Page 60 of The Brotherhood

He sat back on his haunches, watching her with dark, gleaming eyes. And then—he licked his lips. A slow, deliberate flick of his tongue, as if tasting the fight still in the air.

Scarlett’s skin prickled. She should run. Now.

Instead, she wiped the sweat from her brow and hissed, “Again.”

****

Scarlett hit the mat with a brain jarring force this time, but the takedown hadn’t come so quickly. She’d out maneuvered four attacks in a row so by the time she ate crow, she was gasping on ragged breaths under the crush of his body, wrists pinned above her head with a single hand.

His massive legs locked hers open, putting her in a cage of body heat and hot, slow breaths. “So you’re physically stronger,” she forced out, voice tight with defiance. “And that’s your limit.”

A slow, knowing grin curled his lips. “Is that so?” His voice was full of smoke, challenge and amusement. “Then tell me, Sister. Why are you shaking?”

Scarlett clenched her jaw, the betrayal of her own body infuriating. She couldn’t stop the way her pulse thundered in her throat, or the way heat pulsed low in her belly. Couldn’t stop the way his presence, his dominance, set fire to everything she was supposed to be. “It’s called adrenaline, you moron,” she finally answered between breaths.

Spar tilted his head, and she flinched with the skim of his nose along the line of her jaw. It travelled down to the frantic pulse hammering at her throat. “You talk like you’re still in control,” he murmured, voice soft, warning. “Like I don’t feel what’s happening to you.”

He shifted just enough, and her breath sucked in sharp with the press of his thigh, right against the spot that boiled with weakness. Her face burned with shame and fury, then something far worse, when she arched into the friction before she could stop herself.

A thick groan rolled through his chest, a hungry vibration pressing into her as he watched her face closely. “Was that an oops?”

She clenched her jaw. “Get off of me.”

He deliberated with a thick, hot hum. “I don’t think so.” His thigh pressed again, purposefully. Firm. She choked back a sound, her fingers curling into useless fists above her head. His eyes stayed locked on hers, watching, studying, drinking in every response she couldn’t control.

“See, that’s the problem with you, little angel,” he said, voice hushed, like they were sharing a secret. “You like to pretend you’re not as dirty as I am.”

Scarlett bit the inside of her cheek, refusing to look away, refusing to give him the satisfaction of breaking.

He shifted his weight again, a slow grind that sent pleasure shooting through her body like wildfire and forcing her spine to bow off the mat from the heat curling inside her.

His eyes went dark, hooded, a fire now moving over her. “That’s it,” he whispered, barely more than a breath against her skin. “Let yourself feel it, angel.”

She choked on the sounds she fought to swallow. “I don’t—”

Another drag of his leg against her core brought a pulse of molten pleasure, turning her words into a broken, hitched inhale.

His mouth moved along her cheek, stopping at her ear. “You gonna lie to me again?”

Scarlett clenched her eyes tight, her chest rising too fast, too hard. “I hate you,” she blasted, her breaths edged with tiny, helpless grunts.

“Yeah?” he murmured, flexing his thigh again, the pressure just right, just enough. “You hate this right here?”

Her stomach clenched with her gasp. “It… doesn’t count,” she gasped, even as her body moved helplessly, chasing the rhythm, the pressure, the pleasure. “You’re… making me.”

“I am,” he admitted, his breath burning her ear. “But I don’t need to.”

The warning stole her breath as he eased his leg from between hers and lay next to her, keeping tight hold of her wrists.

Instinctively, she clamped them shut, the absence of his assault filling her muscles with a hot, low hum.

She watched him and her breath hitched at the barest glide of his fingers along her hip, tracing down to her thigh till her breaths were back to ragged. Ragged with need and hope and fear. She realized his intention. No more force. Escape was now possible. And yet the single finger, gliding along the seam of her closed legs was suddenly more powerful than his whole body pressing down on her.

She closed her eyes, pulling her brows together, willing, praying for the strength to break away from him. But then she might never know what was at the end of the exquisite pressure beating between her legs.

“You want this?” he whispered, his tone testing as his fingers made it to her privates beneath the cotton bloomers. He gently toyed, teased. “You want it right here?” His touch pressed, right on the perfect spot and she fought the burning need for more now ripping her open. She could only pant for air, fighting to push away from it, only to push into it. “My little nun,” he whispered right at her ear. “Show me you want it.”

Her back arched with her gasp when his hot tongue flicked her ear lobe as a wave of heat rolled through her body, causing her to squirm. Her mouth refused to close. She was on fire. Her lungs, her body, even her heavy, hooded eyes burned with it.

---