Page 16 of Naughty Bedtime Stories

“You sent him to me.” Her tone took on accusation. “You sent him to me after years of no contact.”

“You knew how to reach me.”

“I didn’t think you wanted me to reach you,” she ground out. He’d always left her a cell number and an email address but with time came hesitation, fear of rejection. “And when Marcus showed up, I thought he was some sort of a test. I thought it was a message that the invitation was about sex and nothing more.”

Fury surfaced, raw and fresh. “Or maybe you just wanted it to be all about sex.”

“No!” She squeezed her eyes shut and then cast a pleading look at him. “I was confused, and after what happened between us, I felt I had something to prove. I thought I had to go beyond my comfort zone, which is you, Jacob.”

Comfort. He was comfort, and Marcus was excitement. “Funny,” Jacob said. “I was never confused where you were concerned, Darla. In fact, I was so damn certain I wanted you, I left the Society while we were together. I didn’t need anything but you. And I damn sure didn’t want you in the Society, nor will I ever share you with Marcus or anyone else for that matter. I reached out to you through Marcus to invite us back together. You were supposed to be his attorney. Not his fucking Sub.”

He pushed off the wall and scrubbed his jaw. “Go home, Darla. You don’t belong here. Or go to Marcus, if that’s what you want. Maybe it’s just me you don’t belong with. Clearly, I should have stayed out of your life.”

She grabbed his shirt, ignored his order not to touch him. Her hands scorched his body, and he didn’t push her away. He wanted her to touch him, and this was going to be the last time she ever did.

He was done.

“I don’t want Marcus,” she hissed desperately, drawing closer to him, her legs entwining with his, her breasts pressed to his chest. “Damn it. Stop saying that, or you’re going to piss me off. I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t want you, and you know it.”

Good, he thought, then they could be pissed off together, but then her bottom lip trembled, giving away the vulnerability beneath her tough exterior—that vulnerability he found so damn alluring glistening in her eyes. But actions spoke volumes, and hers were downright explosive. Anger flashed in him anew. “You show it so well.”

She shoved away from him, anger furrowing her brow. “Damn you, Jacob. You didn’t tell me about the Society so I never had the chance to respect how paramount it was that you left it for me.

And it was—I know it was. If only I had known.But I didn’t.You pretended to be something you weren’t for a year. I had a right to be scared. I had a right to wonder what else you were hiding from me.”

Those words hit home. She was right. He should have told her; he should have showed her sooner. “Deep down I always knew that the minute I did, you’d be scared away, and I’d lose you.” He snatched her purse from the floor, offering it to her. And she shouldn’t have been scared with him. Not if she’d loved him, not if she’d trusted him.

“Youdon’tscare me.” Her eyes flashed angrily again, and she tossed the purse to the ground. “Isaid I’m not leaving.”

He stared at her, this woman, the only woman who could test his control. “Go now before I decide to remind you why you were scared that night three years ago.”

“I wasn’t scared until the morning after,” she said. “And I’ve had three years to figure out why. I’m not leaving until you figure it out, too.”

Drawing in a breath, Jacob was ever aware of the demand inside him, demand that reached beyond the raging, uncomfortable hard-on pressing against his zipper. He’d remembered with crystal clarity the coldness in her face, in her voice, when she’d told him she needed “space.”

She wanted to stay this time. Fine. She’d stay, and he’d give her a gift. No. He’d give them both a gift. He’d be damn sure to remind them both just how afraid she’d been of him three years ago.

Jacob grabbed her with none-too-gentle hands and turned her to face the wall, tugged her jacket down her arms and entwined her hands in it, restraining her with a knot of the material. He closed in on her, framing her body with his, so close that the softness of her melted into the hardness of him.

His lips pressed to her ear, that sunflower scent rasping along his nerve endings, pulsing in his blood. “You want to be a part of this world, my world?”

“Yes,” she whispered.

“Then I’ll show you what youthinkyou want to see,” he said. “But there are rules. I command. You obey. There is no exception except goodbye. The instant you say stop, I stop, and you go.” He nipped the delicate skin of her lobe with his teeth. “Unless you want to run now while you still can?”

The scent of her arousal spiraled together with the flowers, teasing him, damn near making his mouth water. But then, arousing her during play hadn’t been their problem. Apparently, looking at him in the face the next morning had been.

“I’m not running away.” She was breathless. He liked her breathless.

“No?” he asked. “I’ll guess we’ll see about that now, won’t we?” He paused and slid his hand to her stomach, splayed his fingers on her flat stomach.“After.”

“I was scared,” she whispered, “because I—”

He didn’t let her finish, didn’t want to hear her reasons for pushing him away. He slid his hand to her face and forced her mouth to his, punished her for making him consider such a thing, slanting his mouth over hers in a kiss he knew bordered on savage. But then, wasn’t that what she thought he was? A savage beast that stole her vanilla sex and innocence away.

He suckled her tongue, deepened the kiss, punished her with his passion. She was right; he’d waited a year too long to drag her to his dark side, trying to earn her trust first, certain he had. But she’d never trusted him. She moaned, and he slid his hand up her blouse, busting the buttons and sending them flying. He didn’t care about the damn shirt. Hewasa savage. She thought it of him, so it would be.

Roughly, he shoved her bra down and pinched her nipple—rough with it, as well. She cried out and bit his lip. He laughed, a bitter, hard sound even to his own ears, before pulling the clasp from her hair and letting the soft waves tumble over her shoulders. He leaned in and nipped her lip, murmuring before his hand left her face, “You’ll pay for that.”

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