Page 206 of Merciless Desires

I peeled myself up off the floor and walked to the window. The mid-morning sun illuminated the south-facing lawns; it made Blackcap Hall appear almost pleasant. Very soon, a black Mercedes would be cruising down the long drive carrying my heart. I pressed my fist and my forehead against the glass and let long seconds pass as my skin cooled.

Behind me, a door handle turned and almost instantly, another person was inside my rooms and running up behind me. I turned just in time to feel a red hot slap across my unscarred cheek. When I turned my head back to face her, she had never looked more beautiful.

“How DARE you?” she shouted.

She raised her hand again but I caught it in a thick, tight grip. My eyes narrowed while my body expunged the shock of her entrance.

“You brought me here, hid me away, made me discover myself, made me want you. And for what? So, you can hate yourself even more? So, you can force me out without getting what you paid for? Without giving me what I want?”

I shook my head. “You don’t know what you want.”

“STOP TELLING ME WHAT I WANT!” She tried to yank her hand back but I didn’t let it move an inch.

I didn’t know what hurt more, the lies coming out of her mouth, or the shock of seeing her again after I thought I’d drunk and smashed away the worst of my heartbreak.

“Just go home, Rose. Take the fucking money and go.”

She stilled and steadied her breath. “I don’t want the money.”

“What?”

My grip loosened and she pulled her hand away, wrapping her other hand around the wrist.

“I don’t want the money, Dax,” she said, her voice soft but deadly serious. “But I do still want you to take my virginity.”

I closed my eyes to keep from letting her words penetrate my skin. “You don’t know what you’re saying.”

Opening them again, I watched her lips curl inwards.

“I know exactly what I’m saying. I want you. Why won’t you believe me?”

I dropped my gaze to the floor. “I kept you here too long…”

“Two weeks.”

“You’re vulnerable…”

“I know what I’m doing.”

I clamped my hands over the back of a chair and released a low, tight growl. “I will NOT take advantage of you.”

She stepped towards me and curled a fist into my shirt. Her proximity, the volunteered touch, sent a spasm of desire shooting down my spine. “You won’t, Dax,” she said. “I’m giving myself to you willingly.”

My eyes felt raw with the need to look at her but I forced them not to waver. When she leaned in, I could feel the perspiration rising off me in waves. If the sight of my suite in total ruin hadn’t already convinced her of my madness, my capacity to cause irreparable damage, surely my inability to make eye contact cleared up any doubt.

She dipped beneath my lashes, placing herself right in the centre of my eyeline. Her cheeks were pink, her lips soft and parted.

“I want you, Dax.”

She wrapped a hand round the back of my neck and pulled her face up to mine until her lips brushed the scars across my cheekbones. My own lashes drifted shut and a loose moan issued from my lips.

“Please,” she whispered against the raised ridges of my surface. “Take my virginity. I want no one else to have it but you.”

I became aware of nothing but the heat of her breath and the tightness of my clothes. My shirt felt ready to burst and my boxers and trousers felt like a vice around my cock and thighs. I wanted to touch her. I wanted to kiss her. I wanted to fuck her gently through her very first time, then fuck her hard every day until the last. And knowing I couldn’t do any of that made me want to kill myself.

“Please Dax,” she said. Her voice was all choked up. My cock weighed heavy and throbbed. “I need this.”

I need this.

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