“You’re not every girl,” he says as if he knows me.
“You don’t know me,” I remind him once again.
He smirks again. “I bet you want to be fucked. Tied to a bed. Degraded yet appreciated. I bet you want things that you’ve never dared speak out loud.”
I want to be appalled, but his words do nothing but draw me in. He wraps his arms around me and pulls me flush against his chest. I want to push him away, but I can’t. It’s like my body has made the decision for my mind before it could form a coherent thought.
He brushes away a dark lock of hair from my neck and replaces it with his lips. “First, I’d make you tremble with anticipation. I’d make you see and do things your pretty little brain has never thought of before. I’d make you feel everything while thinking of nothing but me.”
I raise an eyebrow in challenge. My entire body trembles at his dirty promise that I can see clearly as if it’s taking place before me. Every sweaty detail. Lips. Skin. Tongues. “You think you’re that good?” I manage to say, feeling heat drip across my skin with his touch.
“With you?” He says, without a trace of humor in his voice. “I know I’d be.”
“I do have a boyfriend,” I lie.
He smiles against me, then nips at my neck with his teeth.
It’s as if he’s plucked a string that’s connected to the most sensual parts of my body begging to be played with. “Answer me this, princess. When your boyfriend fucks you, does he make you want to scream? And I’m not talking that fake shit that some women do for the sake of the man, I’m talking a raw animal pleasure scream. The kind that leaves your lips as you’re digging your nails into his back.”
“I uh…we….I mean.”
He pulls back and again searches my eyes. “You don’t fuck,” he says. “You never have.” And it’s not an insult exactly, but a curiosity. “That makes so much more sense now.” His eyes darken. “Oh Neve, the things I can show you.”
Frustrated with his presence and the way he’s making me feel confused, I push against his chest and put some space between us. “Why this? Why now? You never spoke to me when we were kids. You never paid me any attention and now suddenly, on the night I turn eighteen and inherit my father’s company, you’re suddenly interested?” I roll my eyes. “I’m not interested in whatever your plans are, and I won’t let you take control of his company.”
“The answer isn’t always the obvious one,” he muses.
“So, you haven’t been buying up huge chunks of my father’s company for yourself?” I throw at him, pointing at his chest.
He nods. “I have.”
I throw my hands in the air. “Then what am I supposed to think?”
He hesitates before pushing off the fountain and again wrapping his arms around me. “Think whatever you want,” he whispers, trailing his lips along my neck once again. “You really want to know why now?”
I nod, my lips parted in anticipation of his next words and as much as I hate to admit it, his next touch.
“Because I’ve waited long enough.” His lips crush mine, devouring me in a kiss that I feel deep within my bones. I’m dripping wet as he moans into my mouth and our tongues tangle. I lift up on the balls of my feet to allow him further access. He tangles his fingers through my hair and yanks, a mixture of pleasure and pain that has me yearning for more of whatever this is.
He spins me around so that my back is crushed against his chest. “Happy birthday, Nevie,” he whispers. He tugs at my hair, turning my head toward him.
He presses a quick kiss to the corner of my now swollen lips.
And then a rag over my nose and mouth.
4
Neve
Everything in my body hurts. My muscles ache as if I just took an advanced yoga class when I’ve never even started with the beginner’s course.
Darkness spins around me. I wrap the bedlinens in my fist and clench my eyes shut until the spinning stops and I’m slowly able to open my eyes once more.
I release the comforter from my grip only to realize it’s not mine. My comforter is a feather duvet. This is a super soft and probably expensive cotton.
Where am I?
“I’ve always liked watching you sleep.” A voice rings out in the dark.
I sit up only to smack the top of my head against the headboard. “Shit,” I groan, rubbing the knot at the back of my skull.
Remembering there’s someone else in the room, I try to tuck my legs up to create as much space between me and whoever it is lurking in the dark, but I can’t. My legs are tied at the ankles.
And I’m naked.
“Why am I naked?” I ask into the dark, searching my memory.
“For my viewing pleasure, of course,” echoes the same deep voice.
Chase.
Fear spikes within my rapidly-beating heart. “Why am I here? Why am I tied to the bed?”
“Tsk tsk, Nevie. I’m insulted. You mean you don’t remember last night?”
I search my pounding brain. Did I drink? No. Not even one. Never mind enough to end up choosing to be tied to the bed of a stranger.
It slowly comes to me. The fountain. The kiss.
I remember.
“Chase.”
He steps from the shadows as if I’ve just announced him to the stage. His shirt is untucked, and his dress pants have been replaced with grey sweats. “So, you do remember?” he asks with a wicked grin.
The hairs on my arms stand on end, and I’m both frightened and incredibly angry because fear isn’t all I feel. A racing wave of lust singes through my veins, infecting my every sense like a disease because that’s what this is. A disease. I’d have to be sick to want this man right now.
He pushes his hand through his messy mop of dark auburn hair.
I bite my bottom lip on instinct.
And want him I do.
I’m imagining those fingers wrapped around my hair. Tugging and pulling as he—no. This is a sickness I’m surely going to die of. I’m sure of it.
“What are you thinking, Nevie?” he asks, using a name I never gave him permission to use.
“My name is Neve,” I grate through my teeth.
His jaw tightens as he stalks toward the bed and leans over me, pressing my back into the mattress and my head firmly against the metal bar of the headboard. “Trust me. I know your name, but I’ll call you whatever I want. You’re in my bed, princess. You’re mine. Always have been.”
I turn my head to the side and notice a bandage on the crook of my elbow inside of my arm. “What’s this?” I ask.
“I needed some of your blood,” he says with a shrug. “So I took it.”
“So, you’re some sort of blood expert? A hobby phlebotomist? Or is draining someone’s blood a kink of yours?”
His eyes narrow on me, and a spike of fear surges up my spine. I know I’ve said the wrong thing and instantly regret it. “You know nothing about my kinks,” he says, his voice laced with warning. “You don’t even know anything about your own.”
He’s right, but that doesn’t change the fact that he’s just admitted to taking some of my blood. I drop my eyes to my naked torso and lower my voice so as not to sound like I’m accusing the obviously guilty, but I have to know. “Were you trying to kill me?”