Page 36 of Forbidden Desires

We started up the stairs leading to my apartment, but I didn’t let up. “You could have explained things weeks ago. You talk about mature, that would have been the mature thing to do. But you expect me to act like nothing happened? What kind of horse shit is that, Eric?”

“I’m not saying ignoring you was the right thing to do,” he said, soundingalmostapologetic as I unlocked my apartment door and stepped inside. “I’m just saying I’ve had a lot going on in my mind and it’s a lot of shit I have no idea how to compartmentalize or process or even talk about—”

“Talk about it?” I finally whirled around, unleashing another bout of my wrath on him. “Youcouldn’t talk about it? What do you think anything that I said that weekend was easy to talkabout? But I did, because you needed it, because I thought that us together like that and opening up like that was the thing to do because…fuck, I don’t know, we’re friends, or something? I talked about things that are still too painful to even talk about with Dominique, so don’t give me that too hard shit, Eric.”

Eric simply stared at me. Had the nerve to say not a damn word while he looked me in my face. It took a special kind of audacity, to be a man like that. To look a scorned woman in her eyes when she was fuming, when she… fuck, when she was hurt to the core, even if she wouldn’t dare say those specific words to him.

But what was I supposed to do? Act like I wasn’t utterly disappointed, devastated even? Like there wasn’t some part of me that desperately needed him to say something? Like maybe an apology to start?

My nostrils flared, eyes narrowed on him, and he kept that calm, cool gaze that burned and spurned me all at once and just made me even more irate, even if it also made the pit of my stomach warm with an unexpected flutter.

He stepped in, and I stood my ground, even as his advance put him in my personal space, nearly chest to chest if I’d actually had the height for my own chest to touch his.

Wordlessly, he reached behind him, pushing the door of my apartment closed. His eyes never left mine. “Where is your bedroom, Jasmine?”

Admittedly, his unexpected request startled me, but I didn’t budge. “Why do you need to know where my bedroom is? We can talk right here. In fact, open that door. Let the neighbors hear the conversation for all I care, Eric.”

He scoffed, just faintly, though there was an inkling of a smirk that tugged at the corners of his mouth,arrogant fucking man. “Where is your bedroom, Jasmine?”

This time, his voice was silken smooth. Deep. So damn seductive and I hated that my traitorous body was already starting to respond to that alluring tone.

I wanted to tell him to go fuck off somewhere, but just as much as I wanted to do that, I craved what that tone would lead to. What delicious, beautiful dangers that would bring me. Funny, any other man I would caution what he would do to me, like this. Yet with all the darkness in Eric’s tone, in his eyes even, I trusted where this might lead, because I trustedhim.

Not with my heart—no, not that—but with my body.

And right now, my traitorous body craved his, despite the wringer he’d put me through tonight. Hell, the past month. I wanted the release of all the tension bottled up inside me that I knew he could give me. I wanted the kind of rough, unrefined angry-fuck that was filled with aggression and hostility.

None of that slow and gentle and intimate shit. Right now, I knew that wasn’t what he was offering.

I didn’t answer him. I merely scoffed and turned my back to him. I led him through my apartment, a shorter distance from the front door to my room than the expanse of his penthouse, for sure, but it made it so I didn’t have to wait long—and neither did he.

As soon as we were inside, his hand was on the back of my neck. A sure grip, one that sent a shiver down the length of my spine as he turned me. He didn’t even have to use force. Just the presence of his fingers at my nape, the underlying strength that I felt there, in that grip. It was a silent command to my body to comply, and I did.

Facing him, his expression was composed. Almost like we hadn’t been arguing so heatedly. A man with so much control over himself…why was it so tempting right now? Why did it make me vibrate with need even though I was still so goddamn furious with him?

“Take off your clothes, Jasmine.”

I wet my lips with the tip of my tongue as I lifted my chin. “And if I don’t?”

He didn’t reply to my defiant challenge, not verbally anyway. Eric tilted his head, brow raised, as though contemplating himself what he would do if I didn’t obey. His hand left my nape and slid around to my throat. I was only allowed a soft gasp at the firm pressure against my pulse.

He leaned closer to me. “I said…take off your clothes, Jasmine.”

His hand remained there at my throat, a warm, steady presence. Entranced, more than I had initially expected to be, I didn’t hesitate to comply. I kept my eyes on his as I reached around and undid my zipper, then slid my arms out of my dress sleeves. There was so little fabric, the slinky material fell so easily off my frame. Pooled at my feet, it stayed there; his intensely sexual gaze kept me rooted to the spot. I didn’t even step out of it.

“Allof it, Jasmine.” His voice was calm, the demand in those words not so much.

With him, my obedience in the bedroom came as naturally as breathing. No bra, I was already bare chested. So it was me leaning down, straining against the pressure created by Eric’s hand on my throat. He didn’t move. Face placid as though he were waiting around for a gallery to open. As if, almost, he were merely looking at an incredibly boring piece of art.

My fingers brushed just inside my thighs—damp with my arousal—as I pushed my panties down, let them fall into the pile between my legs. When had I gotten so wet? When he took my throat in his hand? Or before that, even, when we were arguing?

It started there, I concluded. That damned argument damning me to this place, right here. Ire and arousal were so easily made friends, even in the tamest situations. This, whatEric and I were doing? Was hardly tame. It was the farthest thing from tame, and that’s how I wanted it.

When I was completely bare, only then did Eric’s fingers slide away from my neck. Oh, so slow. A lingering phantom caress. He’d ceased touching me, but I knew I was to stay where I was.

His eyes flared with a scorching heat as he took in my naked body. “You’re so beautiful, Jasmine. So goddamn headstrong. I like that about you, but you know what your problem is?” He leaned in, nuzzling his nose against my neck, inhaling deeply of my scent. “You clearly haven’t learned my expectations. It’s alright. We’ll figure it out together. As long as it takes.”

Before I could say anything, even think to say anything to defy him, he had his hand on my throat again, pushing me back onto my bed. My upper half fell against the plush comforter, my legs hanging off the edge. Eric shoved my feet apart with his shoes, then moved between my spread thighs, keeping them wide open to his avid, hungry gaze.

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