TYSON KNEW
THAT IF
HE FORCED
her to get in bed, if he was the one to forcibly take her, it wouldn’t stop with simply forcing her to lie down and go to sleep. His willpower where she was concerned wasn’t that strong. He wished he could blame it on something like her Rut or the fact that she was his Soul’s Mate. Either of those reasons would go a long way to assuaging his feelings of ineptitude where she was concerned.
“Get up, Harmony. You want to play games, but you won’t like the rules I play by.”
“I hear a bunch of words and none of them are saying much. Empty threats.”
He growled and circled the table, yanking her to her feet. She released a startled scream, but cut it off and glared at him.
“I don’t care what you believe, little girl. I know who I am and what I am capable of. You keep testing me and see how far I will go to punish you for your insolence. I am your Asim, yet I haven’t bothered to use my God-given power over you to make you to comply. Consider me being nice. I may not always embrace my generous side.”
She huffed and blew out a sarcastic laugh. “The only reason you don’t bend me to your will as Asim is because you know as well as I do that you aren’t a real Asim. You didn’t earn it; therefore, you aren’t righteous or worthy enough to behold it.” She tried to shrug out of his grasp, but found it unrelenting, so she gave up and went back to carving him with words. “I hate to tell you,
Asim
, but you are no more willing and able to use you so-called power over me than I would be to use mine over you.”
Tyson laughed and threw her over his shoulder, cursing to himself when he thought about the baby. This female made him forget everything that mattered—not that he’d planned on playing daddy and setting up play dates. He still hated kids.
When he got to the side of the bed, he carefully tossed her on the bed and went back to close and lock the door.
“I suggest you lie the fuck down. Comply and we can have a relatively easy exchange. I’ll leave you alone, and you can get the rest that the bags under your eyes tell me you need. Fight me, and I can promise you this exchange will be anything but pleasant.”
She threw one of the two pillows on his bed at him. He sidestepped it and stalked towards her. She didn’t move. Oddly, she seemed to be anticipating something; quite possibly, she was anticipating his intent.
“Yap, yap, yap. That’s all I hear. Less words, more action, Asim.”
“Stop calling me that.”
“Why? Does it hurt your feelings to be reminded of your failures? Does it bother you to know that you don’t deserve your next breath for how badly you have treated your people? I’d ask how you sleep at night, but I know monsters like you don’t sleep.”
“Yes, it bothers me, but not for the reason you think, Harmony.” Her brows shot up as if his confession stunned her. “I don’t need a reminder of my title. I know it. I’d rather you say my name.”
“Would you like me to swoon too or is that too much?”
He smirked at her and pulled off his shirt. “If you swoon, you’ll land on the bed. At least I won’t have to keep you from hurting yourself.” He reached for his belt and smiled when her eyes widened. “At least this way you’ll already be the way I want you.”
“Unconscious?” She fisted the comforter. “What in the hell do you think you’re doing?”
“I said you could comply—which you didn’t—or we could play by my rules. You chose my way; therefore I’ve decided we won’t need any clothes for what I have planned.”
“Are you insane?”
“It’s possible. Losing your Soul’s Mate does crazy shit to you.”
She paused, looking at him as if she’d just seen him for the first time. “You lost your mate? When?”
“Why in the fuck does it matter?”
“How long ago?”
“Eight years.”
“Are you serious? Eight years? Why aren’t you dead yet?”
He stopped taking off his pants and stared at her. “What the hell do you mean, why aren’t I dead?”
“Don’t most Lycans who lose their mate become so crazy they need to be put down?”
“First, I’m not some fucking dog to be put down nor am I weak enough to need that death warrant. I may have courted it at one point, but I’ve found a way to deal with my life as it stands now.”
“Eight years…” Her sentence trailed of as if she were thinking. “You’ve been a shitty Asim for the last eight years. I don’t remember hearing anything bad about you before then.”
“Point?”
“You’re mourning.”
“If you say so.” He motioned impatiently to her clothes. “Take them off.”
“Seriously?”
“Do you think I locked the door for nothing?”
“On that door? Yes. We’re Lycans, not human children. Anyone with a firm grip could be in here without much hassle.”
“Shut up and take off your clothes if you want to keep them.”
“No.”
He shrugged, not caring if she remained naked in his bed for the remainder of her stay. She wasn’t much use beyond that anyway.
She squeaked when he pinned her to the bed and ripped her t-shirt off. He reached for her jeans, but she moved her hands to block him.
“I’ll take them off, Tyson.”
“Compliance? Now?”
“Isis couldn’t find clothes to fit me. These jeans were the only ones in the bag that fit. If I lose them I have nothing else to wear.”
He motioned her hands away and took the jeans off. She relaxed against the bed, but started to roll over after he sat scrutinizing her too long.
“Why are you staring at me like that?”
“Because I can.”
“It makes me feel ugly.”
“Our creator didn’t make ugly Lycans; therefore, it’s impossible for you to be ugly. You may have a less than desirable personality, but you can’t be physically ugly.”
“Well, thanks I guess, but it still doesn’t make me feel any better.”
“Who said that was my goal?”
“I meant about you staring at me. I know you don’t care about how I feel. And I don’t feel ugly because of some shallow human standard.” She wrapped her arms around her torso. “I’m too skinny. More bones than meat.”
“You were captive and obviously not allowed to eat when you were hungry. You’re bound to be malnourished.”
“Thanks, I guess.”
“Stop talking.”
“Why?”
“What about stop talking don’t you understand? Shut up.”
She opened her mouth to say something—probably something acerbic—but Tyson crushed his mouth to hers, taking her open mouth as an opportunity to stroke his tongue against hers, to fill her mouth with something other than the words she used to assault him.
* * *
Tyson’s kiss was a salve to her irritation, not that she wasn’t still irritated. His kiss was like someone applying ointment to a burn. The burn was still present, though the sting of the burn may have disappeared.
She kissed him back, letting her soul take over and claim what it wanted. Knowing that Tyson had suffered the ultimate loss of a mate, and that she was Soul Seeing a male who would likely never See her, catapulted her to experiencing everything he gave to her without reserve.
He broke the kiss with a growl. “I expect you to do as I tell you. When you talk to me, call me by my fucking name. Call me Asim and you’ll regret it.”
Harmony wanted to test the boundaries, but something in his eyes told her that she really wouldn’t like the result. She nodded her compliance, but remained silent.
Tyson speared his fingers through her dark tresses and dove back into their kiss.
He may not be one to feel deeply, but Harmony knew that this would be the type of kiss he gave to the female he loved. She didn’t doubt that he was capable of loving anyone, but she doubted that she would ever be the receiver, not when he’d already told her he’d lost his Soul’s Mate.
“Stop,” he said after breaking their kiss.
“What?”
“Thinking. Stop trying to analyze this and just be here.”
“I can’t.”
“You will.”
He released his hold on her and pulled the sports bra she wore off. Isis had apologized for not being able to buy actual bras. She felt at least this way she could gauge the right size since Tyson hadn’t told her what size she was in the breast department.
Immediately, her nipples peaked, the cooler air drawing her sensitive tips into pink mounds of temptation. Tyson bent down and took one into his mouth, while his other hand cupped her left breast.
Harmony hadn’t imagined herself to be the type of female to enjoy the feel of a man at her breasts, to relish when a male gave them the same attention that he should give to more erotic places on her body.
She felt his hand dip lower and grip her panties and for a moment thought he’d be kind to her limited supply of clothes. His impatience showed as he quickly shifted the nail on one finger and used his claw to cut them from her body. Shifting back, he slipped his fingers into her shamelessly expectant folds.
He growled against her nipple as he slowly made light circles against her clit before teasing the entrance to her heated core. She whimpered, but stopped short of begging him to give her what she so desperately wanted.
“Tell me what you want, Harmony.”
“Fuck me, please.” She gasped as two fingers entered her.
“No.” He slid down her body and gave her a kiss that spiraled her closer to an orgasm. A touch of his tongue to her clitoris and all her coherent thoughts would unravel. “Tell me what you want. In detail.”
His tongue replaced his fingers for a brief moment, and he growled his apparent appreciation.
Harmony didn’t really care anymore. She was lost in the cresting wave of her orgasm. If he so much as moved against her, she would crash into her orgasm and lose sight of everything around her.
The bastard stayed still long enough that she lost the edge of her climax. She moaned in disappointment and relaxed her arched back against the mattress.
“You don’t get to come yet. Not until you tell me what you want.”
“I wanted that orgasm you just let slip away, jerk.”
He nipped lightly at her clit instantly bringing her back to that erotic edge. “Tell me.”
“Can’t think.”
He muffled a laugh against her core, sending a thread of greedy lust to wait impatiently low in her abdomen.
“Please, Tyson… I need to feel you again…” Her face burned with the admission she was reluctant to fully admit.
His green eyes flickered with an emotion that passed too quickly for her to process. “Don’t stop now.”
“I can promise you violence if you don’t fuck me right now, Tyson.”
Tyson stood up and slipped out of his jeans, his hard cock springing free and pointing directly where they both wanted him to be.
“Come here, Harmony.”
She sat up and crawled to the edge of the bed where she sat back on her knees. “Yes?”
“Who am I?” he asked as he slowly stalked towards her.
“Tyson.”
“What am I?”
“Asim.”
“No.”
She frowned and tried to think what the hell he wanted from her. He made an impatient motion with his hands. The emotion she’d seen earlier flickered in his gaze again. Chaos. The male that stood before her was leashed chaos, mayhem in waiting, and he wanted to fuck her.
That should have put the brakes on her attraction to him. Her Soul should have decided that lying with this male was against her survival interests. Not only had her Soul decided to embrace the beastly nature of her Asim, but her mind, the part that’d had all the reservations, joined in the madness. She wanted to be conquered by the male who had no love to spare anyone.
“You are a villain, the one whose soul is a shadow to those who operate within Gardas’ righteous light.”
“And knowing that, you want me to fuck you?”
He didn’t ask like a male seeking a sort of validation. He didn’t need her approval, had never sought it though she’d tried to force her disapproval on him. He’d never cared. His motives were pure because they kept him sane or at least as sane as a male set adrift in a sea of Longing.
“I’ve always wanted to know what it was like on the dark side.”
He laughed and pushed her back on the bed. “That implies you live in the light.”
“I’m closer than you are…” She lost the rest of her words and thoughts when he slammed into her, her body lost in the rhythm of his thrusts and the feel of her core clenching at him, desperately seeking its climax.
Tyson took her body with a level of passion that skirted into violent possession of her every darkest desire. He made her filthy with his depraved passions, bathing her in the darkness of his Soul. She relished in it because a day would soon come when he no longer had use of her, when their joint venture would end. He would go on being the villain of the Hafiz nation, and she would walk the same deserted road of loneliness he currently occupied.
Harmony didn’t know what kind of female she would be when the Longing became too much for her to handle. She hoped she could be like Tyson and truly become the monster she’d been while in captivity, but she feared she didn’t have the strength.
Tyson’s grip on her waist shifted as he ground his hips into hers, taking her over that edge and fucking her harder still. She screamed her climax and roared the next one. The entire time Chaos danced in the gaze of the male who took her with complete abandon. He was a savage, civility being something he only mimicked in the company of others.
His kiss was a fierce representation of his ownership of her in that moment just before his own orgasm slammed into him. Another spasm ripped through her, her core doing its best to milk everything it could from him. He growled out his ecstasy against the curve of her neck, which only served to make her ready for him again.
“Tyson…”
“What?”
“I need…” He rolled his hips, and her thoughts stuttered. “I need more.”
“Good. I’m not done.”
If nothing else, Tyson was a male of his word. He took his fill to the point of gluttony and Harmony found herself relishing in every moment. For him, she’d wallow in the shadows of lust and sexual depravity. She’d let Chaos claim her, to find himself in her folds, and give her the memories that might keep her sane when they parted.