One night of sex. One time to feel like maybe I was using the man just as much as he used me.
"If I don't tell you my name, what will you scream when I make you come tonight?" he asked, his full lips tipping into an arrogant smirk that caught the breath in my lungs. I bit my lip, turning my face away as my cheeks heated. "That is what you're looking for, isn't it, my beauty?"
"I haven't even told you my name, and you already think to own me?" I said with more snap than intended. Doubt coursed through me, wondering if it was even possible to just have one pleasant experience. People did it all the time, so I had to believe there was someone in that bar who would be able to give me what I wanted.
He just might not be quite as breathtaking as the man in front of me, with his dark hair and sinfully light eyes shining down at me. "For tonight. I am not a man who plays games or beats around the bush when it comes to what I want," he said, leaning forward to rest his palm on the bare skin just above my knee.
"And what is it you want?" I asked, staring down at that hand.
"The same thing I expect brought you here, sitting in a bar alone and swearing off names," he chuckled. Another man stepped up to us, opening his mouth to speak briefly before a single glare from my handsome stranger sent him scurrying away.
"That was hardly necessary," I said with a laugh.
"I don't share," he growled in warning.
I lifted his hand off my knee, standing in the small space between his legs and grabbing my wine glass. "Well, I suppose it is fortunate for me that you don't own me. I'll seek my entertainment elsewhere." Moving to step out from the trap of his spread legs, I winced when he didn't budge. Even with the crowd of people filling the rooftop and the bartender behind me watching us with rapt attention, dread filled me at the thought of having to deal with a forceful man.
I'd had enough of men who thought to take from me without giving a single thought to what I might want.
"Release me," I hissed, watching as his eyes lit in response to the challenge in my voice.
"If I were to do that, we would lose out on a very valuable opportunity that we are now presented with," he said, flashing me his perfect teeth in a broad grin. "You're angry with me. I would very much like to have all that fire wrapped around me while I fuck you, my beauty," he added, stretching out a hand to cup my cheek in his hand. I jerked back from the contact, glaring at him as his hand followed and settled against the side of my neck. His thumb stroked over the delicate chord of my throat, leaving me with a feeling of vulnerability that I was all too used to. But whereas when my father hurt me all I felt was pain and fear, the stranger's touch evoked something different altogether.
Heat bloomed between my thighs, my body warming in the way it did when I read romance novels in my bed at night. Biting my tongue to stifle my reaction and the moan that threatened to surface, I stared up at him in shock. I hadn't pictured a hate fuck for my first time, not being a virgin.
I'd imagined someone gentler, something sweeter. But there was no denying the reaction in my body and the appeal of his words. When I read, it wasn't the sweet lovemaking scenes that forced my hand between my legs to relieve the ache, but the rough and passionate ones that left me breathless.
His touch promised all the things I'd read about, the very desire I'd only ever dreamt of having. He was silent as he watched me process my choices, studying the features of my face as if he could see every thought as it floated through my mind. I should have said no.
I should have called Christian to take me home before I made a mistake that I could never undo.
"Do you have a room?" I asked instead, my pulse thumping against his thumb where he stroked over it with gentle pressure.
He nodded, his light eyes turning wolfish as he drew his hand away from my neck and tucked it around my waist. The moment I was pressed into his side, he strode toward the elevators, guiding me to the place where he'd take what I gave and seal my fate.
For better or worse.
14
Calix
My hand at her waist felt like it had always belonged there. Like the more than a decade of separation had changed both of us in synchronization somehow, and we'd grown into the perfect match for the people we'd grown to be as adults.
On the other side of our tragedy, she was mine and I was hers.
She just didn't know it yet.
Her silence grated at me, and I knew I needed to try to be mindful of her virginity. While I’d watched her fingers dance over her clit at night and slip inside her tight heat, she’d always been cautious. The knowledge that her betrothed would expect her to be a virgin and she'd been saving that for him only served to drive my need to claim her and make her mine higher. By the end of the night, I alone would know what she felt like on the inside.
As I shoved open the door to my suite, I tried to convince myself it didn't matter that she hadn't recognized me. That there was no shame in that, because she'd only been a girl when I'd left. Even if I'd have recognized her anywhere, life hadn't been kind to Thalia. I didn't know what it was like to go through life in shades of gray, but I imagined it made people less recognizable. All light eyes looked the same. All dark hair looked the same.
She stepped inside hesitantly, her back straighter than a rod and her head held high to look every bit the princess her father had tried to mold her into. But Thalia was never meant to be a princess or a queen, she'd been born to be a warrior.
To bathe in the blood of our enemies.
It would take her some time to understand that they were one and the same, but the time would come when she would.
I closed the door behind me gently, moving into the suite to stand behind her. She stilled at the feeling of my chest against her back, her breath hitching in a way that I instinctively knew wasn't in desire. It would take time to get rid of those impulses, of her instinctual expectation of pain.
Gathering her dark curtain of hair in my grip, I pulled it over one shoulder and revealed her smooth olive skin to my gaze. There wasn't a blemish marking the top of her shoulder, only the faint remainder of a welt across her shoulder blades that made me grit my teeth. She moved as if she might step away, freezing when I gripped her hair tighter and pulled her head to the side. Careful not to pull, only to put her where I wanted her, I moved slowly until my lips touched her skin.
A gasp escaped her, making me wish I'd positioned her in a way that I could see her face. Instead I trailed my lips over the delicate flesh, touching gentle kisses and working to start preparing her to take what I would give her.
She allowed it for a few moments, her slim body writhing against me as desire built in her. "I thought you were going to fuck me," she murmured softly, a teasing challenge to the words that made me smile against her skin. Spreading my mouth open, I sank my teeth into her shoulder to suppress the fight.
She moaned, her voice breathy as I released her and spun her to face me. With a hand still buried in her hair, I tilted her head back until she had no choice but to look up at me. With her pouty lips parted slightly, the desire to taste her came over me. Leaning forward slowly, I brushed my lips against hers. She held my stare, and I willed her to feel me.