Page 9 of Marked

Chapter 5

Cain

Her lips are trembling, but no words part from them, leaving me hanging longer than I care to. Is shame stopping her? Why did she ask me to stay if she can’t even answer such a simple question?

I can feel her pulse ratcheting beneath my hand around her neck. It’s a subtle throbbing, barely noticeable but still fast enough to let me know that she’s not quite as calm as her outer appearance may suggest. She has a collected and calm nature, the kind that doesn’t allow her emotions to show too much—unless they become violent enough to force themselves out, as they did on the day I took her. I felt sorry for her then, but I don’t know how to deal with her right now.

I don’t trust her, and I fucking hate that. Her sudden mood swings, and now this? I didn’t expect to lay a hand on her anytime soon—if ever again. At least not without a fight. I certainly did not expect her to ask for it.

And that’s exactly what unsettles me.

“Speak, Riley,” I push her again. “This is an order. And you know what happens to girls who don’t obey?”

“Yes, yes, I do,” she blurts out, nodding wildly. “I’m sorry, I just, I didn’t know where to begin, but…”

She pauses and looks up at me with an apologetic look on her face.

“I like the way you handle me,” she says in a low voice, her eyelashes fluttering again. “And the way you confine me, hold me. The way you… desire me.”

She concludes her rambling with a deep sigh, her chest heaving seductively while silence, heavy with meaning, oscillates between us.

“Handle you,” I repeat, turning so that my hand is raking around her throat from the front.

Her eyes widen, and the surprised inhale in reaction to my motion is suppressed by my choking grip. I can see her arm twitching, following the instinctive response to free herself of my hand—but she refrains from following through and slowly lowers it before I have to tell her to.

A faint gasp escapes her a moment later when I push her down on her back onto the bed.

“Confine you.” I climb on top of her, moving her arms above her head and pinning them down with one hand while the other remains closed around her throat.

I can feel her pulse speeding up beneath my palm, her blood pumping so wildly that the motion tests my skin.

I lean forward, placing my face close to hers, our heated breaths mingling as our eyes latch onto each other.

“Desire you,” I rasp, before planting my lips possessively on hers.

The kiss robs her of the opportunity for a response, but none is needed. At least not a verbal one.

I didn’t mean to, but I now realize that my eyes closed the moment my lips met hers, and they remain closed as our tongues embrace in a blazing dance. Her body moves beneath me, subtly squirming under my weight. But she’s not trying to get away from me. She’s not trying to gain freedom, instead reveling in the predicament I put her in.

She wants me. She asked for me.

And I wish I could trust her enough to simply go with it, to have my way with her. I wish I could give her what she needs and take for myself without doubt.

“What about your desire?” I question after I break our kiss.

She stares at me in question, her chest still heaving under erratic breaths as arousal continues to whirl through her core.

“You said you like the way I desire you,” I elaborate. “That is a very passive way to describe your thirst because it doesn’t say much about what you desire. What is it that you need from me, Riley?”

Her breath hikes for a split second and then her lips start trembling again, fighting for the right words to reply. She’s shy, I know that. Her lips always tend to seal when I ask her such questions, when I force her to give voice to the fire tingling inside her. A fire she keeps hidden from the outside world.

A fire that men like me can sense despite her attempts at shielding it from discovery.

But it’s not that restraint or shame that limits her speaking now. It’s something else.

She’s thinking, contemplating, examining each response that comes to mind, as if she’s afraid of saying the wrong thing.

Yet, she doesn’t fear punishment. On the contrary, if she wants me to take her—to play with her and fuck the living hell out of her—she would not only risk punishment, she would provoke it.

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