by Maisey Yates
As unbroken.
“Always,” she managed to say, scraping together what remained of her bravado—but it came out sounding very nearly wistful, and she saw he felt that, too. In the way his blue eyes darkened. In the way he shifted against her, a roll of his hips that sent a delicious lightning bolt of a promise stealing through her, making her breath tight and erratic at once.
“I want to be inside you,” he said. Like an invocation. “So deep you can’t tell which one of us is which. So hard that when I come, you’ll think it’s you.”
Heat coursed through her, pooling between her legs, making her shift and roll, anything to feel that length of him hard against her softness, the next best thing—
“Zoe.” It was a command. “Make it happen. Now.”
She blinked, almost insane with wanting him. Understanding took a long, breathless beat, then another, as if her brain didn’t want to work.
“You want me complicit.”
“Absolutely no plausible deniability,” he agreed, his gaze even hotter, making her restless beneath him.
“And if I don’t do it?”
“I don’t think that’s going to happen.” The wolf was in his eyes then, that hard curve of his mouth. Then in the way he moved his hips against hers again, making her breath hitch, sending more of that lightning crashing through her, flooding into all those dark places she’d locked away. “But if it does, you’ll get to sleep empty and lonely and cold and alone. And in complete control. Is that what you want?”
“What if I can’t decide?” She moved her hips with his, meeting him in that ancient dance, wrapping her legs around him and indulging herself in his steel length, pressed so hard against the part of her that needed it the most. Flames licked over her and she needed. She wanted. “What if this is enough for me?”
Hunter laughed, and then he dipped his head, and kissed her.
But it was better than a kiss. It stripped her bare. It was a carnal taking, a slick domination, and she thrilled to every slide of his tongue against hers, every hint of his teeth, the knowledge that he had the kind of willpower to hold them like this forever, slowly unraveling her. And that he would do it, if that was what it took.
He was using her body against her, and Zoe found she didn’t care. She wanted him too much to worry about what that made her.
When he lifted his head, his eyes were so blue it hurt, and Zoe’s hands were clumsy at the zipper of his unbuttoned trousers. She shoved and pushed and finally freed him, sighing when she wrapped her hands around the silken hardness of him.
But they were both too close to the edge. When he handed her a condom she noticed she was shaking again, and she could feel the slight tremors that moved in him, too, where he still held himself immobile above her.
She’d never wanted anything more. She sheathed him carefully, quickly, and then she guided him to her entrance.
“Say my name,” he told her fiercely, the way he had before, with that curious intensity and that serious look on his face.
“I don’t want to say your name,” she threw at him, and she surged up before he could argue, impaling herself on the length of him.
It was slick, terrible, perfect.
Unreal.
“Why don’t you say mine?” she managed to gasp, as if that might save her. As if anything could.
She understood she was doomed, and she didn’t care anymore.
“Have it your way,” he whispered, his mouth at her ear, and she was already shivering, already melting. Already his. “I’m going to make you scream it, Zoe. I’m going to make you beg. And then I’ll do it all over again, until my name is the only thing you know.”
“Promises, promises,” she whispered, and laughed at the dark look on his face.
But then he began to move.
* * *
She was exquisite.
And she was his.
Hunter wanted to imprint that on her skin, tattoo it on the silken perfection of her flesh. He wanted to mark her, again, so there could be no doubt.
He settled for that simple, life-altering slide inside her, the clutch of her thighs, the sharp sting of her fingernails into his back. That complicated rhythm, that beautiful dance.
The animal in him wanted wildness—but he wanted to savor her, and so he did.
He set an easy, deliberate pace, stunned by the fire that roared inside him, drunk on each and every one of the noises she made, the motion of her lithe hips, the scent of lavender warm between their bodies, the taste of her and that sense of belonging, of rightness, that surged inside him, claiming him with every stroke.
Making him the man he should have been, as if this was a baptism and he would never be the same when it was done. He believed it. He believed he could be anything for this woman. He wanted that as fiercely as he wanted her.
She tilted back her head, arched into him, and her eyes were dark with the same passion that he could feel in him. The same enormity. As if this wasn’t sex, but a sacrament.
“Please,” she gasped, and he smiled.
“I told you you’d beg.”
“It’s not polite to gloat,” she said, and he didn’t know how she did it, how she managed to sound so prim even now, when he was deep inside her and he held her on that quivering edge.
When the world felt new with every slick stroke, every glorious slide. Every shiver, every sigh.
It wasn’t enough. It would never be enough.
“Say it,” he told her. He lost himself in the taste of her breasts and toyed with those proud nipples, never changing his relentless rhythm, direct and deliberate, keeping her in that shaking frenzy beneath him but never quite tipping her over. “My name, Zoe.”
And he felt her melt. Fire chased by lightning, soft and strong and his, and she cried it out at last. To the glass above, to the night around them, to the sky and to the world.
Again and again and again, until it sounded like a song. Like a vow.
His name. His possession. His.
“Hunter,” she cried, “I’m going to kill you if you don’t—”
“Didn’t I promise to serve you? Have a little faith.”
“Then do it, for God’s sake!”
He laughed, reaching down between them and rubbing his fingers against the hard little heart of her, gathering her to him as she made a desperate noise that he felt in every part of him before she shattered all around him.
And only then, when she was in pieces again and he was drowning in her the way he wanted, the way he thought he might have to do for the rest of his life, until it killed him and he didn’t think he’d mind if it did, did he let himself follow her over the edge.
* * *
Later, he woke in the stillness of the night in a sudden rush, but she was still there. She hadn’t slipped out while he slept, while he wasn’t paying attention. She hadn’t disappeared. She hadn’t walked away from him, never to be seen again.
His heart was pounding hard, as if he’d been running flat out for miles, and some part of him thought that he had been, one way or another, for the past ten years.
Not this time, he thought, with a solemnity that might have worried him in the light. But it was dark in his great cavern of a room, and the night wasn’t nearly over, and he could pretend, for a moment or two, that he was the man he’d wanted to be while he was inside her.
Zoe was curled up against him as if they’d slept a thousand nights together exactly like this, and Hunter loved it. He loved the sweet scent of her hair and the fall of it through his fingers, the soft weight of her body against him in the dark. Her head pillowed on his arm and the way the delectable curve of her bottom fit so snugly against him in the middle of that vast bed, making it seem cozy.
She was smart and prickly, gorgeous and sexy, and she fit as if she’d been made to his precise specifications. She wasn’t another groupie whose name he’d never learn. This hadn’t been one more empty form of exercise. He’d wanted her. He still did. He felt it inside him, that ravenous burst of f
lame and something like wonder, and had the strangest feeling it wouldn’t fade with the dawn like everything else.
He’d felt a pale imitation of this kind of rightness a long time ago, when he was young and callow, life was still golden and he hadn’t the slightest idea what it was like to lose something irreplaceable. In the dark, he could admit to himself that this was different. This was better, if more complicated.
Because he still didn’t know her plan. Why she’d hunted him down in that strip club and used Sarah to make him do what she wanted him to do. He still didn’t know what she wanted from him.
Tonight, he didn’t care.
She smelled of lavender and she’d tasted like sweet cream and hot, aroused woman, and he couldn’t seem to react the way he ought to do. He couldn’t seem to do anything but pull her closer, press a soft kiss to her temple and hold on to her as though he might not let go.
He moved behind her in the dark, tasting her all over again in the deep shadows, his hands exploring her, worshipping her as if it was the first time while he held her to him in that same position. He could trace the thrust of her breasts beneath her raised arm, kiss that sensitive spot behind her ear. He could smooth his way along her side, her thigh, her femininity warm and inviting beneath his hands. He could feel it when she transitioned from sleep to full alertness, and could feel, too, the delicious little shiver that moved in her then. When she thrust back against him with a small moan, pressing her bottom against him, making him that much harder.
When she whispered his name, he came inside her, making them both sigh. He rolled with her, holding her hand in his as he pressed her into the mattress. Like a dream. Hot like silk. Sweet.
And then he rode them both to that shattering end, slow and quiet and something like reverent. Like hope, he thought, losing himself in her.
Like a promise he intended to keep.
* * *
The morning light woke her, beaming in through all that glass with the frantic insistence of winter, and Zoe jolted up into sitting position. For a long moment, she had no idea where she was or why it was so bright.
And when it came back to her—when the long night before began to spool through her brain, one scalding-hot image after another, making her belly clench hard and deep all over again, tossing her right back into that fire—she was immediately furious with herself.
It was better than the darker things that lurked beneath that kick of temper—cleaner.
Waking up in his bed was not what was supposed to have happened. It was certainly not part of the plan she’d concocted on the fly last night, when she’d found herself kissing him and had understood she’d have to deal with this thing between them. With him.
Zoe should have left under cover of darkness, as she’d intended to do. After that first time. That she hadn’t—the reasons she hadn’t—made that dark well inside her yawn open even wider, even deeper. Even more treacherous than before.
She was such a fool.
Zoe had lost count of the number of times they’d come together in the darkness, and she didn’t want to think about how often she’d been the one who’d reached for him. How she’d crawled over that athletic warrior’s body of his entirely of her own volition, no masks and no games.
No hint of compulsion, only want. Need. Desire.
How she’d tasted every part of that mouthwatering torso of his, learning every inch of him, committing it to memory. How she’d taken his hard length in her mouth, licking it from stem to tip and back again, then teased the dark places below until he’d groaned out his surrender, his hands fisted in his sheets.
How she’d straddled him, taking him deep, so deep into her in a slick, exultant thrust that they’d both shuddered, and she’d had to brace herself against him for a moment to catch her breath—palms flat against the granite planes of his chest and the iron length of him driving her wild within.
She didn’t want to think about the way his hands had gripped her hips as she’d started to rock herself on him, or the way she’d arched back to give him unfettered access to her breasts, her belly, and not because she’d wanted control—but because it felt good. So damned good it made her shiver again now, remembering it.
And she certainly didn’t want to think about that shimmer of ecstasy that had wound in her, tighter and then tighter still, making her lose herself completely while he flipped her to her back and pounded them both straight into all of that stunning, glorious oblivion.
Hunter had been so fierce, and she’d matched it. So wildly possessive, and she’d returned it. Almost as if—
But she couldn’t let herself go there. It didn’t matter what had happened last night.
He’d had her. This was over. That was the plan.
Zoe scowled around at the ridiculous room, which seemed bigger and more severe with all that shattering winter sun pouring in, harsh and unavoidable. The wide bed stood at its center, a proud monument to a very long night she ought to regret. That the swirling darkness in her whispered she would regret, eventually.
At least Hunter was nowhere to be seen, for which she was grateful, she told herself.
That was what she felt, what that odd thing gnawing at her was, making her pulse seem fluttery and too hard at once: grateful.
It was harder than it should have been to crawl out of that obnoxiously giant bed, over the dents in the soft pillows that whispered of Hunter. To look around for her underwear and her unfortunately slinky dress, which was the last thing she wanted to wear, maybe ever again, since all she could think about when she looked at it was Hunter. His hands. His mouth. His beautiful demands.
She’d felt strong. Glorious. As if she’d never been ruined. As if that was someone else.
It was then, as she stared down at the rumpled dress in her hands, that she understood what that great and dangerous pressure in her chest meant. That searing heat blinding her. That constriction in her throat that she didn’t recognize, it had been so long.
She was about to break down and cry.
Zoe’s hands curled into fists and she looked around wildly, ready to punch something, break something, scream—until she saw the doorway that led off to one side, almost hidden against the wall. It was through there, past acres of deep closets she shouldn’t have had the slightest interest in exploring because she shouldn’t have cared, that she found the sprawling bathroom. It held a bathtub that better resembled an Olympic-size swimming pool and a shower that could have housed multitudes, with at least three separate showerheads.
“The better to cater to a playboy lifestyle and all that it entails,” she muttered, her voice not even echoing in the exultantly luxurious space.
Groupies don’t make it past the first floor, he’d said last night—and she hated how much she wanted to believe that now.
Zoe stood beneath the hot spray for a long time. Until her skin felt like hers again, as if it fit her once more, the way it was supposed to do. Until she stopped that helpless shaking, as though she was fighting off a fever. Until that hard, heavy weight shifted off her chest, and she was no longer afraid she might dissolve into tears.
Until the hot water washed away any evidence that some tears might have snuck out anyway, against her will.
She dried off, happy that she’d steamed up all the mirrors so she didn’t have to look at her reflection, because she was afraid of what she might see. Too many truths in her eyes she didn’t want to acknowledge. Too much she should have known better than to let herself feel.
“It was only sex,” she told herself sternly as she climbed back into her clothes. She had to stop this. “Come on, Zoe. You’ve faced a whole lot worse than this.”
And even though she knew that was true, it was so much harder than it should have been to start down those stairs once she’d twisted her hair back into a knot and pulled on her shoes. She made it to the first curve of the spiral stair, then stopped, shaking her head at herself. She swallowed, hard, and rubbed the heel of her hand against her chest, where
that heavy weight had returned and hardened, become almost unbearable.
The trouble was, she liked him.
And as she stood there in last night’s dress, her entire body still humming from the sleepless hours he’d spent branding every part of her with that wicked mouth of his, with every touch of his talented hands, Zoe felt as if she was cracked wide open. As if all of that sunlight pouring in from high above was ripping into her, through her, throwing open doors, shattering windows, knocking down walls.
She’d been hiding.
All this time, she’d been so proud of herself for moving on, for taking care of herself, for wresting a decent life out of the ashes of what had happened to her—but all she’d been doing was hiding. Holed up dreaming of revenge while the world turned on and on without her. Playing a game of survival across all these years.
But surviving wasn’t the same thing as living. It wasn’t even close.
Zoe looked down at herself, at the gray dress she wore, that was like all the other gray dresses she wore. Grays and blacks, dark browns and navy blues—she was wearing the colors of mourning. She’d been attending her own funeral for the past decade.
How had she failed to recognize that before now?
Any way she looked at it, standing here lit up and too bright after a night that shouldn’t have happened with a man like Hunter who shouldn’t have appealed to her at all, that meant Jason Treffen won. That he’d been winning since the day she’d escaped from his unsavory little operation and set out on her own. That on some level, this was all a game of pretend. Her fierceness, her insistence on control, her whole life.
Zoe pulled in a ragged breath. She shouldn’t keep all the bright colors she allowed herself locked away in her apartment, like some kind of Miss Havisham in reverse. She shouldn’t be afraid to be who she was, whoever that was. She wanted to feel the way Hunter made her feel—off-balance and alive. Wild and free and utterly unfettered. Even if that had all been run-of-the-mill on his part, his practiced playboy charm, it hadn’t been on hers.
When Hunter kissed her, she felt whole.
That was winning. Reclaiming who she was, or who she might have been. Not hiding anymore. Not locking herself away, still fearful, she understood now, that Jason Treffen might reappear at any moment and tell the world what and who she really was.
