, ever seen her as a woman before the wedding.
Emotion. Passion.
That warmth, added to the desire, made a fire so hot he thought i
t might consume them both.
And then he remembered the candy.
“Lie down on the bed,” he said.
“I thought I was giving orders.”
“No. We just got rid of the rules.”
“What are you planning?”
“You just have to find out. But you won’t, if you don’t obey.”
“My consequences?”
“You could say that.”
She got onto the bed, and heard rustling behind him as he turned to get the bag of candy out of his jacket pocket, where he’d left it the night before.
When he turned, she was lying on her back, her elbows propping her up. She’d discarded her shoes, her dress, her underwear. Everything. And she looked like a fantasy, created and come to life just for him. Nothing could have been more perfect; no one else could have even come close.
“You’re a step ahead of me.”
“I take initiative,” she said. “It’s one of my better qualities.”
He approached the bed, the bag in his hand.
“Why do you have a Leah’s Lollies bag?” she asked, eyes narrowed.
“I bought these a few nights ago. I wasn’t sure why then. But I am now.” He opened the bag and reached in, pulling out one red, round candy and placing it on her thigh. He leaned in, pressed his lips to her, then took the candy between his teeth. Then he licked her skin clean, the cherry flavor mingling with the taste of her. “Lie down.”
He didn’t have to ask her twice. Her hands were at her sides, her breasts rising and falling rapidly with each breath. He placed one candy just below her belly button, then another next to it, and another. Until he made a crimson, winding trail over her stomach, to her breasts, three pieces going just between them.
Then he placed one on her lips.
“Hold it there,” he said.
She nodded slightly.
And he looked down at the trail of temptation on her beautiful body. “I always thought you were sweet,” he said.
He lowered his head and flicked his tongue over her clitoris, and she bucked beneath him, a short, muffled sound escaping her lips. “Careful,” he said. “Don’t lose my reward.”
