Yet, hunger had reared up like a starving tiger inside of him. Wanting more. Demanding more. Needing it with an angry ache.
He’d eventually torn his lips away. But he’d stalked out of the classroom with the feeling that this was yet another battle he couldn’t quite say he’d won.
And, half an hour later, his body continued to the thrum with the same out-of-control desire.
He’d transformed himself over the decade into one of the most powerful dragons in the world. Yet Dawn still made him weak. Perhaps the only wise thing he’d done where she was concerned over the past decade was not allowing himself to kiss her.
Time to disappear again. He made this decision upon walking into the Providence house he had no business staying on at.
However, just as he was heading up the stairs to repack his bag, Dawn came crashing through the front door.
“What the hell was that?” she demanded.
He turned on the stairs. “Why aren’t you in class?”
“Because I asked the driver whose damn name I still don’t know to bring me home so that I could say ‘what the hell, man!’ to the asshole who crashed my class!” she answered, slamming the door shut behind her.
She didn’t bother to take off her shoes, just came storming up the edge of the stairs to demand again, “What the hell was that?”
As always, his heart leaped at the sight of her. She’d gone back to wearing braids this semester. And though she was wearing a neon purple puffy coat, not a tee and sports shorts, this style made him recall the college girl who’d sat across from him in a Bentley ten years ago, right after Phantom had snatched her from her dorm room.
That, and the fury on her face.
“I brought you lunch,” he answered, keeping his face a careful blank as he walked down the stairs to come to a stand in front of her. “I thought you might be hungry.”
He designed his answer for maximum confusion and upset. And it worked.
Her eyes blazed at his answer. “You haven’t kissed me in ten years of marriage. Why did you do that? Why did you show up out of the blue and kiss me? In front of my whole class?”
He didn’t answer for a couple of reasons. The truth did not align with how he wanted her to perceive him. It wouldn’t do to let her know how jealous her hug with the Pittsburgh transfer student had made him. It would only cause him to lose face.
Also, silence had always been his best weapon. The perfect weapon. Adversaries backed down from arguments when you were silent. They changed the subject. Often, they talked too much to fill in the words you did not speak.
Victor knew the secrets of many of his friends and rivals alike simply because he never interrupted. It was the ultimate way to win arguments, he had found. How often had Phantom and Han let him have his way, simply because he refused to entertain their questions and counter suggestions?
As he stood before her, not answering, he recalled their first anniversary, when Dawn filled up all his silence with mostly one-sided conversation. Soothing herself to the point that she let her guard down and walked unsuspecting into the trap he had set.
But this time, she didn’t simply take his silence as she always had.
She balled her fists at her sides. “Answer me, you asshole! If you won’t leave, then at least answer my fucking questions! Why are you still here? Why did you do all that stuff for my mom, then bring me back here to torture me?”
Victor regarded her for a cold beat. Then he reminded her and himself, “I am your owner for four more months. I can do whatever I want. And I do not have to explain it to you.”
Dawn stared back at him, her expression enraged.
“All you do is mess with me!” she yelled, shoving him in the chest. Once, twice, three times. Not that it mattered. He didn’t move an inch. “You ruin everything, including my thesis presentation, which I can’t even attend because it’s on May 25th. So, of course, you’re not going to let me get my MFA. Because no matter how nice you were to my mother, you suck now, like, on a base level. I hate this! And I hate you!”
Good. Her shove had barely registered. And it delighted him to see her so frustrated.
She was so angry that she fisted her braids at each side of her head and walked away in the opposite direction. As if she might explode with anger if she continued to look at him.
He wanted her to hate him. Wanted her to rail against the things he did to her, not appreciate them and even thank him as she had over the weekend. That was what this was all about, he reminded himself. Punishing her. Making her hurt. What happened in Texas changed nothing about his original mission.
“I hate you so much! Ugh! Hate, hate, hate you!” she screamed with her back to him.
Then she surprised Victor by suddenly turning around and rushing toward him, her expression twisted with violent rage.
He made no move to defend himself. Her angry shoves had felt like little more than pats against his chest earlier. And it amused him that she would even attempt to engage him in physical combat.
So he let her come, allowed her to get in her pitiful hits.
But she didn’t hit him. At least not on the chest.
Her lips banged into his. And she attacked his closed mouth, licking and biting. Then she snaked a hand around his neck, her fingernails digging into the skin there like an animal who refused to let her prey get away.
Kissing….
She was kissing him.
For Victor, it was the equivalent of her striking a match. And setting him ablaze.
His cold resolve melted in mere seconds under that kiss. And soon, it wasn’t just her kissing him. He was kissing her back.
He slammed her into the door she’d come through just minutes ago, shoving off her puffy coat and clawing at the clothes underneath. She wore a cutesy polka dot dress over a turtleneck, so a pair of tights and panties were the only things that stood between him and what he wanted. What he needed.
Her tights tore away with just one yank of his hand. He took himself out of his jeans, pushed her panties aside, and then…
Victor let out a loud groan against her mouth after burying himself inside of her. But he didn’t stop kissing her as he began pumping into her tight wet heat. Consuming her, punishing her.
Or was it the other way around?
His mind couldn’t focus on anything outside of being with her like this. Of kissing her as he fucked her against the door. Going in so deep, but still not deep enough.
He felt crazy as he fucked her, like he’d come apart if he didn’t claim her and make her his. Her name lodged in his throat, aching to come out. It took everything inside of him not to lose himself like he had when they were teenagers.
As furious as she had been with him, her responsiveness remained the same. She wrapped one leg around his waist, her body becoming more and more pliable as he pounded into her like an animal unleashed.
Soon, an orgasm had her clawing at his shoulders as her cunt tightened around his dick. Drawing him in even deeper, even as she fell apart. Somewhere in the distance of his psyche, he felt the warning. The tingling that told him it was time to pull out.
He began to, but then Dawn bit his lip, drawing blood, intoxicating him with her kiss. And just like that, all his control was gone. He came with a roar against her lips, emptying inside her like he hadn’t in fifteen years.
The pleasure, the sensations. It was unbelievable. It crashed his mind, and an unknowable time went by before he was able to reboot. But eventually, he came back to his senses and realized what he had done.