Page 44 of Taking

I should have fought his hold or demanded he let me go. Instead, my body relaxed against the wall, warm and wet, begging for more. My grip on his wrist loosened in submission to his control, but I kept my hand on him, needing the skin-on-skin connection. We shared heavy breaths inches apart as I stared into ice-like eyes swarming with an intensity I didn’t recognize.

The anger, the tension radiating off him heated me to the point my skin prickled with awareness. Hairs raised on my nape, my arms, but I didn’t heed the instinctive nudge to fight or flee.

I melted like a desperate whore.

His fingers tightened, cutting off my oxygen—and I let him. Longed for it. Trembled for it.

I wished he’d choke me out, that he’d wake me by shooting cum all over my body. But more than that, I desired him and all he’d promised me five years earlier.

Gasping for air, hovering on passing out, I released his wrist and once more touched his heaving chest, his hard muscle hot even through the cotton T-shirt. What could I do but tell him the truth after so many lies? He deserved it for all I’d done, deserved to have me prove him right about how I would one day beg him to touch me.

I licked my lip and held his gaze. “Fuck me, Gideon,” I whispered with what air I had left.

His gaze held steady at my choked words, but his grip on my throat eased up, allowing the pinpricks of stars growing in my periphery to fade away. “No.”

Our shared breaths came in pants, the energy between us intensifying to the point my skin felt ready to burst into flame. I squeezed my thighs together, completely baffled as to why he would deny what had flared to life the second we’d first seen one another all those years ago.

“Why not?” I sounded like a whiny child even though the words ripped from my lungs.

“Because you want it,” he muttered harshly through clenched teeth, bringing his face closer to mine.

Because I damn near dripped for his dick—when once upon a time I’d denied him again and again.

Realization dawned as our gazes held.

He didn’t crave the Addilyn ready to beg for his dick but the snobby princess he used to know, the one he could manipulate to get on her knees to suck him off. But that girl had gotten squashed deep down inside my soul. Her fire had died out.

All I had left was the kind of fight brought on by the fear of being used. If feigning I didn’t crave his touch gained me what my body lusted for…

“So, if I didn’t want your dick, you’d take my pussy like the jackass you are,” I tried to state firmly while lifting my chin and straightening my shoulders, so damn ready to give him exactly what he’d been after since we were teenagers.

An animalistic gleam lit his eyes, causing my core to clench as he once more tightened his grip on my neck, tipping my head back. “Damn right, princess.” He flashed his dimples, and my belly dipped in a swoon, but I didn’t give him a chance to respond as a rush of adrenaline coursed through me.

I jerked my knee up—and he shied away with a chuckle.

Fucker.

He wanted a hissing cat? I would lash at him with every ounce of strength I had left in me if it meant I could finally have him.

Sick or not, given the chance to have what I hadn’t admitted to myself I desired as a young girl, I went all in. Desperate for all he’d promised.

For him.

I wrenched against his hold and dug my fingernails into his forearm. Kicked and squirmed, fighting to rid myself of his firm hold that continued to make my core throb to be filled.

“Fucking let me go!” I clawed like one pissed off feline, not meaning one damn word of the demands spewing from my lips. Releasing his relentless arm, I swung at his face.

Caught his cheek with my fingernails, dragging to mar his perfection with blood-welling stripes.

“Goddamnit!” His lips thinned as he slammed me against the wall again, his eyes going dark. Hard.

Yes.

Arousal slickened between my thighs, but I kicked—he sidestepped.

“You fucking prick!” I swiped at his face. He whipped his head back away from my reach with another chuckle. “Fucker…let me go!”

Heat, absolute pure adrenaline, and disturbing desire fueled my limbs, and I kicked and swung, soaking in every grunt I earned from his luscious-looking lips. The thump of my fist on his shoulder and my foot to his thigh heightened my core’s craving for his dick.

---