And though I may have left this room last with my balls aching with need and a promise on her lips, I refused to admit that that was what had drawn me back.
I wasn’t here because I was longing to sink into her body again. I was here because her father owed me a life. And if he wasn’t going to pay with his own then I’d take his daughter’s instead.
I took my cellphone from my pocket and placed it on the chest of drawers, wedging in against my wallet and quickly checking that the camera could see the bed.
Tatum murmured something behind me and I stilled, my finger hesitating over the record button.
“Blake?” she breathed and my gut twisted at the sound of my name on those lips. Why the fuck did that have to sound so good? So right?
“Yeah?” I asked without turning to her.
“Where did you go? I had to get myself off while I was waiting…”
I wasn’t sure if that was a joke or not, but my dick twitched at the mere suggestion of it.
“Oh yeah?” I asked, trying to school my features before I had to turn to her. “And what were you thinking about when you did that?”
“Of how much I want you inside me again,” she said in a husky tone which had my mind made up.
My body needed this release. And everyone knew that hate sex was the best kind of sex anyway. It just so happened that I was the only one of us in on the hate part for now.
But was I really going to film it? I pushed my tongue into my cheek. It wasn’t like I had to do that for our plan to work…
“What was so important that you walked out on me for half the night?” she asked sleepily.
Ice slid through my veins as I thought about exactly why I’d been called from my bed. It was because I’d found out that her lowlife father had killed my mother and then gone on the run for it without paying the consequences. And it was clearly planned, too. Saint had paid off one of the school secretaries in our first year and he had access to all of the student’s personal files. Tatum’s entire school year had been paid up and there were legal documents filed giving custody of her over to her aunt. He’d known he was going to run. He just hadn’t known he was leaving his daughter in such capable hands.
I hit record and turned my back on the phone as I looked at her.
She’d moved onto her knees in the centre of the bed and she held a sheet up to cover her body. As I watched, she released her hold on the sheet and it slid down her curves like melting butter.
A growl escaped me as I looked at her. I still wanted her just as much as I had last night. I couldn’t deny it. But that didn’t mean I had to give her what she’d taken before. I didn’t even want to think about that. About the way it had felt to possess her entire being and for her to possess mine. But then I’d always known that the devil made the sweetest promises and wore the finest skin. She’d tempted me alright. Clearly still was. But if she wanted me mind, body and soul then she was out of luck. Because this time I was only offering her my body.
“Do you wanna try a little roleplay?” I asked her as I moved forward like a predator closing in on its prey.
“Umm…I don’t know,” she said, tilting her head so that her golden hair hid her left nipple from me.
“Do you wanna call me Daddy?” I purred.
“Daddy? Erm, no, that’s creepy.” She wrinkled her nose and I refused to consider it cute as I snorted a laugh.
“Yeah, you’re probably right about that…when you first saw me, did you know we’d end up here? Was it a foregone conclusion?” I asked, leading her on a merry dance to get her to say the things I wanted.
Tatum raised her chin, owning her actions in a move so fucking hot that it was a wonder I wasn’t already taking claim of her body. “I knew,” she breathed.
“This whole time?” I pushed.
“Yeah. I knew this whole time,” she agreed, watching me closely as the snare tightened around her neck and she didn’t even realise it.
I had what I needed. I could have stopped there. But I didn’t. I couldn’t. The heat and desire in her eyes might as well have been my own.
Besides, fuck wanting this, I needed it. Needed to feel every inch of her skin against mine again.
“Tell me what you want,” I said darkly, moving closer as I dropped my sweatpants and her eyes instantly dipped to admire my body.
“I want you,” she panted, her knees widening where she knelt before me like she could almost feel it already. “I want you inside me, Blake.”
And maybe a better man would have said no. But I’d never claimed to be a better man.
I closed the distance between us and she reached for me instantly, her lips pressing to mine and the heavenly taste of her washing over my tongue as she kissed me like she had last night. But this wasn’t like last night. I didn’t feel any of those things I’d imagined in my drunken stupor and I wasn’t going to let her trick me into feeling them again now.
I pulled back, gazing into the endless ocean of her eyes and she frowned slightly, reaching up to cup my cheek.
“Did something happen, Blake?” she breathed like she could see right into my soul and feel all of my grief just by looking into my eyes. “Did your dad give you bad news, or-”
“I don’t want to talk about it,” I said firmly.
Fuck those eyes. She was still holding me captive in them. Still shifting through the bullshit for the nugget of pain I’d buried away deep inside me. But she would have a whole lot of fury to dig through first if she expected to find that.
“What can I do?” she asked and for a moment the question caught me off guard. It was so…sincere. Like she really wanted to help. But there was only one thing that could help me. Revenge. And it just so happened that she was the one who could offer that to me anyway.
“I want to screw you like there’s no tomorrow,” I growled. “I want to wring all of the pain and heartache and fucking rage right out of my body and yours.”
She stared at me for a long moment before drawing her bottom lip into her mouth in a way that made me need her even more.
If we could just stop talking and start fucking, I knew I could forget about this shit. Even if it was only for a little while.
“Okay then, Blake,” she breathed, a dare dancing in her eyes. “Give me your worst.”
I growled with pure hunger as I lurched forward, pressing my mouth to hers as I pushed her down onto the bed beneath me and she moaned in encouragement.
Her tongue tasted of the sweetest poison and the most bitter of lies.
Her thighs parted for me as she kissed me harder, but I could feel myself falling headfirst into her honey trap again. This felt too good, too right. And it was wrong.
I pulled back with a determined snarl and flipped her over beneath me so that she was face down on the bed and I didn’t have to face the ache she awoke with her kisses.
Of course she didn’t flinch, pushing her ass up hungrily as she offered me everything I could take and more.
I groaned as I lined myself up behind her, feeling how wet she was against the tip of my cock a moment before I drove myself inside her. One hard thrust right up to the base had her screaming into the pillow beneath her.
“More,” she gasped as I slid back out before thrusting in again and again and again.