Page 15 of Hateful Games

I press closer, making her gulp when I invade her personal space completely. Her head tilts to maintain my gaze. She tries hard to keep the annoyed façade in place but I can feel her rising heartbeat. The unsteady rise and fall of her pert breasts.

Resting my curled fists above her head, I darkly warn, “There better not be someone in this house you go sneaking off to meet.”

“Like you’d be able to do anything to stop it,” she taunts, challengingly. “I don’t listen to you, fiancé or not.”

The word fiancé pours cold water over the possessive haze that aroused within me a second ago. She’s twisting the wires in my head with every fucking encounter.

I’m chasing her.

I’m threatening her.

I’m terrifying her.

All of which I’ve never done with a single woman in my life till now.

“Then why am I still engaged to you?” I demand in a low voice, putting our mouths inches apart. The defiant little thing isn’t intimidated. Instead, she’s drawing me in, almost daring me to take a bite.

“Is that what you desire?” she murmurs accusatorily. “A meek and naïve wife, who will obey your every command?”

“I don’t sit around daydreaming about playing house in the future, least of all a wife. But I do know what I don’t desire. And it’s you.”

“And yet you keep chasing me.”

“Only because you aren’t giving me what I asked.” My voice is harsh in the tight space. “I gave you a week. I don’t have time for your childish games.”

“Then end it.” Her soft breath teases my lips. “If you want me gone that bad, walk away.”

“Are you a masochist? Is that it, little Rose? Because pain is all I’ll deliver to you. And a tiny lock isn’t going to stop me from destroying your precious belongings.”

A mix of panic and fear flares. Though she tries to mask it.

She doesn’t realize she’s a small fish in a pool of sharks.

“I already tried, Nova,” she admits, shocking me momentarily. “My father isn’t someone who tolerates defiance, especially from his daughters. You saw it yourself. Why can’t you say no? Trust me, no one would bat an eye if you did.”

“Because this is one obligation I can’t refuse,” I confess half truthfully. “I’m afraid my hands are tied.”

“Well, so are mine.”

We stare-off.

Equally stubborn.

Neither of us willing to back down.

“It looks like we’re at a stalemate then,” I whisper, after a few heartbeats of staring into her eyes. They drop to my lips while her chest grazes mine as her breathing deepens. She doesn’t seem to realize one of her hands is resting dangerously low on my abs.

Yet I make no move to dislodge it.

Or pull away.

Her long eyelashes flutter, teasing the top of her rosy cheeks as I admire every contour of her face. Every time I’m this close, she sheaths her claws. Meanwhile, she has no clue what having that small power over her does to me.

How crazed it makes me feel.

Possessed.

And then once I’m overwrought with these feelings, I ache to push her limits. Test how far she’ll let me go. The scary part—I have no control over my own limits. She has me forgetting when to stop, when I’ve crossed them.

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