I stood, stepping around the desk and moving toward the door to my office. For once, I wished it was closed so I could open it all dramatically. “Get the fuck out,” I said, my voice as low as a whisper but somehow echoing through the room.
He turned slowly, walking toward me with all the grace of a jungle cat stalking his prey. I swallowed back my nerves as he approached the doorway next to me.
My heart stopped the moment his hand rested on the edge of the door itself, then slid down the wood until he grasped the knob and pushed it closed behind me. The thud resounded through the space between us, and by the time my heart started beating again, it raced.
“Watch your fucking tone with me, Little Butterfly,” he said, closing the sliver of distance between us. I backed up a few steps, continuing until I felt the press of the wall at my back. He placed a hand to the side of my head, leaning close enough to touch but never allowing the contact to happen.
“Fuck you,” I gasped, lifting my hands to press against his chest and push him away. He flinched slightly, grabbing them in his and stretching them up over my head. Pinning them to the wall, he gripped both of my wrists in one massive hand and held me there.
“You go to that club tonight, you’ll do it with the memory of my fucking name on your lips,” he murmured, touching the bare skin of my knee with his free hand. He inched my skirt up my thighs, making me squirm in protest.
That wandering touch skimmed over the fresh wound on the inside of my thigh, pressing on it until a zap of pain went through my flesh. He cupped me through my panties, groaning when he felt the heat of me against him. All I could do was stare, watching his dark eyes narrow while he studied my face for a reaction.
He tugged them to the side, baring me to his touch as he slid his fingers through the wetness that seemed to gather the moment he was near me. He groaned, slowly working two of them inside me and pumping them shallowly.
Sinking his teeth into his lower lip, he stared at my mouth like he wanted to devour me but couldn’t. Like I could be his entire world if he only allowed it to happen.
His thumb brushed my clit, circling it with uncoordinated, inexperienced motions that felt amazing simply for the fact that it was him. All the while, he watched my face. Memorizing my gasps and what made me tremble for him.
Learning my body.
“Come for me, Butterfly,” he ordered, and I arched my back to shift the angle of his fingers inside me. His fingertips brushed over my G-spot, drawing a startled gasp from me as he moved them harder. Faster.
I tugged down on my wrists, wanting to touch him. He read the look on my face. “You can’t touch me,” he said. “But apparently I can touch you.”
“Scar,” I begged, my hips writhing as they sought out that last bit of pressure I needed for my release. He gave me what I needed, grinding the heel of his palm into my clit until I saw stars and tumbled over the edge.
“Good girl,” he murmured, laying a chaste kiss to my forehead as I tried to come back to reality. He pulled his fingers free, drawing them into his mouth to suck them clean while I fought to remember my damn name. “Stay home, Irina. You won’t like what happens if you don’t,” he ordered, turning for the door and leaving me to catch my breath alone.
Oh, fuck that.
17
SCAR
The front door to her apartment building opened, Irina’s breathtaking figure stepping out under the lights hanging off the awning of the building. She clutched her jacket tighter around herself, disguising whatever she’d worn to impress the bastard of a friend who would never deserve to be more than that.
She stepped forward as a taxi appeared at the curb, the smooth lengths of her legs seeming to gleam in the moonlight. I moved quickly, getting between her and the cab and thrusting a one-hundred-dollar bill into the open window to the waiting driver.
“Sorry to waste your time. Have a good night,” I said in dismissal, turning back to the incredulous face of my butterfly as she glared at me.
Crossing her arms over her chest, she gaped when the cab drove off without her, then unzipped the clutch dangling from her wrist. “You’re an asshole,” she said, shaking her head and pulling her cellphone from the useless purse.
“I told you to stay home,” I said, reaching forward and snapping the phone from her grip. I shoved it into my back pocket, watching her face twist with her rage.
“You are not my boss. You’re not my boyfriend or anything that matters. Go to hell, Scar,” she argued, lunging forward to reach for the phone, even if it meant she had to grab a fistful of my ass. She didn’t seem to have any qualms about doing just that.
I grabbed her wrist out of the air, using it to pull her closer to me, until her body was only a breath from mine and the heat of her broke through the chill of the air around us. “That wasn’t the impression I had when you came on my fingers earlier.”
“Well Scar,” she seethed. “I’m a woman and you made yourself available. Can you blame me for taking advantage of what you offered? That doesn’t make it mean anything.”
The words struck, landing straight in the hollow where my heart should have been. If it hadn’t been for her exact mimicking of what I’d told her, I might have even believed them to be true. But I didn’t, the frustration and sheen of tears in her eyes leaving me with no doubt that she only wanted to hurt me the way I’d hurt her.
Apart, we were two broken people who struggled with our own problems. Together?
We were downright fucking toxic.
“I never thought lies had a taste until you,” I murmured, leaning down to inhale the breath she exhaled. She glared up at me, not daring to contradict my assertion of her lie. “Do you know what yours tastes like?”
She bunched the fabric of my suit in her hands, touching me with a snarl on her face. She probably hoped I would jolt away from her as I had in the past, but without the skin-to-skin contact, I found I could tolerate it with her now.
She'd slowly worked her way inside my defenses, but I didn’t dare to think of what would happen if she ever found the core of who I was. Nobody wanted to deal with that kind of brokenness.
“Hatred?” she asked, pushing against my chest.
“Desire,” I answered, releasing her and watching as she strode past me to head for the road. She strode along the sidewalk, braving the dangers of nighttime in Chicago without so much as a cellphone on her. I stepped in front of her. “Should we find out who is right?”
“Fuck you,” she snapped, moving to step around me. Instead, she soon found my hands on her waist. I lifted her up over my shoulder, getting a perfect view of her tight little ass next to my face. “Put me down!”
The sharp smack to her ass silenced her for a moment until I took my first steps toward the apartment building, then quickened, shifting from a saunter to a stalk. The lights outside the building illuminated us as she kicked her feet in an attempt to catch me in the face with one of her heels, but a firm arm across the backs of her knees made that impossible. She resorted to swinging her arms and hitting me in the back of the thigh with her clutch, the dull thump making my leg muscles twitch as I walked. “Now, you fucking ogre!”
She grabbed a handful of my ass, her perfectly manicured nails digging into my flesh through the fabric of my slacks. The bite of pain there threatened to bring the monster rising to the surface with the memory of things better left in the past, as though emerging from the rippling waves of the ocean.