He never takes his eyes off mine.
They’ve taken on a slightly nostalgic quality in my addled brain. Familiar, even safe. If I could lean far enough into them, then nothing could hurt me.
Maybe nothingwillhurt me.
Maybe he won’t allow it.
I flash back to MacDougal, the way I’d known that whoever killed him had hands that could be trusted.
Roman sees everything about me. He stalks my life, haunts my dreams, kills the people I want to kill, makes me come like no one else ever has or will.
I think I’d cease to exist if he stopped watching me, seeing me.
“Ivan thought he’d get away with touching you,” he growls. “Seeing that was like a bomb going off inside me. You know that, don’t you? You know what a sweet little powder keg you are?”
He draws the knife tip down across my sternum, the curve of my breast, the sensitivity of bruised skin. My nipples ache and tighten as he traces cold metal around them, as sharp as ice melting against our combined body heat.
He moves diagonally across my torso, painting my body from hip to hip, looking down at me like I’m his favorite meal. Thatlook does something unbearable to me and makes my fingers twitch, desperate to bring them to my clit and find some relief.
“And that banker at the bar,” he hisses, working the knife down, slowly, carefully, to my belly. Slow as a fuse. “I’ve told you before, but let me make it clear. I won’t share you.”
The knife flicks down my stomach, drawing a line just above my navel, then lower, stopping at my hipbone. He hesitates, then rotates the blade so the tip is aimed directly between my legs.
I clench away from it, then melt towards it.
I will give in. Tonight, for now, I won’t fight anymore.
I can’t.
I need him too fucking much.
“You tested me, getting drinks with your fed,” he snarls, blade pressing against my flesh like a prelude. He doesn’t nick me, but the point of the blade is so close I can feel it, a threat painted in millimeters. “Then youinsistthat we should involve him in this.”
He moves the knife again, stroking the inside of my thigh with the flat of the blade. It gets closer and closer to my pussy until it’s mere inches away.
“His name will never enter this house again. You’re mine,” he says, the hand on my throat squeezing,drawing an involuntary sigh from my throat. “And I’ll punish you as many times as I need to until you understand that.”
A tremor moves through me. I can’t stop it.
“Poor little viper,” he murmurs. “Must be hard to stay still when I’m making you feel this good.”
He grins down at me, wicked and dark and everything I’ve ever feared or needed. My body is desperate for him now, screaming against his slowness.
He holds the blade still, but his head moves. Down my body, tongue trailing the same path the knife took, murderous denial as he skims between my breasts, ignoring my aching nipples.
He dips his tongue into my bellybutton and my abs snap, arching my back before I can stop it. I feel his smile now as he goes lower, his stubble tickling my belly, hand still on my throat. He licks each hip, then settles his chin between my thighs, still only parted as much as his legs will allow.
Enough for him to graze the knife on my inner thigh. Enough for his next words to blow against my swollen, dripping slit. My clit throbs, greedy, and I whimper, muscles straining to not spread them wider.
Because he told me to stay still.
“I’m going to show you that I’m the only weapon you need.”
The tip of the knife brushes my slit, collecting the slickness between my lips and applying the lightest pressure—still enough for me to cry out, my body rebelling against patience, the only way I know to ask for more.
He shoves two fingers into my open mouth. My eyes roll back at the taste of him: leather and iron. My response is automatic, innate, a feint of satisfaction as I suck, my tongue lathing his flesh.
I’m falling apart.