You Are Mine (19 page)

Void. Say it.

Zac's gaze locked with hers. Watching her. Learning her. “You want to say it, don't you?” His voice was all dark heat and authority. “I can see you wanting to. But you're not going to let yourself. You're still fighting.”

Eva felt her lips draw back, baring her teeth at him. Shaking and shaking and shaking.

“Little warrior.” There was respect in his eyes, open admiration. “You've always been strong, haven't you? But you can't fight all the time, angel. Sometimes you have to rest. Sometimes you have to give all your burdens to someone else, let them carry the weight for you.”

Yes. God, yes. Lay them down. Let him take them away.

“N-No, I fucking don't.” That harsh scrape, oh, Christ, that was her voice.

His thumb traced her lower lip. Then the hand on her breast moved, his thumb brushing gently over her nipple.

A bolt of electricity seared through nerves already overwhelmed by sensation and a hoarse, rough scream escaped her. A wave of heat rushed over her skin, a deep, insistent ache beginning to throb between her thighs.

You like it, see? You like me touching you …

Fear howled in her head, the primal, animal need to protect herself rising inside her.
Run. Run. Run …

No, fuck, she wouldn't. She would beat this. She would fight it.

“Eyes on me, Eva.” That insistent voice calling her back. Calling her home.

She blinked, focusing on him again.

“You disobeyed me.” Another movement of his thumb over her nipple, another charge of sensation drawing yet another sound from her. “You were supposed to be looking only at me, thinking only of me.”

“B-B-But I—”

“Consequences. I told you there would be consequences.” Her nipple held between his thumb and forefinger, and then a gentle squeeze.

The sensation exploded through her like agony, like a lightbulb bursting inside her.

Void. Fucking void.

But she bit down, and this time it was her own blood she tasted. “B-B-Bring it on, asshole,” she forced out, her teeth chattering. “I c-can take it.”

His face was taut, all hard planes and uncompromising angles. The face of a king or an emperor, a man used to command, who had no softness or passion in him. And yet there were those amber eyes, like molten gold. Full of hunger and want.
Desire …

“Have you ever had an orgasm, angel?” he asked softly.

Scalding heat in her cheeks. She was bare to the waist and he had his hand on her breast and yet she was blushing.

You like it. See? I told you you'd like it.

No. No. No. “Seriously? Who hasn't?” She put as much sarcasm as she could into the words.

The look in his eyes didn't even flicker. “Did you want it?”

“Of course I did—”

He squeezed her nipple, harder this time. And she gasped, trembling with the effort it took not to scream again. “Don't lie to me. Not when I can see right through you.”

Of course he could. He always had, the bastard. “N-No,” she managed through gritted teeth. Because he was right to ask. She'd never wanted the few climaxes she'd been given, yet she'd been given them all the same.

“No, what?”

“No … I d-didn't want them.”

His jaw hardened, and behind the heat in his eyes another emotion flared before it was swiftly contained again. Rage. “Then these are the consequences. When you're ready to give me the second of the things I asked for, you'll have to earn your orgasms, and I'll only give them to you if you please me. If you beg me. Otherwise I'll tease you, taunt you, make you scream with pleasure. But I'll never let you come unless you ask for it. Understand?”

She just looked at him, shivering. Trying desperately to keep still, to not let him see anything of what she was feeling. Yet she knew he could see all the same. And it was agony.

She felt torn in two. Caught between terror and a confusing, growing need that her body knew but her mind didn't want to deal with because of all the associations that came along with it. The helplessness as her body was forced to experience sensations she didn't want. The dirtiness of it, the anger that she couldn't do anything about it. Anger at herself and at the man who'd forced her. Rage at her vulnerability and powerlessness. And now, fury at another man who was forcing her again.

Forcing to face what she didn't want to face. To feel what she didn't want to feel.

But the man in front of her now had an identity. Zac. Her safety. Her haven.

Who knew her like no one had ever known her.

He must have seen her struggle because he leaned forward, keeping his grip on her chin. His other hand was firm on her breast, her nipple hard and aching between his fingers as he pressed her back in the chair.

So that he was all she could see. He filled her vision. His face hard as a statue cast in bronze. The elegant, straight sweep of his nose. Thick, soft-looking black lashes. The curve of his lower lip. His eyes. Oh, God, she couldn't look away from those eyes. Couldn't even blink. But it was like looking into the sun. Painful and bright, yet she was helplessly drawn to the heat. Wanting to bask in it, warm up the cold places in her soul.

Get him to take it. Take it all away …

And for a small, brief instant, an exhausted part of Eva stopped fighting. Just relaxed and let the moment take her. No past and no future. Only this man and all the sensations he was opening her up to. Burning heat. An insatiable ache. Hunger for something she couldn't give a name to. Everything she'd been denying herself for years.

He knew the exact second she stopped fighting. His thumb moved on her nipple, brushing back and forth over the hard bud, turning that ache, that need, into something piercing.

It was confusing, terrifying. Because when her body started to want, her brain knew it was always going to be bad.

She began to pant, trembling with the force of her emotions, with all the physical sensations.

“Ask, Eva,” Zac murmured, his voice as soft as fur over bare skin. “Ask for what you want. Or say the word and I'll stop.”

A strange, foreign desire gripped her. To arch her back like a cat, press herself into his hand. Take all the heat he was throwing out like a furnace. Give in to the hunger inside her.

Give up. Surrender.

Alarm bells went off inside her head as the protective mechanisms he'd lulled into sleep woke up.

She couldn't do it. She couldn't surrender. Destruction lay that way.

“No,” she said, making the word as steady and as hard and as cold as she could.

Zac looked at her for a long time, studying her face, his thumb still moving lazily on her breast, each pass making her tremble and shake, making her teeth clench more tightly together, making her fight the unbearable sensation that was just about killing her.

Perhaps if she did nothing, he'd keep doing that. And maybe, God, maybe she'd—

Zac took his hand away and she almost protested, almost grabbed it to put it back. Then she realized that her hands were tied. That she was helpless.

“Giving up already, huh?” she croaked.

“Not at all,” he replied calmly. And began to undo the buttons of her jeans.

She tensed, every muscle locking. “Don't.”

He wasn't looking at her now, concentrating on what he was doing as he flicked the buttons open. “The word, Eva. You know what to say to stop this.”

Of course. That fucking word.

Her mouth was dry and she felt as if every single nerve ending was acutely sensitized. She couldn't take any more. Like a soap bubble, she'd burst at the slightest touch. And yet that stubborn, fighting spirit wouldn't let her say the word. Wouldn't let her give in or acknowledge it.

So she sat there, panting as he matter-of-factly opened her jeans and slid his fingers beneath the waistband of her plain black panties, pushing down between her thighs.

She couldn't stop the scream that came out this time as his fingers slid through the curls between her legs and over the folds of her sex. Sensation pierced her like a spear through the chest. It was even more intense than his touch on her breast, making tears start behind her eyes.

Then the weirdest thought hit her: if she lifted her hips just a little bit, she could make that feeling even more acute. She could—

Zac pulled his hand away and held it up in front of her. There was moisture on his fingertips and fire in his eyes.

And the word she wanted to say wasn't
void.
It was
again.

“This is desire, angel.” His voice wasn't smooth any longer but rougher and more uneven than she'd ever heard it. “This is your desire. For me.”

She couldn't take her eyes off his fingers, off the sheen on them. And her body wasn't shaking from fear this time or from oversensitization, but from something else. The ache that wouldn't go away, that wanted his hands to keep going, keep moving.

“Did you ever get wet like this for him, Eva? Did you ever shake like this for him?”

“I … I d-don't—”

“No, you didn't.” And he said it like he knew, like he was certain of the fact. “That makes it different. That makes
me
different. I'm not him, angel. And when you're with me, I'll make certain you never think of him again.” He leaned forward again, pressing his body against hers, and she could feel the solidity of it, the weight and heat of it. Immovable. Like a mountain. “I will block him out, Eva.” His voice was soft, emphatic, like a hypnotist's. “I will obliterate him. I will scour him from your memory so that when I touch you, the only man you'll ever think about is me.”

Then he lifted his fingers, still slick with the evidence of her desire. And keeping his gaze on hers, he licked them like he was licking up melting ice cream.

Eva's stuttered breathing caught. She watched him, mesmerized as his tongue curled around his fingers, tasting her, a wolf devouring its prey …

“Delicious,” he murmured, low and deep, the vibration of it against her legs. “You know what I'd like to do right now?”

She couldn't seem to dredge up any of her usual sarcastic, snarky comments. They'd vanished from her vocabulary. All she could think of was his mouth, the sensual shape of it, how beautiful it was …

How it would feel on your skin.

“N-No,” she whispered, both to the thought and to him.

He smiled, and the fingers he'd licked dipped down again. She tensed, shivering all over, dreading what he was going to do with them yet anticipating at it as well. Wanting and fearing so mixed up together she couldn't tell which was which.

But all he did was circle a finger around her belly button, the touch featherlight. Taunting.

“I'd like to have you naked in this chair,” he said conversationally, his gaze holding hers. “Your hands would be tied above your head and you'd have your legs spread over each arm. Perhaps I'd even tie them there so you'd be totally restrained.” His finger circled, so light yet feeling like flames licking her skin. “The restraint would be pleasurable for you, angel. Silken ropes against your skin. You'd be wide open to me and desperate for me to touch you, but I wouldn't lay a finger on you until you begged.”

Look away. Void. Something. Anything to get him to stop talking.

But she couldn't. She felt hypnotized by his dark voice and by the touch of his finger. By the image he was conjuring up like a sorcerer weaving a spell.

“I'd kneel like I'm doing now, between your legs. And I think you'd like that too. Having me on my knees before you, angel. Ready to worship you. Because everything I do is for you and your pleasure.” His finger moved slow and steady, and it felt like the most exquisite torture. Making her aware of her skin, of her body, of that nagging, desperate ache between her thighs.

“I'd just kneel there, so close you could feel my heat. But not touching. Not touching until you asked, until you wanted my touch more than you wanted your next breath. And when you ask, Eva, I'd stroke you. Your thighs. Your stomach. Run my fingers all over that beautiful pussy of yours. But not enough to make you come. Just enough to make you even wetter than you are already.”

She couldn't breathe now, the air in her lungs heavy and hot, every sense she had focused on his circling finger. God, it was like she could feel each whorl, each ridge of it against her skin.

“And then I'd lean in, run my tongue around your clit. Teasing you. Perhaps after that, I'd go lower, lick your pussy, fuck you with my tongue. Drink you up like my favorite cabernet. I'd make you burn, angel.” His voice dropped lower, a caress. “I'd make you shake so hard it'd feel like you're coming apart, so that you're aware of nothing but what you want so very desperately. You'd beg me for release, but I'd keep you on the edge for as long as possible, denying you until the last minute. Prolonging the pleasure until you're sure you'd die without it. Only when you're sobbing for it would I give you release. Make you come so hard you'd see stars and scream the walls of my house down.” He smiled. “And then, once you'd recovered. I'd do it all over again.”

There was nothing she could say to that, no response at all. He'd taken the whole English language from her and left her with only a baser, more primitive kind of communication. Images. Sensations. Heat. Hunger.

A long silence fell, his lambent gaze fixed on her, reading her. Knowing every thought that went through her head.

Then he said softly, “But I'm not going to do that. You disobeyed me, angel. You wouldn't give me your safeword and you didn't ask for release. Which means you need to be punished.”

Her throat tightened, fingers closing around it, squeezing tight. She could say it now, couldn't she? Say the word that would stop this.