Page 25 of A Game So Reckless

So familiar.

That force of those fingers at my jaw. The callouses that brush the skin of my chin and the tender place beneath where my heart thrashes.

Oh, God. What do I do? Kick him in the balls? Shit. I can’t do that even if I try. He’s wedged a hard, denim-clad thigh between my legs. I’m entirely trapped, caged in by him.

All that’s left to do is-

“Don’t scream. Don’t you fucking do it,” he breathes. His mouth is so close to mine that the command sears itself into my lips. Then, there’s a smirk I feel almost as much as I can see it. Cruel dark eyes dig into me. “Or, do scream. Go ahead. Let them come. Let your da see you like this, in nothing but your pretty black lace, with your pussy plastered against my fucking thigh.”

My heart drops. Drops all the way down to the place where Darragh’s thigh holds me hostage.

“No,” I gasp. “No one would believe it!”

No one would believe I’d willingly submitted myself to this madman.

Or…

Would they?

Darragh didn’t come into the restaurant to drag me out here. I left the party willingly. My shoes, stockings, and dress are all in a somewhat organized pile on the ground. They don’t look like they’ve been savagely torn off.

Horror chills me. Because all at once, I know exactly what Papà will see.

He’ll see a destructive daughter rebelling against him by arranging a secret tryst with one of her family’s most powerful enemies. He’ll see betrayal, he’ll see stupidity, he’ll see tarnished innocence, and a shredded reputation.

Both his reputation and my own.

I don’t even want to think about what he’d do if he found me like this now. The only time Papà ever let me be alone with a man who wasn’t a bodyguard or family, I was already engaged to him. I’ve never even kissed someone before.

With a stone angel at my back and a throbbing, flesh-and-blood devil at my front, I’m cornered in every possible way.

Whatever secret, tiny scrap of gratitude I might have felt towards Darragh for saving me from choking and preventing my marriage to Dario vanishes. A candle snuffed out by the all-consuming darkness of his eyes and the possessive prison bars of his fingers and thigh.

“What do you want from me?” I hiss, jerking my head and trying to dislodge his hand from my chin. It works, but only for a second. His hand releases my chin and goes to the chignon at the back of my head. He fists it and yanks so hard that the pins, already sagging under the weight of my thick, long hair, start popping out of place as my scalp pricks and burns. Soon, there’s nothing left of the hairstyle but a low ponytail. Darragh instantly snatches it up and then wraps it tightly around his knuckles, like it’s the leash of a feral dog he wants to tame.

Something hot pulses inside that chilling, black-hole gaze. He’s breathing hard. His thumb finds the pulse point of one of my wrists and presses there. I don’t know if he even realizes he’s doing it.

For a moment, I actually think he might answer my question by telling me he wants to fuck me. I have no sexual experience, but there’s no mistaking the demands, both the obvious and more subtle, that his body is making of mine. It’s primal. Instinctive. I recognize the male need in him as easily as I might recognize a cue like hunger or thirst inside myself.

Frantic heat rises in my blood in response. It’s not just fear. It’s fear edged by something else, something pulsing and heady. Something that makes my clit feel suddenly, unbearably swollen against Darragh’s rock-hard thigh. My nipples, already hard from my shivering, go agonizingly taut beneath the lace.

“What do I want from you?” he murmurs, dark, taunting, and ever-so-slightly husky. “Pet, I never want anything at all.” His hand yanks harder on my hair, until my head is craned viciously back, my throat entirely bared. “Because the split-fucking-second Idodecide I want something-”

He stares menacingly down at me from above, iron and bronze, blackness and blood.

“-it’s already. Fucking. Mine.”

He releases me – both my wrists and my hair – and then moves away from me so suddenly my knees give out. Balance lost, my numb arms windmill wildly forward as I fall.

This time, he doesn’t bother saving me.

When I emerge from the fountain’s depths, spluttering and swearing and violently wiping water from my eyes, Darragh is already gone.

Chapter15

Darragh

“Body’s dealt with.”

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