For a moment I stare at her. And then reality hits me, and I burst out laughing.
This is the wrong thing to do. I know it’s the wrong thing to do, but I can’t help it. London Frank? She’s fucking gorgeous, but she has nothing, not a single thing on my little tooth fairy with streets paved with teeth. She’s vicious and authentic and raw.
Her hand rises. I have plenty of time to catch her wrist or step back, but I let the slap come. The sting makes my cock flex in my jeans.
She stares at her palm, which looks pink from impact. “I can’t believe I just did that.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
Holly
He doesn’t look angry that I slapped him. He looks amused.
“Do it again.”
I raise my hand, but the heat of the moment has passed. I’m not a violent person. My sister’s life is at stake, and I don’t know how to help her. I only know that I can’t trust Elijah. He’s been dishonest with me every second that I’ve known him. “No.”
Disappointment flashes through his green eyes. “You’re twenty-four years old and still worried about being upstaged by your sister?”
“I don’t resent her for it, but I’m not blind either. She’s beautiful.”
He tugs me gently, and I find myself following him. It seems like my body trusts him even if my mind knows better. He pulls me in front of the dresser, where the mirror reflects me back at him. I have to admit that it’s erotic, the way I’m completely naked while he’s fully clothed, my softness against his hardness, my pale skin against his tanned muscles.
He reaches around and places two fingers at the hollow of my neck. “The way your pulse flutters here.” His hand falls lower, to the place between my breasts. “The way your body dips here.” His hand falls lower to the gentle curve of my stomach and my belly button. “The way you suck in your breath when you’re about to come, like you’re going underwater.”
“What’s your point?” I say, feigning bravado in the onslaught of sensuality.
His green eyes meet mine in the mirror. “You are beautiful.”
He says the words so simply that I can’t help but believe him.
It doesn’t make him trustworthy in general. I may not be able to trust him with my life, or my sister’s life, but I know that he finds me attractive. Maybe that’s the appeal between us.
He lives a life of subterfuge. I mostly live in made-up worlds.
This chemistry between us, that’s real.
“I’m going to spread your legs,” he says, his voice thoughtful. “And then I’m going to fuck you. It’ll be long and hard, so you should hold on tight. If I have to fuck you right into the ground, I will. If you’re flat on the floor, I’ll be there, pumping into you from behind.”
My sex clenches, readying myself for him, even as my mind screams that this is wrong.
He kicks one of my legs apart with his booted foot. Then the other, so I’m spread wide. The feel of leather on my bare ankles makes me shiver. The sound of a zipper behind me gives me the last chance to change his mind.
“Elijah,” I whisper. “This isn’t how you want me.”
It’s not exactly an objection. It’s a cautionary tale. He notches the head of his cock to my pussy, and I can’t help but tilt my hips to take him better. “That’s where you’re wrong. I don’t want a pretty girl to stay home and cook pancakes when I roll through town. I want hard. Fast. I want to hold you down and make you take my cock until you cry.”
Large hands grasp my hips, and he thrusts into me. I’m wet but it still feels like a stretch to take him all the way to the root. My breath whooshes out of me, and I rise up on my tiptoes to escape the burn. He pulls out to the tip and then thrusts in again.
His lids are low across green and gold eyes. “This is how I want you.”
I meet his gaze through the mirror and shake my head. “You want me to submit to you, to give in, and I’m never going to do that, no matter how hard you fuck me.”
Despite my best efforts at being cold, I flinch on the word fuck.
He pulls back and thrusts in hard, as if he took my words as a challenge. I wobble on my tiptoes and grasp the dresser for support. The whole thing wobbles ominously, but it holds, even when Elijah thrusts into me again, when he fucks me harder and faster, even when the emotion threatens to overwhelm me and tears prick my eyes.
Friction. That’s what I tell myself. This is about science. Physics and biology conspiring to make me have an orgasm even though I don’t want one.
“Elijah,” I whisper.
And he stops. That’s the horror of this moment, how solicitous he can be even as he breaks my heart. A dull flush darkens his cheeks. His hair is in wild disarray. “Am I hurting you?” he asks.
I want to say yes, but the truth is that my body aches for completion.
Awareness comes over his face, and it makes him look smug. I hate him for this, but it makes him look hotter—the certainty that I want him, that I can’t hate him quite enough.
He pushes in again. Friction, friction, friction.
My sex doesn’t know this is wrong and messed up. The pressure builds, and then he reaches around and flicks my clit, and I climax, clamping down around his cock. He grunts. His fingertips dig into my hips, and he comes in three rapid-fire thrusts followed by a long hold.
He pulls himself out, and his come drips down the inside of my thigh.
My muscles feel shaky, unable to support me even as I remain bent over the dresser. I’m cold and sweaty at the same time, covered in cooling come. Elijah returns from the bathroom with a hand towel that he hands me, his gaze cold. I wipe between my legs, wondering what feels so different, so painful about this. He’s taken me roughly before. And he made me come. It’s after, I realize. He never held me after sex before now, so I shouldn’t expect it now.
This time he didn’t even undress fully. Now he zips up his jeans and stalks out of the bedroom. I hear him descend the stairs. Then I’m left alone with only my shame and my hurt.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
Elijah
Over the next three days I get exactly what I wanted. Holly gives her body without reserve, but she doesn’t hold me in her sleep. She doesn’t smile at me over coffee.
She doesn’t tell me stories about fairies or mermaids or dragons.
It’s basically hell.
I find myself longing for the days in the cell, when she would at least talk to me in the dark. If this is my punishment for involving her sister, for lying to her, it’s working. But I’m not sure how I can fix it. I can’t go back in time and take the diamonds back from London. I can’t go back and tell the truth to Holly, not that I would have. That’s the crux of the issue, really. She wants me to be some other man. An open book. That’s not me.
Jefferson leaves messages every hour on my burner phone. I ignore him, but it’s only a matter of time before he sends someone else in to fix this mess. Holly, though innocent in every way, is at the crux of the issue. She’s the one who has access to London, which means Adam needs her. Anyone would realize that using Holly as bait is the cleanest way to fix this mess.