Dean lifts me up, spins me around, and in reaction, I kick out, knocking him back. The lights go out when his back slams into the switch, but he's not done. Not even close. A low growl leaves his lips as he palms my waist, hefting me into his arms once more before tossing me back onto the mattress of my bed, his body coming down hard over mine a split second later. His hands grip my wrists, yanking them up above my head and holding them tight. Warm breath filters over my face and I turn away, bucking beneath his heavy body.
"Get the fuck off me, Dean!"
"Oh, no. You had your turn, baby. I let you yell and I let you question me, but now it's my turn to start asking the questions. It's my turn to get some answers." He grunts when my knee slams up against his thigh, nearly unmanning him. Quickly adjusting, I curse when his whole body—all six foot three inches of masculine anger—sinks down on me, effectively pinning me in place.
"You drive me absolutely insane, Avalon," he confesses when my struggles are smothered. I jerk my head around and glare up at him.
"The feeling's mutual," I snap.
With how close he is, I can see the individual strokes of his eyelashes. They frame his brown eyes perfectly, darkening the edges and making him look like a dangerous monster in the darkness of my dorm room. Fuck him for looking so good when I'm so fucking pissed at him.
"I didn't say that I didn't like it," he replies, startling me into silence. I don't know what to say to that, so I merely stare up at him, waiting for him to say whatever it is that he so obviously feels is his right to. Carefully, with a focused gaze centered on my face as if watching for a tell that might predict my next move, he transfers both of my wrists into one of his hands. Fingers trail down my cheek as he brushes a few stray strands of my hair out of my face before he grips my chin and lifts it.
"You seem to think that there's a choice left for both of us," he whispers into the darkness, his breath fanning across my lips. I swallow around a dry throat and glare up at him. "There's not." His head comes down and just before his mouth brushes mine, he turns his cheek the slightest bit to the side and skims his lips up the side of my face until his nose is buried in my hair. "We're locked in this, you and I," he says. "There's no getting away. You keep fighting and, baby, I have to admit, it turns me on"—he stops and pushes his hips into mine to demonstrate just how much, and the memory of his hardened cock after we got out of the lake comes to mind. The thick length of him, the flash of silver at the tip. Any saliva I had in my mouth is gone in the next instant and my mouth tastes drier than a desert. "But it's time to stop," he continues. "No more fighting me. No more going off. No leaving. You've been caught, Avalon. Accept it."
His head pulls back slowly, in small increments, but when it does, I grit my teeth and hiss out my response. "Never." I am not something that can be tamed. I am not someone who can be controlled. I won't allow myself to be.
Dean tilts his chin to the side, examining my expression as if he's trying to unlock a particularly difficult puzzle. "Do you think it's going to go away?" he asks.
"I don't know what you're talking about."
He snorts. The sound is so boyish it surprises me. A smile cracks his lips and he leans down until his nose is against mine, his fingers still latched onto my jaw as he holds me in place. Unconsciously, my thighs press together. The fucker feels it—I know he does—because as soon as I make that movement, his hand leaves my chin and moves down my body and it's then that I realize just how bare I am compared to him.
Dean's warm palm skims across my stomach and I can feel my muscles jump and leap to his touch. "Let me ask you something," he says. "If I were to put my hand down your underwear, would you be soaking wet for me?"
I shake my head, in part trying to drive away the thoughts and feelings he arouses in me and also to deny him. "You'll never find out." I expect the words to come out strong, sure, and certainly not as breathy as they do.
Without warning, Dean lifts up suddenly and curls his fingers beneath my thighs, lifting and spreading them without remorse as he moves in and presses his jean-clad cock between my legs. I gasp and arch up, squirming away from the sensation. My hands, now freed, shoot down and press against his hard abdomen.
Dean nuzzles his face into the side of mine, until his nose is back in my hair. Is he … smelling me? "Oh, Ava," he whispers. I shiver at the feeling of his words said so quietly, so intimately against the skin of my scalp. "You asked me when will I fucking get it, but the thing is … I do get it. You don't trust anyone. I knew that even before I read your file. Anyone can see it from the way you carry yourself."
My legs are hooked around the outside of his rock-like thighs as he kneels over me on the bed. He pushes forward, miming what would be happening between us if we were naked. A groan bubbles up in my throat and I shove it down, but every time he thrusts forward the outline of his zipper brushes against my clit through my underwear. Sparks dance behind my eyelids. Shit, when did I close them? They fly open in the next instant, and I realize that's not the only thing I didn't realize. My hands are no longer pressing against him, trying to hold him off, but instead, my fingers are sunk in the fabric of his t-shirt against his back as I cling to him and he whispers the words into my hair.
Dangerous. So fucking dangerous. He makes me feel unstable, like I'm trying to walk in a straight line during an Earthquake. "What will it take for you to realize that I'm not giving you a choice, baby?" A strong hand delves into the strands at the back of my head as Dean leans back, his eyes lit with something cruel and dark as he grips onto my hair and yanks my head back, baring my throat. A shiver skates down my back.
Shit, this is so not good.
"You drive me absolutely insane," he growls, leaning down, breathing against the column of my throat. He's so close that I can feel the tickle of his stubble against my skin. I hold my breath, unwilling to do anything that might bring me any closer to that mouth of his. He accused me of being dangerous? That was like the pot calling the kettle black. Dean Carter is the dangerous one. If I let myself, I could let him slip beneath the surface of my guard; I've only ever let one person beneath.
"We're not doing this," I finally manage to choke out, resisting with my words since it seems like my body won't do it for me. "We can't."
He chuckles, the sound a wicked vibration in his throat that makes his chest shake against me. "Can't?" Dean's head turns from side to side as he shakes it, making his stubble scrape precariously close to my neck. It disrupts the fucking logical thoughts in my brain and makes me think of nothing but what it would feel like if he put all of that sexy as fuck energy and prickly sensation lower—between my thighs. Unconsciously, I clench them again and fight against the urge to suggest it.
I am not ruled by my pussy, I tell myself. I don't trust Dean Carter ... but do I really have to trust him to want to fuck him?
"I can do anything I fucking want, Avalon," Dean says, pushing his hips into mine. My lower spine arches and I clench my teeth to keep from screaming at how good it feels. "I can get the key to your dorm room and wake you up in the middle of the night by sliding beneath your covers and spreading your legs. How would you like that? If you woke up to a screaming orgasm? I can give you that, you know."