Page 73 of Vicious Temptation

“Okay,” she murmurs nervously, biting her lip. “What do you want to know?”

I take a deep, slow breath, trying to organize my thoughts, to move past the throbbing in my cock and focus on the important parts of this—what I need to ensure I understand in order to make sure I don’t fuck up, and accidentally hurt her. It occurs to me that I should go and lock the door, but no one ever comes down here except for me, and Agnes won’t clean while she knows I’m still down here, until after she’s seen me for breakfast. All of that rattles through my head—but the truth is, I can’t pry myself away from her. I’m an inch away, close enough that I can feel the heat radiating off of her skin, smell the sweet scent of her sweat and soap, and I couldn’t move if the whole fucking room was on fire.

“Have you had sex before?” I ask quietly. “I know a little of what happened to you. And I know it’s hard to talk about. But if this is supposed to help you—move past it, in some way, then I need to know how far it went. How much you’ve experienced, before you shut down.”

Bella swallows hard, shaking her head. “No,” she whispers. “They didn’t go that far. They roughed me up, and they touched me inappropriately—” She moves her hand up to her breasts, brushing her other hand against her thigh, and just between them. “One of them put his hand between my legs, but not actually inside of me. They were too afraid of ruining me for Pyotr and being punished. While they were keeping me in the room, waiting on him—” Her voice breaks, and I step back, giving her a little room.

“We don’t have to talk about all of it today,” I tell her gently. “We don’t have to do anything today. If you’re not ready now, Bella, it can be anytime. You’re not going anywhere, and neither am I. This—thing that you’re asking for…we can start and stop whenever you want, if we’re going to do this. It doesn’t have to be right this second.”

She nods quickly, still worrying at her lower lip. “I know,” she breathes. “But I want to—no, that’s not right. I need to talk about it. Before I lose my nerve.”

“Alright.” I wait, and she sucks in another breath, her gaze still on the mat between us.

“They got me into the room and pushed me down on my knees. A couple of them were turned on, and they—got themselves out, started touching themselves. One of them pushed it up against my mouth, rubbed it on my face. But they didn’t actually—” She winces. “Penetrate me anywhere. It was all just posturing, threats. But that was somehow worse. The dread was worse.”

The anger that floods me is like nothing I’ve ever felt. “You said they were dead, by the time you were taken out of there?”

Bella nods. “I think so. Most of them. The don and some of his men stormed the hotel, looking for his wife. The woman whose place I took. I heard shooting, and—” She wraps her arms around herself, and I clench my jaw.

“Good,” I manage to grit out. “Because if they weren’t, I’d kill them all myself, for touching you that way. For hurting you.”

Bella’s eyes snap up to mine, and I see a glimmer of disbelief in them. I don’t blame her for that—I’ve never presented myself as a violent man. Truthfully, I’ve never killed anyone, or had call to be all that violent. A few fights is the worst I’ve run into, in my line of business with the criminal underworld of New York. But in that moment, I mean every word. And she must see it, because there’s something else in her eyes, too.

Gratitude. And a heat that tells me exactly what else it makes her feel.

“Anyway,” she licks her lips again, dropping her gaze once more. “I’m still a virgin. And I’m—I’m miles away from being ready to do anything about that. But I?—”

She breaks off, and I want so badly to reach out and slide a finger under her chin, to tip her face up so that she’s looking me in the eye. But I can’t touch her. Not yet.

After a moment, she looks up at me. “I trust you,” she says softly. “And I want to get there. I know you won’t hurt me.”

My pulse is thundering in my ears. My entire body feels wound tight, my cock a painful, hard bar of iron in my workout shorts, and Bella has far more faith in my capability to take this slowly than I do. But I have to, because the last thing in the fucking world that I want to do is break this woman’s trust.

She’s been hurt, and she trusts me to help put her back together. The gravity of that alone is enough to tell me that I shouldn’t be doing this, as emotionally unavailable as I am. But she said that she didn’t want to make this a long-term thing, either. That we’re doing this as friends. That eventually, someone else is going to take over where I leave off.

That shouldn’t send the burn of jealousy through me that it does. But, right or wrong, I push it away for now, because I can’t face it. The only real option is to never start down that road at all, and faced with Bella in front of me, sweetly asking me to teach her how to enjoy all things sexual, I can’t stand the idea of telling her no.

“Alright then, Bella,” I murmur, looking down at her with desire running rampant through every inch of my body. “Tell me what you want.”

She breathes in shakily, the tension between us so thick it feels as if I could reach out and grab it.

“I want you to kiss me,” she whispers. Her eyes are wide, nervous, her full mouth parted, and everything in me wants to devour her. I steady myself, leaning forward, one hand on the wall next to her head.

Fuck. I can do this. I can just kiss her, softly, gently, and stop there if that’s what she wants. I’ll have to stroke my dick raw in the shower afterwards, just to function for the rest of the day, but I won’t go a step further than what she’s asking for. I can’t quite believe what she is asking of me—but in its own roundabout way, it makes sense. I’ve helped her so far. I’ve shown that I want her to have her freedom, that I want it to be possible for her to make her own way in the world. This is just another step in that direction. Which is why she’s asked me to help her with it.

Deep down, I know I’m lying to myself if I think we can fool around, keep doing what we’re doing, all the way up to me being the first man to ever be inside of her—and then just walk away. But her trust in me, and how lost I am in her, makes it impossible to resist.

“Gabriel?” Bella whispers my name, and I feel the muscles in my abdomen tighten, my cock twitching at the sound of my name on her lips. She tilts her head up, her eyes becoming more and more nervous. “Is something wrong?”

I shake my head, swallowing hard. “No. I’ve just been thinking about kissing you for a long time. And I want it to be good for you.”

She smiles faintly. “I’ve got nothing to compare it to.”

Somehow, that gives me the courage to lean in. I breathe in as I angle my mouth towards hers, the scent of her sweat and soap and shampoo filling my senses, the thought that I’m about to taste her for the first time making me throb with an incomparable need. I touch my mouth to hers, just a brush of lips, and I feel her gasp.

“Gabriel—”

She breathes my name against my mouth, and my hand curls into a fist against the wall by her head, as I fight for control. I kiss her again, a little more firmly this time, and Bella makes a soft whimpering sound that goes straight to my cock.

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