“Goodnight, Dove.”
It’s now or never…
“Actually,” I whisper, and let my hand trail down his stomach. Swallowing down the fear, I make it to his thigh, where I graze the rod between his legs. It’s thick and hard, and suddenly I don’t know if I can do this. I think I’m in over my head.
“What are you doing?” Zane’s voice is like a bucket of cold water. I pull my hand away like touching him is fire.
“I-I…” Is all I can manage to get out before Zane has flipped me onto my back and has climbed on top of me.
“Don’t play games with me, Dove,” he says, his face so close to mine that his minty breath fans over my face. His large body looms over me, caging me in, pressing me into the mattress.
It’s hard to make out his features in the dark, but I don’t need to see his face to know he’s angry. I can feel it like a branding iron on my skin.
“I’m not.” I lie… kind of.
“You want me to fuck you? I can make that happen right now. Just say the word, and I’ll rip off our clothes and slide inside of you so deeply you will never forget who you belong to. Is that what you want, Dove?”
Say yes, say yes. This is what you wanted.
I can feel his growing erection between us, long and hard, nestled between our bodies. Moisture soaks my panties, and my nipples tighten, rubbing against my shirt. My body is ready, but I…
“I don’t know…” God, I’m such a chicken.
Leaning in even closer, he whispers into the shell of my ear, “Then don’t tease me.”
Just as fast as he was on top of me, he is gone. I’m still breathing heavily when he gets situated next to me. Turning us, he pulls me into his chest like he always does. I close my eyes and force myself to calm down, so I can go to sleep while wondering if I just made a huge mistake or if I barely escaped one.
18
I wake up the same way I fell asleep, with a terrible feeling in my gut. This isn’t my first rodeo. I’ve been with women many times before, and I know Dove well enough to know she’s acting out of character. This isn’t her. She’s sweet, naive, and so incredibly innocent. Reaching for my cock isn’t something she would do… not unless... she’s trying to play me. In which case, that would make perfect sense.
I don’t exactly know what her goal is, but it doesn’t matter. Either way, she’s got it in her head that she can manipulate me. Use her body as a weapon. Ha. The thought is laughable in itself. If she were any other woman, I’d have tied her up and fucked the words right out of her mouth. Found out what she was doing with little effort, hell, I could’ve done it last night.
A silent rage bubbles up inside of me. She’s the only person I’ve ever shown kindness to, and this is how I’m rewarded? We’ve been here for days now; she must have realized by now that I only want her to be safe. I get that she was scared in the beginning, but I’ve proven myself over and over again. Still, she wants to try and use me? Manipulate me? Use sex against me?
She wants to play games? Fine. I’ll play along. I’ve been nice. I’ve shown compassion. Maybe I need to show her what happens when you provoke a man who is crazed with need over you. Right on cue, Dove stirs next to me.
She turns in my arms, her eyes blinking open slowly. Even though I’m angry with her, I still admire her beauty. “Is it the morning already?” She asks sleepily.
At least one of us slept well last night.
“Yes, time to rise and shine.” I pull away first and start to roll off the bed when I feel her hand land against my shoulder. “Yeah?” I toss over my shoulder.
Dove is looking down at the comforter with an ashamed look. I’m tempted to tell her everything is okay, but I don’t have it in me. Not right now. I’m still pissed that she would try and get me to have sex with her when we both know she’s not ready.
What’s her motive? Does she think I’ll let her go if she does?
“I’m sorry about last night. I… I don’t know what I was thinking,” she mumbles shamefully, and I can see two bright spots forming on her cheeks. I wounded her last night with the way I handled things, but I had to, and I’ll continue to handle them this way until she gets the point because if she pushes me too far, I’ll snap, and we’ll both be screwed.
“It’s fine. It was a mistake. Everything is good,” I say. Though my brain is screaming at me that it’s not. My damn cock is permanently hard, and my balls are always aching because of her. Her sweet scent surrounds me, and her body tempts me to do sinfully bad things to it.
I want her bad enough without having her throw herself at me. I don’t need to be tempted any more than I am.
“You still seem mad though.” She rolls her bottom lip between her teeth. “I didn’t do it to make you mad.”
I tense. “No, you did it to see what I would do, but next time, I can’t promise you that I’ll stop myself from taking you. I’ve spared you this far, don’t make it harder than it needs to be for me. I’m only human, and I promised myself that when the time came for me to claim your virginity, I would do so as you deserved, but you make that harder every single day.”
Dove gives me a shocked look. “How do you know I haven’t had sex before?”
It’s too early to do this, but what the fuck, why not? It’s either now or in five minutes. Turning to face her so I can see her eyes fully, I say, “Because I made sure no one would get that far. You were always going to be mine.”
Her mouth pops open, and her eyes widen in shock. For a moment she just stares at me, processing the information I just gave her. “W-what do you mean?”
“You’re a smart girl. You know what it means.” I let her draw her own conclusions.
“You scared them away?”
I shrug, deciding not to tell her that I murdered a few of them. “I mean, you could say that, yes. I made sure they didn’t come back for another date. Some I even made sure they never made it to the date to begin with.” Yes, I’m a fucking asshole, but nothing and no one is going to touch or taint what’s mine.
Dove is pure white snow, and I wasn’t going to let some fucking asshole piss all over her. The guys she went on dates with were pigs and only wanted to get between her legs. No way was I going to watch that shit go down.
“All this time, I thought there was something wrong with me…” Sadness coats her voice, but quickly her eyes turn to fire, and she shakes her head angrily. Her statement brings my own anger down a couple of pegs. “I thought they didn’t want me. That I was ugly and unlovable. I thought there was something wrong with me!”
Fuck me. Shit, I didn’t expect it to turn into this. The hurt in her words, it’s like a knife piercing me in the chest. Reaching for her, all I want to do is comfort her, but when my fingers graze her hand, she pulls away. She’s looking at me like I’ve ruined her life, but doesn’t she see that I’ve only made it better?
With a tight chest, I say, “I’m sorry, Dove. I only did it to protect you. I wasn’t trying to hurt you. You aren’t any of those things. You’re perfect.”