Yield (5 page)

How wet could I get her? My cock could wait while I stirred this little miss until she was begging me.

“Outside. Now. I’m starving.”

“What? Dinner?” she blurted, staggering as I towed her out of the bedroom to the broad balcony and a set of table and chairs.

“Yes, dinner. Sit. Stay. Miss Wren.” I hauled out her chair.

When she was sitting and had arranged her dress, I bent over. “Hold still.”

Then I gave her the first kiss, making her part her lips and holding her under the jaw lightly. Just enough pressure to keep her there. Just enough to say,
right now, you’re mine
. When she raised her hand and touched my shoulder, I pinned it to the table. Her breathing hitched.

The more I held her still, the more she reacted. Or so it seemed.

Her eyes followed me as I lifted away and she was panting. That red-lipsticked mouth. One day, I needed to fuck it.

I stroked her hair, ran my finger down her ear, and smiled when she shivered. “Now, forget what I mean to do to you. Enjoy the night.”

Tell someone not to think about something and they will. I wanted her worried and thinking.

Her mouth opened and closed, then her tongue poked around at her top lip in an adorable way. “I cannot believe I let you do that. You are incorrigible, Mister Glass.”

“Mister Glass? Sounds like a promotion.”

She made a dismissive noise. How wet had that kiss got her? How often could I check her panties? Figuring that out might kill me.

The smell of the takeaway food drifted past and her stomach growled.

“I need to rescue the food from the microwave.”

When I returned with the plates and the Champagne bottle under my arm, I found she’d angled her chair to look out over the roofs to the bay. Most cities had an allure at night, when the grime and crime was disguised by sparkling strings of streetlights. Below us the swimming pool water slapped at the sides as someone did laps.

She turned and simply sat for a few minutes staring at me. I let the silence be, figuring she was adjusting to what had happened, justifying her reactions somehow. Besides, I was happy watching her back.

At last she inhaled deeply and leaned in to peer at the plate before her.

“Thai. Best I could do. This is Moet Chandon however...” I brandished the bottle and uncorked it, poured us both a glass before sitting.

“Champagne?” She cruised her fingertip through the moisture already dimpling the outside of the glass. “If I drink this, I can’t take my pills. I have a sleeping disorder.”

“Go without for one night.”

Wren lifted the glass and swirled the liquid, tilting the goblet as if fascinated by the play of color. “Once, I walked down to our garage and started the car while asleep. I’m told some people can drive even when sleep walking.”

“Really?” It seemed incredible. “It’s worth it to drink some Moet.” I indicated her champagne. “If you drift off I promise I won’t give you my keys.”

If I tied her to the bed she wasn’t likely to sleepwalk far.

I sat back and picked up my fork while she tasted the wine.

“This
is
nice. I haven’t had Champagne for so long.” She took another sip.

We ate and shared a few stories, dancing around what was not okay to tell each other. As the scene in the bedroom ebbed from her mind, she grew more confident.

I took possession of her hand and held it as often as I could. Tracing between her fingers while she tried to talk about some sensible thing let me watch the subtle changes on her face. Her eyelids fluttered. When I lifted her hand to my mouth and kissed each finger, one by one, she glanced down at the table and shifted position. The chair creaked.

I wondered if I was arousing her. I hoped so.

“I can’t eat, easily, when you do that.” A little crease formed on her forehead.

“I’m done.” I gave her hand back to her, trying not to smile when she fumbled and dropped her knife.

“What do you do for a living?” I forked up noodles. I knew the answer but figured I should ask.

“I’m studying veterinary science at Sydney University. You? Killing people?” Her smirk said she was trying to tease.

“And here I was polite enough not to ask if you spent your days counting money.”

Wren shrugged. “When you have more than you need, it means little.”

“When you have almost none, it means everything.”

“Are you saying you’re that poor? Somehow I doubt it. Besides, isn’t money the root of all evil?”

“That philosophy is a little overrated, otherwise we’d all be giving our money away not struggling to get more.”

Wren swirled her goblet, staring at me as if surprised I knew the word philosophy. I doubted she’d ever struggled for money.

“So if you’re not simply killing people?”

“I’m ex-army. I went to officer training at Sandhurst then the SAS for a short time before I was injured and retired.”

The arch of her brows was perfect. “So, you’re British? You don’t quite sound it.”

“I am. Or I was. Now I’m...” I waved a hand. “A bit African, a bit Papua New Guinean, a bit Aussie. I haven’t been back for thirteen years. You’re Australian?” I knew she was. I knew a lot about her.

“No. No. I’m a bit of everything, like you.”

Seemed like she was saying she had no idea who she was. I let it pass...and I wondered why it bothered me. Her accent seemed private school when she concentrated, but when I caught her off guard in a joke, she lapsed into something less posh. A few times, I caught her staring at nothing, her mouth downturned, as if she relived a painful memory.

I was seized by moments of
her
. Her lips nudging the edge of the glass. The sway of her breasts. The curves revealed and sculpted under the silk. Black hair, red lips, cream skin. Like a china doll with cracks you couldn’t see.

Something was riding her. She had demons, same as me, which only intrigued me more. A sleeping disorder? I could guess why with a father so immoral I’d felt dirty seeing his corpse. A brother with his own perversions, too, from what I’d heard. Where did she fit in all this?

Her knife and fork were scraped across the plate and neatly arranged. Done eating.

What the hell was I doing experimenting on her by trying to emulate Pieter?

What the hell was she doing here? For all her money and her paid security, she was here with me. I had an inclination to wrap her in my arms and fix whatever was making her sad. And I wanted to throw her down on that bed in there and fuck her. Why hadn’t she run from me when I started controlling her?

I shoved away my chair roughly enough to make it screech and rose to my feet, ignoring her startled expression. “We’re going swimming.”

In a closet, neatly packed away, I found a few bikinis, the tags still on them.

It was a muggy, humid night and the coolness of the pool would be welcome.

“One of these should fit you.” I put the whole bunch of them in her hands. “The bathroom’s that door.” I pointed.

Then I went and leaned my head on the wall in the bedroom.

Was this me? Maybe if I banged my head a few times, I’d see sense? This woman didn’t need me to abuse her, she needed someone to stop her falling over the next cliff. Throwing herself over even.

She’s an adult.

I wrenched on the boardshorts I’d found – the pair with the condom packet still in the pocket.

She met me in the hallway, wearing the blue bikinis with the tassels.

They fit her like a dirty depraved glove that covered her like body paint, and showed everything that needed seeing when her nipples peaked. I could even see the shape of her pussy. Not looking would’ve taken a court order.

Fucking hell.

I checked inside my head for those doubts. Conflicted, man, conflicted.

If I had a conscience it was a damn fornicating voyeur of a conscience. My libido was taking me somewhere my brain had rejected.

In her hand was her dress and a red bra, the straps dangling, and those panties – I could just see the edge of them. As I approached, I think my stare was close to nailing her to the wall behind her, because she gaped at me then stepped back and hit that same wall.

“Wait.” She held up a hand, waving it palm out. “Glass, I thought you’d changed your mind. You were so civilized at the table.”

Civilized? What man was civilized?

I’m pretty sure I growled.

My little victim.

In one stride I was in front of her. I could see myself fastening her to that wall with my hands on her neck and my leg between hers. I could
feel it
. I flexed my fists.
Don’t.

I pressed my forehead to hers. What better route into her mind than through her eyes – through the trembling of her eyelashes and the shifting shades of blue in those irises.

“I was thinking of letting you go home untouched. Then...this.”

I trailed my gaze down to her cleavage and beyond. Every curve led to another and downward, her breasts, her hips, that cute belly button I wanted to stick my tongue in, the slight mound of her stomach. She was a sexual puzzle with the best ever prize when you solved her.

Eyes wide, mouth open, she didn’t even bother to try to stop me. Her hands were splayed against the wall either side of her as if she needed that to stop her falling.

Her clothes had landed in a pile at her feet.

She hadn’t run.

Maybe I could do this without breaking her.

Maybe? What was I letting myself become? She wasn’t some disposable sex creature.

I put my mouth to the side of her face and my lips moved on her ear as I spoke. “You’re fucking with my head. I do all kinds of shit to you, and you don’t run? You don’t scream or panic or look for the door? From now on, if you stay, I’m going to do what I like to you. Fuck etiquette. Hear me?”

Wren

The pound of my heart and the rumble of his up-close words took me from a world where it was right to be alone and lonely, to his world, where I could be anything he wanted me to be. It was fearsome and wrong and ever so right...for me.

I couldn’t answer. Not yet. Not in words. I had this ferocious man before me and my head was in a thousand pieces.

He was right.

I could’ve, should’ve run. I hated controlling men. Jesus. He fingered my throat.

“I gather, you’re staying.”

“Uhhh.” I squeezed shut my eyes, opened them. He was still there.

I was fucking with his head?

“You can’t...” I croaked. “Wait.”

“Wait?” His brows rose and I saw something amazing, something I don’t think I’d seen all night – a real smile. I didn’t care that it had a freaky aura of triumph about it. It was a smile that also had humanity.

The man could be nice. He’d looked almost as shaken as I felt, before he cornered me.

The wall at my back had no give, alas, because I wanted to sink into it as much as I wanted to push myself at him. God, god, god. Like a weird, black-hole, gravitational mass he was sucking me toward him. I couldn’t resist, could I?

Yes.

Considering my hate of controlling men, why him? He was right. After what he’d done to me on the bed, I should’ve left.

I liked it. Not just liked. It absorbed me, what he was doing.

Shut eyes again and pray, but I couldn’t keep doing that.

I stared back at him.

My color. He had pale blue, almost gray eyes, like mine.

Don’t. Do. This.

“You can’t –” My voice collapsed and I had to start again. “You can’t expect me to agree to that.”

“Then go.” I could see his nostrils widen as he said that, his gaze hard. Like this was a death sentence.

The two of us were caught in some unearthly spiral.

My eyelids moistened, heralding tears. Say it before you chicken out. “I don’t want to go.”

“Oh?”

Surprise. Fucking surprise showed in his tone. Hallelujah. I needed to see some weakness. No matter how much I was dying to succumb to this, I couldn’t, not if he was purely asshole. I didn’t understand why any of this was doing what it did to me, except that I’d never encountered a man like this.

Forceful. Sexual dynamite.

Obsessed with me. Fuck, that was hot. Even if just for one night.

But he was also...confused.

I wasn’t stupid. I wasn’t.

He’s dangerous.

Tentatively, I put my hand out and felt his jaw, the bristles rough on my skin.

I’d never go down a set of rapids without some idea of what I was doing, of the hazards at play.

“Can I trust you?”

For a microsecond, his face changed in some infinitesimal way. “Can you trust me?” As he said the next soft words, he found one of my wrists and then the other and held them to the wall beside my head. “Absolutely, to the ends of the earth. And not at all. If you stay, I’m doing what I want to. Not what you want.”

I tried to wrench from his grip and couldn’t budge at all. The strength in this man’s hands flattened me. I drifted far, far away. To the ends of the earth.

Spellbound.

Heartbeats counted the languid rhythm of my wayward thoughts.

He unraveled me.

This...was the same as when he’d made me spread my legs and show my underwear to him, while I’d lain exposed like some slave girl thrown before her master. It seemed I had a thing for this, when it was Glass. I’d never, ever let another man to do this.

The meaning of his actions and words came to me: He could take physical control of me without asking. He wasn’t some deranged killer, but he might go somewhere that turned him on more than me.

I wasn’t sure I’d mind that at all.

If my translation was wrong, this could be a disaster, but what was the point of being an adrenalin junkie without an occasional fix?

“I’m staying.” My tears spilled as I spoke and I felt the cooling tracks run over my cheeks. I was insane, clearly, completely, insane.

“Good.”

“Do what you want to...with me.”

The words plummeted to earth, like the fall of a missile.

Then he kissed my tears. Dear god, he kissed them.

Then he kissed my mouth. “I’m going to make you scream.”

Oh my. If he wanted to make me scream in pleasure, I was okay with that. If in pain, I was strangely okay with that too.