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This time she’d managed to shock him, and she could feel her fear ebbing, the icy strength taking over. She was far from defenseless, and she’d finally realized the weakness in his armor.
“Afraid of you?” He laughed lightly. “I hate to tell you, but I’m not afraid of anyone or anything. It’s both my strength and my weakness. I don’t care if I live or die, I don’t care who I hurt. I’m not afraid.”
“You’re afraid of me,” she said again. “And I think you always have been. You kept me drugged and pliant in that hotel room in Marseille—I remember it better than you think. And you never let me touch you. It was as if you were experimenting on me, to see just what you could make me feel, and you never were there at all.”
“You were drugged, Isobel, and it was eighteen years ago—”
“And two nights ago,” she continued ruthlessly. “On board the ship. You just wanted to prove you could make me feel. But you didn’t feel anything at all. You didn’t let yourself.”
He was looking no more than remotely interested in her theory, but she wasn’t fooled. She knew the truth this time, and she wasn’t going to be distracted.
“You didn’t climax. You couldn’t. You could manipulate me enough to make me feel powerless, and then you pulled away. Is it women you’re afraid of, Killian, or just me?”
He looked at her for a long moment, his eyes hooded, unreadable. “What are you trying to do, Isobel?”
“Call your bluff. Get you to leave me the hell alone. You don’t want me, you just want to fuck with me. So here I am, you son of a bitch. Take me.”
She could feel the power coursing through her, a strangely mournful power. It was a triumph to realize he’d only been playing with her, a triumph to know that she really didn’t matter.
His smile was almost wistful. “You’re right about two things, Mary Isobel Curwen Lambert,” he said. “I absolutely want to fuck with you. I’m calling your bluff. So why don’t you go down on me and prove yourself right?”
The silence in the room was muffled, absolute, and the caffeine must have finally hit overload, because her heart was slamming so hard against her chest that surely he must have heard it. And if she turned her back, gave in, he would win, and she could never let him do that, never again.
Her knees hit the floor as she sank down in front of him. Her hands were shaking as they worked on the snap of the new jeans. He didn’t move, just stood there and let her fumble with the zipper, his hands at his sides.
He wasn’t wearing underwear. She grasped the denim and yanked it down, and in the murky light his cock was hard, bigger than she’d expected.
She looked up at him, her eyes cold and hostile. “So you can get an erection,” she said. “Too bad you can’t come.”
And she put her mouth on him, a deliberate taunt, an insult, a sly, erotic challenge that she knew she would win. She closed her mouth around him, sucking at him, pulling with her lips, letting her tongue swirl around the rigid, unfeeling length of him, as she proved to him…
She felt his hands on her head, oddly gentle, his fingers threading through her hair, pulling it loose from its tight bun so that it spilled over her shoulders. He was stroking her scalp, kneading her, letting her taste and suck and then swallow, as he froze, his body rigid, his cock pumping into her mouth as he held her there.
She fell back, shocked, wiping her hand across her mouth, and she could barely see the expression on his face in the murky light. “You’re right about something else,” he said, his voice ragged. “I’m scared to death of you. Because I want you, when common sense and a lifetime of experience tells me I should kill you. I want you, and if I give up then you’ll own me, and I’ll have nothing left to fight with.”
She said nothing. She could taste him in her mouth, feel him between her legs where he hadn’t touched her—and she was ready to climax from thinking about what she’d just done.
“But then, it’s too late, isn’t it? You win, princess. Now let’s take this to the bed and get it done right.”
20
He reached down to pull her to her
feet, but she fought him. His jeans were halfway down his legs, trapping him, and when she struggled, he fell, taking her with him onto the cold, hard floor of the apartment.
He kicked the jeans off, rolling on top of her, and he had her clothes off her, those plain, expensive clothes, in less than a minute. She fought him, hitting him, not knowing what she wanted. He was hard again, that fast, and he shoved her down on the thin carpet, kneeling between her legs, waiting for her to tell him to stop. Whether he would listen was another matter entirely.
But she didn’t. She lay in a welter of discarded clothes, her hair loose and tousled, and he looked down at her body. A body he remembered, even after all Stephan’s handiwork.
She still had pale freckles, spots of gold, dancing across her stomach. She still had red hair, and he stopped thinking about his cock and put his mouth there, kissing her, so damn grateful that something was still the same.
She put her hands in his hair and yanked his head up, hard, and her eyes were a storm of pain and confusion. “What the hell are you doing?” Her voice was no more than a raw whisper.
“You know what I’m doing. Returning the favor.” He half expected her to keep fighting, hitting at him. But she didn’t. She dropped her hands to the floor, trying to will her body into that ice-fogged state she’d lived in for so long, and he wanted to laugh. That was one battle she’d never win. He was an expert when it came to using his mouth, and he’d never done it with someone he…cared about. He was enmeshed with her, body and soul, and he knew just how to touch her, with his mouth, his tongue, to make her shatter in a matter of seconds.
And before she had a chance to come down, he was inside her, pushing into the tight wet sleekness, feeling her tighten around him, first trying to keep him out, then pulling him in deeper, and he put his hands under her butt and yanked up, hard, so that he was in so deep she could probably taste him.
She was tasting him, and the knowledge almost made him lose it again. He loved her mouth, the cold things it could say, the hot things it could do. He arched back, looking down at her, deep inside her.
