Page 10 of Scorned Queen

His fingers tease my nipples and my throat is almost too dry for words—almost—and yet somehow, I manage the truth.“I was too busy hating you to dream about you.”

His palms are back on my waist.“Liar.You don’t hate me.”

“It was easier than loving you, Damion.It hurt less.”

Seconds tick by as he weighs my words, and I can see his own hatred in his eyes.Hatred for my words, hatred for the truth in them, hatred of himself and this moment of truth.Then suddenly, he turns me to face the pillar, forcing me to catch my weight on the steel, and for reasons I can’t explain, I feel as cold as its surface, only my cold is inside, where it’s lived a very long time.

He unzips my skirt and drags it down my hips and gives my backside a smack.I yelp, and my heart is racing when he turns me back around, and now I’m in nothing but thigh highs, heels, and panties with Damion’s hand on the steel bar above my head.

“I deserve your hate,” he says.“I earned it.But that seems like a really good reason for me to give you about a dozen orgasms and you to let me do it.”

Chapter nine

Lethimgivemea dozen orgasms.

The deliciousness of his exaggerated concept, and even more so the act of making it so, might not solve anything, but I don’t care.We’re here, right here, right now, and the miles that still remain between us can’t divide us, at least not while we’re focused on pleasure and orgasms.I don’t want to think about secrets and class wars, and where we fit together or don’t fit at all, based on those things.There’s enough whiskey in me to be all about momentary gratification, no matter the fleeting bliss it might create.

“You’ve always been good at talking big,” I murmur, aware of the challenge in those words.“You owe me a dozen orgasms, and I’ll allow you one week to deliver.”

He leans in close, his lips just above mine, his breath oh, so perfectly warm against my skin.“How about one a day, and you agree to stay one year—three hundred and sixty-five days—and then I’ll talk you into staying another.”His lips brush mine, and I feel the connection in every part of me.

“You get a weekend and a dozen orgasms,” I counter.“If you can’t keep that promise, why would I stay a year?”

His lips curve with a low chuckle and he says, “All right.I’ll start with a weekend.”

“Is this where you finally shut up and kiss me?”I challenge.

“Yes, baby,” he murmurs, “this is definitely when I shut up and kiss you.”And even before he makes good on that promise, I’m reveling in the endearment.Baby.It’s nothing really, I know, spoken by many a man, in many a casual situation, but somehow it manages to shut out our childhood and take us to a place where we are man and woman with needs and wants that include each other.

I’ve barely materialized that thought when his tongue finds mine, licking deliciously into my mouth, and every part of me responds, every part of me tingles.The kiss is the same bittersweet perfection that personifies Damion in every possible way.Just as he desires to lock me down, be it for one weekend, one week, or one year.There is never forever with Damion.The idea has me leaning into the freedom that represents.We aren’t forever, but we are right now.That’s where my head has to stay with Damion.I know this.I’ve always known this.

My fingers dive into the thick, dark strands of his hair, and when his mouth parts mine, his teeth scrape my lips.“I’m going to lick every part of you before this night is over.”

“Promises, promises,” I murmur.“So much talk.”But even as I say the words, there’s a shift in the air between us from playful to serious.

He leans in and kisses my neck, and I swear his lips are velvet that travel to my shoulder, and it’s only now that I am suddenly aware of the fact that I’m naked and he is not.He says I know him, and I do.I know exactly why he wanted it this way.It’s all about his control, of which he feels he has none right now, because I won’t just say yes to a weekend, a week, a year, that might not be another year.But I don’t care if he has control of my body.I have control of my mind, and my heart has to take a backseat in decision making.

Damion’s phone rings again and with a grimace, he snatches it from his pocket, the caller ID in view,King Asshole, it reads.He declines the call, and I catch his hand.“Do you need—”

He leans in and kisses me until my toes curl before he declares, “You.I needyou, Alana, and if you want to talk about hate, I hate how much you don’t know that.”He pulls up his music app and pushes play.He set his cell on the steel railing next to me, and music fills the room, an easy invitation to block out the rest of the world.

Damion curls me into him, his hands caressing up and down my back, and it’s hard not to feel tiny and vulnerable folded against him, but somehow this arouses me.He’s always been that dominant male persona that I liked a bit too much, and I’m not sure what that says about me.His hands press to my breasts, his mouth to my mouth, and then he’s lifting me and leaning me against that steel beam all over again.

He kisses me and then lowers his head, his mouth suckling my nipple, and the room fades but the song does not.It’s “Astronaut in an Ocean” by Masked Wolf, and the words have me trying to escape the whirlwind of emotion they stir in me, digging my fingers in his hair and willing his mouth to mine.Instead, he palms my breasts, and the words haunt me.

When these people talk too much, put that shit in slow motion, yeah.I feel like an astronaut in the ocean.

I’ve always felt like an astronaut in an ocean when I’m inside Damion’s world, out of place and yet where I belong when it’s just me and him.But it isn’t just me and him.There are so many other people involved.Finally, his mouth is on mine, and he tastes like whiskey, power, and torment, as if he’s certain he’ll lose me, and I’m not sure what to do with that information nor does he give me time to go that deep.

He cups my face and says, “You’re thinking too damn much.Obviously, I’m not doing my job.”

“Am I a job now?”

“Don’t turn that around on me.It’s every man’s job to take care of his woman, and you are my woman, Alana.”

I could tell him I’m not his woman, but the words don’t come to me.He eases me down his body, and my feet touch the ground, and we just stare at each other.“No objection to being called my woman?”

“It crossed my mind, but it would be a lie for me to deny the truth.And I’m pretty sure I was just preaching about honesty, even if we didn’t use that word.I’ve been your woman for the entirety of my adult life.”

---