Chapter Thirty-Two
I
t was the first time he’d seen it.
Plenty of times she’d glared him down, enticed him to hurt her, not cared what happened to herself in the process. It’s what made her so lethal to his self-control – that she wanted the lycan in him to out.
But whatever had happened in the past twenty-four hours, Phia had gone from reckless, impulsive and suicidal to
wanting
to survive.
Because now, as she glared back at him, he could see she
did
care what happened. She was frightened. More than that; she was hurt. He could see it in her eyes: she felt betrayed by him. And that meant she’d learned to trust him.
And because of that, as her eyes flared, glossy and expectant, he wanted to make her a promise that he was the last one who would ever let her down. But he couldn’t. She needed so much – so much containing, so much care, compassion and protection. Not least now he knew Caleb was coming for her. And he had to question if he could do it – if they survived long enough, whether he could do it night after night. If he could manage her and still be there for his pack.
Or whether he should let her go. Make her do what he wanted and then let her walk away to solve her own problems like she’d suggested.
Until she walked into Caleb Dehain. Or Kane Malloy. Or an unruly gang of vampires. Or a group of cons. Ones who wouldn’t see what he saw. Ones who didn’t care what was beneath the surface. Ones who would only see the attitude, the challenge, the bolshie female looking for trouble. Not one who, deep down, was desperately trying to escape her pain in the only way she knew how.
They wouldn’t see his Phia the way he saw her.
His
Phia.
‘You don’t believe that,’ he said. ‘You don’t
really
believe I’ll hurt you. Because not only do you believe I’m honourable – you trust me. Or you did. That’s why you’re angry now – because you don’t think I trust you in return. And you want me to. You need me to. Because if I trust you, you’ve finally got your self-worth back, right? And you need your self-worth back so you have the strength to go and get your sisters. To find a way out of all of this.’
She tried to yank her arm from his grip, but his hold was unrelenting.
‘You can keep pushing me away all you want, Phia, but we both know what’s going on here.’
‘And what’s that, Jask?’ she asked, her lips already quivering.
‘You’ve fallen for me as much as I’ve fallen for you.’
Just seeing the flare in her eyes filled him with a warmth he hadn’t felt in as long as he could remember.
A feeling that equally filled him with terror because she didn’t deny it.
Instead she exhaled tersely. ‘Fallen? It’s been less than two days.’
‘How long does it usually take?’
‘A lot more than two days.’
‘I knew the minute I saw you, Phia. The minute I looked into your eyes down in those ruins. And I have
never
felt a connection like I did then. And I hated you for it. Hated you for making me feel that way when I didn’t even know you. But now I do know you, I know it was right to feel that way. My instincts knew what my heart and head weren’t ready to accept. Trust me, denial is the preferred option for me, too, but I want you to know how I feel.’
She frowned. ‘Let’s not do this, Jask.’
But he finally had her – her defences almost down, the real Phia almost fully laid bare. And he wasn’t letting her go easily.
‘No, Phia.
Let’s
do this. Here and now.’
‘Why? What’s the point?’
‘And what’s the point of keeping some kind of barrier up between us?’
‘Because it makes it easier.’
‘It makes it easier for you, you mean.’
‘Yes, it makes it easier for me. I prefer it that way. So let me go.’
* * *
She could barely breathe, the intensity in his eyes, the sincerity of his words throwing her off guard more than she could handle.
‘It wasn’t easy saying no to you in that alley,’ he said. ‘Don’t think for a minute it was. I wanted you then like I want you now. Just like I wanted you only an hour ago.’
Her heart skipped a beat, a cool perspiration breaking out in her clenched palms.
‘And despite what you think, it’s nothing to do with you being a serryn. I know you think I’m too good for you. I see it in your eyes. Well I’m not good, Phia. Not underneath it all. I have to fight all the time to make the right choices. Just like now – trying so hard to make this about my pack and not about you, not about us. Because you have no idea what I did in the years following Ellen’s death. I was on a downward spiral and dragged my pack with me as I immersed myself in my own contempt, caring for nothing but inflicting whatever pain I could on myself. They were hard times for them, something I cared nothing for at the time. And yet they still stand loyally by my side. For them I should be walking out of this room right now. But I can’t. Which is why I can’t let you leave either. Not until I’ve broken the last of those barriers of yours. And I will break them, Phia. Not for what I have to do, but for us.’
Her heart pounded painfully.
‘Because you’re going to acknowledge the way you feel too,’ he said. ‘You’re going to make yourself vulnerable to me. And you’re going to face it. Just as I am.’
She could no longer see anything but him. Hear nothing but the pounding rain. Feel nothing but the cool night breeze.
She instinctively tried to yank herself away again, but his grip tightened, his gaze still locked on hers.
‘Has no one ever warned you about cornering a serryn?’ she asked breathlessly.
‘Has no one ever warned you about being cornered by a lycan? One on one, we both know who’ll win.’
Everything that exuded from his eyes, his tone, his touch told her to stop fighting back. And she didn’t want to fight anymore. If he thought he could break her, she needed to see him try.
She lifted her lips to his, needing, wanting to face the consequence should he succeed. ‘Then prove it.’
* * *
Her final submission unleashed every primal instinct he’d had to contain and suppress. Instincts he now knew he didn’t need to fight anymore. Not now he had finally proven to himself just how close he could get to the edge and that he could pull back – something he could only do with her.
Could do because he loved her.
He’d grown since all those decades before. He’d become stronger and not even he had known it. Had not dared to test it to know.
But now he had.
He didn’t have to fear himself with her. He was too conscious of her. More aware of her than he was of himself – her scent filling his senses, her warm body trembling against his. And now he understood her, now he knew he finally had her trust, he was aware of her even more.
He no longer needed to fear himself. She’d liberated him. And now he’d liberate her.
They
both
needed to finish what they’d started.
He heard the hitch in her breath as he spun her around, as he lifted her onto the bed with ease. He pinned her onto all fours, slamming both her hands together on the windowsill, contained them in one of his as he pushed his thighs between hers.
She didn’t move, didn’t struggle, didn’t utter a word as he ran his free hand up her spine to her neck. Brushing her hair aside to reveal the clasp of her dress, he unfastened it with one deft flick of his thumb and forefinger.
She shuddered as he kissed the base of her neck, her grip on the windowsill tightening.
‘What? No struggle this time?’ he whispered against her ear.
‘If you want to exhaust yourself, go ahead,’ she said, echoing his words from the wasteland.
He smiled, nipped her lightly on the earlobe before sliding his hand all the way down her bare spine, down over the curve of her behind before taking the hem of her dress back up with the motion to expose the lace shorts he had chosen for her. They suited her curves perfectly, just as he’d imagined they would.
He rubbed his thumb under high arch of lace that exacerbated the fullness of her behind – a feminine roundness enhanced by the contrasting slenderness of her small waist. A femininity he couldn’t help but revel in. Because she
was
painfully feminine. Painfully beautiful.
A femininity he needed to feel as he tucked his thumb into the crotch of her shorts to stroke her sex.
She gasped. A gasp that sent him reeling. Her pulse picked up a notch, indicating the adrenaline rush she thrived on. The same adrenaline rush he’d sensed down in the containment room – not one of fear, but one of arousal.
He nudged her thighs further apart, the feel of her warm bare legs through his jeans only escalating his arousal to the point of pain, and no more so as she continued to surrender.
Finding her clit, he applied just enough pressure to make her flinch.
She moaned almost silently, lowered her head onto the windowsill. But still she didn’t resist him, his arousal surging as she pressed back against him slightly, as if urging him inside of her.
She was giving herself to him again. Locked away there in their cocoon, just like when he’d taken her on the cell floor – when he’d first seen the real her – the fight in her was subdued, her defences were down. She was accepting what she wanted.
Really
wanted.
Him.
And giving herself to him was all he needed. He
would
protect her – somehow. He had to.
But that moment was about more than just that. She may have started to feel safe enough with him to allow him to get that close, but under it she thrived on the potential danger as much as he did. It was a part of her very nature. She liked him being in control, she liked him drawing the line. Because that’s
how
she felt safe: when he set the boundaries. Her retaliation all along, ever since meeting him, had been about getting that as much as anything else. She needed to be contained. She needed to be held. Because she might have trusted him, but she didn’t trust herself.
Keeping the pressure on her clit, he slipped his middle finger inside her, watched as she dug her fingers into the windowsill in response, aroused further by her lack of resistance.
He let go of her hands to unfasten his jeans, relishing in his freed straining erection as he locked into the hypnotism of her quiet groans.
He unhooked her strapless bra before clutching the windowsill again, his hand inches from hers. Lowering his lips to her bare spine, he licked, kissed and nipped along her bare vertebrae as he pushed his finger deeper inside her.
As his mouth met the very base of her spine, she shuddered, instinctively arched her back, lifting her behind in a way that was far too provocative for him to ignore.
He pulled himself upright, gently withdrew his finger, his hand. He closed his eyes, bit into his bottom lip to prevent him tearing off her underwear there and then.
Because her sudden stillness told him that was exactly what she was anticipating. He could hear her heart rate escalate, her breath held between its shallowness. She was expecting him to take her quickly.
Instead he clutched her neck again, keeping her in position as he gently eased her shorts down to her knees. As he slid his fingers back down over her now wet sex, she let out a groan, lifted her head a fraction only to slam it back down onto her arms. And as he pushed two of his fingers back inside her, she took the deepest inhale he’d ever heard.
He leaned back slightly, revelling in watching her tremble, his own arousal peaking as he watched his fingers disappear inside the moist, sensual folds of her sex.
She cursed indefinably under her breath, her head still buried in her forearms as he pushed as deep as he could go.
His erection twitched and throbbed at her tightness, her involuntary moans, the sensual whimper that accompanied them diminishing his resilience. She was lost in him, taken to his world, where he was all she could think about.
The power of it surged through him. Only empowered him more.
‘Good girl,’ he said, as he leaned over her. He nipped her tenderly on her ear again. ‘Tame now, aren’t you?’
He knew it would evoke a reaction, albeit laced with a playful retaliation as she pushed against him. But they both knew the game they were playing – the unspoken rules as if they had been lovers for years.
He grabbed both her hands again, slamming them back onto the windowsill, trapping them there as he yanked her shorts off the rest of the way.
He pressed the tip of his erection just an inch inside her before coiling his fingers in the hair at the nape of her neck.
She held her breath, her nails scraping into the windowsill, her whole body tensing. She knew he wasn’t going to hold back. She’d already worked out that the position he had put her in would allow him deep and unbridled penetration.
She had summoned his lycan instincts yet again, only this time she’d finally get what she asked for.
* * *
Jask did what only Jask could do – perceptive enough to read her and reckless enough to act on the signals.
Sophia clutched onto the windowsill, her head lowered.
Just as she’d expected, his thrust was unbridled, deep, intense.
This time her groan was almost pained as he tightened the grip on her hair, his other hand clenching her wrists as he pushed himself even deeper, unrelentingly, until he filled her to the hilt.
The discomfort was just enough to sate her – to convince her of his honesty, as, instead of picking up pace, he slowed down, thrust deeper, more lingeringly, making her feel every inch.
She knew he’d be watching. She knew he liked to watch. She’d seen that for herself down in the cell. And it only enthralled her more – his sexual confidence a painful aphrodisiac.
As he lowered his chest onto her back, his hand spanning the back of her thigh so she couldn’t move, her cries echoed out onto the empty street below, ripples of pleasure moving from the back of her neck where he held her, down her spine, to pool where they were joined. Her limbs tingled and became numb until she felt nothing but him buried inside her.