Page 28 of The Forbidden Bride He Stole

“Look at me,” he commanded. She did so without another thought.

“If you’re far too embarrassed to see the way that you affect me, then you are too embarrassed to take me.”

“I’m not,” she said.

Terror streaked through her. Would he deny her even now? As far as they had gone, would he stop this? Would he make her leave? Humiliate her?

Perhaps that’s what this was about. Him exerting his control. Perhaps it had all been a lie from the beginning. This idea that they were equal because they were naked. No. She felt so vulnerable then. As if her obvious need for him was written all over her body, and the pleading expression in her eyes, and the obvious slick heat between her legs.

“You must be certain this is what you want. And this is not a payment,” he bit out. “When I sink into you it will be because I want to. And it had better be because you wanted to.”

Did he want it? Did he want her?

“You will owe me nothing in the aftermath, and I will owe nothing to you. This is not a transaction.”

His words were fierce and feral, and she didn’t know where they came from, but it was somewhere deep within him. Guttural and fearsome and real. They reached down deep and soothed a wounded place within her, but she felt like she was looking at his scars. At his own pain, and she wished she could make herself fully understand it. Wished she could understand him.

“I hear you,” she said.

“Do you? You need to not look upon me with shame. Look at me.” He moved his hand over his shaft more times. Swift, decisive.

“This is what you do to me. On that. This is what it does to me to see you naked like this, sitting in that chair with your legs spread wide. If that makes one of us a monster then it’s me. But I am far too old and far too jaded to let that stop me. You have pushed me to this point. I know you must accept the consequences. This is your last chance.”

“I want you,” she said.

“But do you want everything that comes with that?”

“I don’t know what that means.”

“There is no way to know until this is finished. Are you willing to accept the potential consequences of that?”

“Yes,” she said.

“Good. Good, one leg over the arm of the chair, then the other.” She did so, the move leaving her even wider open to his examination.

He went back to his desk and opened the drawer, taking a box out. Condoms. It made her scalp prickle. Knowing he had condoms in his desk drawer. In his study. Did he have women here often? It was an uncomfortable realization.

You should tell him that you’re a virgin.

She didn’t want to. Because it felt like making herself even more vulnerable, and she didn’t think that was fair. Already she was the one sitting here legs spread wide. Why did he deserve more? He wouldn’t tell her about his past. He wouldn’t tell her about the women that had come before her, who had perhaps sat in this very chair. Why should he hear about the lack of lovers in her life?

She did not need to be known by him if he would not allow himself to be known by her.

So she shoved down that desire to share. That desire to find some closeness with him, because that was simply an illusion. They would never have closeness.

He was not promising love. The consequences he spoke of were not a life together.

And she was okay with that. She was.

She had fantasized about him loving her when she’d been younger. When she hadn’t understood that a man like him wasn’t built for love, marriage, and a family. She knew better now. It hadn’t killed her feelings for him, but she did know better.

One thing she knew now with clarity was she could never have handled this before.

This was far too raw. Much deeper, much more feral than she’d imagined it could be.

It was glorious.

And they were glorious.

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