Page 113 of Destined To Fall

“Vivienne, wait. What are you doing?” I turn around, immediately wishing I hadn’t. The lost, broken look on Jeremy’s face will haunt me.“Please, don’t—”

I shove him out the door and close it before I can hear another word, still unable to take a full breath in.

Chapter Twenty-Two

I knock on the hotel room door, like I have done a million times. The lock clicks, and in the next instant, the door swings wide, revealing Antony, completely naked and hard as granite.

My stomach clenches, but for once, it’s not with anticipation. He pulls me into the room, his mouth feasting on my neck, my collarbone, my earlobe, his greedy hands disrobing me before a single word is uttered.

“I’ve missed you.” His hushed voice reverberates in my ear.

“I’m sure you haven’t.”

“This is not true. We haven’t been together in many weeks.”

“That’s hardly a lifetime, Antony. You have other whores to service your needs.”

He raises a singular eyebrow at me, his eyes gleaming with something I don’t recognize.“Whores? It is unlike you to condemn your fellow professionals. Are you classing yourself among them?”

“If the shoe fits.” I shrug, my bare breasts rising and falling with the gesture.

Antony says nothing for a long while, his eyes probing as they do, the slight annoyance and displeasure flickering in them in a subtle undercurrent I’m sure anyone else would have missed. But I know this man’s tells well. Sadly, he knows mine just as well, if not a little better. He can pinpoint the smallest change in me, see right through my bullshit, and cut me to the quick.

I open my mouth to deny, rebuff, laugh it all off, but before I can utter a syllable, Antony picks me up and throws me down completely bare on the bed. His head cocks to the side as he appraises my body. For a minute, two, three. I don’t know, but it feels like an age before his eyes flick up to mine. It’s not the raging hunger I expect to see staring back at me, but a mixture of curiosity, watered-down desire, and…confusion? I feel my heart pick up speed, and Antony’s mouth curls down at the corners, his eyes narrowing infinitesimally.

Fuck.

“Vivienne…?” He says my name in a questioning tone, bordering on a growl.

His hands thrust out, grasping around my knees. The sudden action startles me, but I swallow the gasp as he yanks my legs wide open. My heart visibly beats beneath my chest, my breasts seeming to pulse with the action, but his eyes aren’t fixed on them. I will my heart to slow and try to conjure my wits that seem to have left me the moment I stepped out of the elevator and crossed the threshold into Antony’s suite.

“Am I not to your liking this evening, Antony? Are you finding me lacking?” I tease, my tone surprisingly even.

He smirks as his golden gaze locks with mine. But it’s calculating…challenging.

“Au contraire,” he purrs darkly, his head tilting to the side as he studies me further.“But there is definitely something lacking.”

I swallow hard, his meaning clear, but he continues to prove his point, trailing his index finger across my knee, the blunt edge of the nail running the length of my inner thigh. It’s slow and measured, and on any other day, it would have my body submitting, my breath quickening, and my muscles clenching, but today is not any other. Antony’s eyes never leave mine. I hold his gaze, refusing to break, though I desperately want to look away and cower under the scrutiny. His grin turns mischievous, and I gasp loudly as a finger pushes inside me. But Antony is no fool. He knows my body almost better than I know it myself, and it was no gasp of pleasure. There was no tightening of my muscles around him in want, no wet warmth waiting. For the first time in our history, my body is not pleased to see him.

“I think your body has forgotten who commands it, who owns it.”

I let the remark slide as he pushes his finger deeper, my breath catching as he hits that sweet spot within, but my body responds with a whisper of a twitch.In the next second, he pulls his finger free with a flick, capturing my hips in a punishing grip before flipping me over face-first into the mattress. He moves away from the bed, and I close my eyes to the point of pain, but all I see are rich, blue pools blazing back at me, the emotion in them crippling me. My eyes snap open, and my body alights with restrained frustration now coursing through it.

“Show me,” I grit out against the coverlet.“Remind me. Make my body yours.”

I feel him kneel on the bed behind me, the rip of a foil packet the only sound in the room. Leaning over my body, he gathers my hair up in one hand and tugs ithard, causing my head to tilt back and my face to rise to the ceiling.

“I don’t believe it’s your body that’s the problem,” he whispers slowly in my ear, his five o’clock shadow rubbing against my skin.“No matter. I’ll remind the rest of you as well.” His gruff, matter-of-fact words are all he says before he lifts my ass up with his other hand and thrusts himself inside me in one punishing push.

“Ahh,” I gasp out,fistingthe coverlet with both hands, my body shuddering with the sharpness.

“Yes. That’s it. Before our night is out, I will have you screaming my name. Pleasure or pain, it’s all the same in our world.”

Oh, god.

Antony releases my hair and hip, capturing my breasts in his hands, gripping themwith force. He pulls me back toward him, my bodyobeys, rising toall foursas hepinches my nipples between his thumbs and forefingers. The burn of pleasure shoots straight to my core, and I clench. He moans his approval andeaseshimselfout, leaving just the tip, before he thrustsin one sharp burstto the hilt, robbing me of the ability to breathe.His hands are the onlypreventionfrom face-planting the bed with thepowerof his hips.

Again and again, he punishes me with them. His glorious length hits hard and deep, forcing my body to submit to his will, to his want, to his need, reminding me just how good it’s always been between us.Antony pulls me up between one thrust and the next, wrappingan arm under my breasts to press me against his chest, never breaking rhythm, rubbing that sweet spot over and over.Yes, my bodyscreams, overridingthe rest of me. My head empties and my pulse flames to life under my now-glistening skin.

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