Page 123 of Which Witch Is Wicked?
A girl had needs, after all.
Of course, it was damn near impossible to look at a man like Nick Kingswood andnotthink of what he’d be like in bed. Broad shouldered. Lean-hipped. Muscles cut by the gods’ own chisel. But for Moira, it was more than that.
It was his liquid caramel eyes climbing the muscle of her thigh the way a general traces a territory to be conquered. His arrogant smirk and the knowledge it hid. Silent promises made by his sinfully sensuous mouth. The way he made any space he occupied belong to him with the brusque movement of his powerful body.
A powerful body now leaning over her, blotting out the world and making her dizzy, leaving her only with his question and the few breaths she could sneak into her tightening chest past her thundering heart.
She didn’t look him in the eye. Couldn’t, for fear he’d read the answer already written there. “What if I said yes, but had a condition of my own?” she asked.
“Name it,” Nick ordered, his voice thick with desire.
“I want these shackles off,” she said. “Since this is going to be my last time, I’d prefer not to be trussed up like a chicken for Sunday dinner.”
When he didn’t answer, she dared a look in his eyes and had to bite her tongue to stifle a gasp.
Nick’s eyes glowed unnatural saffron orange.
Something had caught fire inside him.
How many had seen this same hue before meeting their end?
“I promise I won’t try to escape or nothing, if that’s what you’re thinking. Girl Scout’s honor,” she claimed, even though she’d never in her childhood been accepted into a troop.
“Feel free to try and run from me, if it pleases you,” Nick invited. “But I can save you some effort by letting you know now that you would not succeed.”
“And what makes you so sure?” Moira challenged.
“No one ever has.”
Why the finality of these words caused heat to gather between her thighs, Moira couldn’t say.
Nick’s chest rose and fell in deepening breaths. “So we have an accord then? If I unchain you, you agree to let mefuckyou?”
Taking one steadying breath, Moira nodded.
“I need to hear you say it.” Nick loomed above her, perfectly still, unwilling to make a single movement until he had extracted from her the words he wanted.
“Yes,” Moira said.
“Yeswhat?”
Lord.This conceited motherfucker wanted her to sayallofit.In for a penny, as Uncle Sal would say.
“Yes,” Moira repeated. “If you unchain me, I agree to let youfuckme.” Feeling irritated and more than a little brazen, she’d put as much emphasis on the word as he had. “In exchange for killing me,” she added, purely to make certain they were clear on expectations. “I’ll be damned if it doesn’t sound like I’m getting the raw end of this deal.”
Nick leaned close to brush his lips over her ear, releasing a riotous wave of goose bumps down her neck and shoulders.
“It will be more than your end of the deal that’srawby the time I’m done with you.”
Moira was certain Nick could hear the rush of blood pounding in her ears as he planted a kiss on her wounded temple that was as tender as his words had been brutal.
Warmth spread into her cheeks and down her neck, tightening her nipples into painful buds beneath her tank top. And she waited. Waited for him to go retrieve a key. A crowbar. A butterknife. Hoping for even a moment free of his presence to mentally steel herself against whatever he had in store.
It was not to be.
Nick reached for the cuff at her wrist and pulled the metal apart, bicep and pectoral muscles straining against his finely tailored shirt, the shackle yielding with only the briefest sound of protest. It fell to the bed at her shoulder, and she looked up at him, knowing her face most likely bore a dopey mix of wonder and disbelief.
Only when Nick’s index finger gently urged her bottom jaw closed did Moira realize her mouth had been hanging wide open.
