“Beg,” he demanded.
It took everything I had but I focused on him. “Go to hell!”
He rolled to his back taking me with him, pulling me up over his body, spreading my legs, he settled me in a crouch on his mouth. Hands strong on my hips, he pulled me down and kept at me.
It was delicious. It was divine. It was ecstasy.
I grabbed the headboard and moaned deep in the back of my throat, no longer conscious of the sounds I was making. I rocked my hips against my mouth. He pulled down on them, going deeper, using his tongue in new and astounding ways. He took me there again, to that glorious place and right before I felt it coming, he pulled me away from his mouth and yanked me down his body.
“Beg me for it, Leah.” His voice was husky and near to a plea all on its own.
He had an arm tight around my waist, fastening my squirming body to his. His other hand was working between our bodies but I was too much in a state to notice what he was doing. Every centimeter of my skin was sensitized beyond being bearable. I could even feel the air around us causing agonizing pleasure.
His hands went to the backs of my knees and jerked them up. I was straddling him and for one beautiful moment I felt the hard, hot tip of him enter me.
In triumph, I ground my hips down but he was faster than me. He caught me at my waist before I gained half an inch.
My head snapped up and my eyes flew to his.
“You want my cock inside you?” he asked, his voice hoarse.
I did. I wanted it more than oxygen.
I remained silent.
He inched up what felt like a millimeter and I felt my lids slowly close in rapture. Then he stopped and my eyes shot open.
“Beg me, pet,” he whispered, his voice now tortured.
I had no voice so I shook my head.
“Beg me,” he ordered harshly.
“No,” I breathed.
“You want me,” he stated.
I stared at him then I nodded.
“Then beg me.”
Finding a strength inside me that I didn’t even know was there, I pulled up against his hands, my body straining against my brain’s demands and I couldn’t believe it, he let me.
I felt the small but hard and thick and unbelievably magnificent piece of him that I had slide out of me.
It felt like I’d lost a piece of me, not him, when I pulled free.
Regardless, stubborn to the last (and now hating myself for it), my eyes locked on his and I declared, “You won’t break me.”
His arms wrapped around me, crushing me to him, I was hoping in defeat so he’d give me what my body was aching for.
Instead, he rolled us to our sides, his arms still holding me close and into the top of my hair, he said, “You’ve forced my hand, Leah.”
Fear pierced through me because, without any attempt to hide it, his voice was filled with regret and I didn’t know why. What was worse, even though I didn’t know what he regretted, I had a feeling whatever it was, was something I’d regret more.
He kept talking. “I’m leaving and when I return, if I find you’ve touched yourself, you’ll have a week of what you just had and you can beg me until you’re hoarse to make me let you come but I won’t do it. Am I understood?”
“You’re understood,” I mumbled into his chest where he’d pressed my face.
He tensed as if to move and I didn’t want him to go. Not because I forgot he disgusted and terrified me and I detested him, I only could forget those when his mouth was between my legs and other times besides, but because any movement made my body feel like it was going to shatter.
I felt his body relax right before he sighed.
Then he asked, “Why do you fight me, sweetheart?”
I didn’t answer. To answer was to trust him with a piece of me and after all that he’d done to me and what he’d done to his fucking wife, I knew he was not someone I could trust.
Ever.
No matter how gentle he could seem.
Like right now.
Or when he called me sweetheart. Or when he laughed like I was the funniest person he’d ever met in his centuries upon centuries of life.
He went on, “You must know it will be good.”
Oh, I knew that.
I still didn’t answer.
He sighed again before he murmured, “You don’t understand.”
No.
I.
Did.
Not.
And I didn’t want to.
I still didn’t speak.
“My pet, it’ll be so much better when you submit to me. That, I can promise. Not just here, in bed, but all of it, everything that will be you and me. I promise you, Leah, I’m trying to give you something beautiful. I can’t explain it, you have to feel it. But to feel it, you must trust me.”
Fat chance of that.
I still didn’t speak.
For a while, he didn’t either.
Then, as if he wasn’t talking to me (which he wasn’t), he muttered, “I’m the one who wanted a challenge. I need to get my fucking head examined.”
I didn’t understand that either.
There was a lot that I didn’t understand.
But I didn’t ask.
And I was never going to. Never, never, never.
Gently he pulled away from me. The loss of his hard warmth meant the cold hit my sensitive nudity like a slap. He adjusted his jeans and had me beneath the sheet in a blur of motion, faster than he’d been before even when he was being Speedy Vamp.
Obviously, he’d been holding out on me.
He pulled my hair away from my shoulder and I shoved my face in the pillow to escape his action even though I allowed his touch.
“Stubborn,” he murmured but I could swear there was pride mixed with the frustration in his voice.
And I didn’t understand that either.
Then he was gone but within five minutes he was back, this time dressed in a suit.
He sat on the edge of the bed and I glared up at him as he gazed down at me.
“It’s been a long time that, on some level, I didn’t look forward to attending A Feast,” he informed me and my body grew rock solid.
He was going to A Feast.
Unbidden, unwanted but undeniable anguish scorched through me, hot and biting.
He bent forward, brushing my cheek with his lips. “Have a good day, pet, and sleep well.”
Oh my God!
He wasn’t even coming home.
Even though my mind screamed, my mouth nor body moved.
He did. In an instant, he was gone.
I hate you, my brain whispered.
I heard you, sweetheart, he whispered back.
His endearment burned into me like a brand.
I know, I told him.
Stubborn, he told me.
I turned off my mind, turned my face in my pillow and put every effort into making absolutely certain I didn’t cry.
After a long struggle, at last, I finally succeeded at something.
It was an empty victory.
Chapter Eleven
The Betrayal
Lucien’s eyes scanned the heaving dance floor and he saw her.
Although he didn’t often attend this particular Feast, he’d seen her before. Each time she’d enticed him, long, dark blonde hair, blue eyes, curvy body, alluring scent.
Tonight, she did especially as she was wearing a black dress almost like the one Leah had worn last night. Not the same quality but close enough.
Everything about her was not the same quality but close enough.
He knew she captured his attention because she reminded him of Leah. It had been the reason he’d never taken her. He was anticipating the real thing, not an oft-used imitation.