Survival of the Richest (The Trust Fund Duet 1)

He pulls back enough to watch his fingers, in and out, in and out.

“Don’t stop,” I moan, pushing my hips against the air.

He laughs against me, the breath of it a terrible tease. “Did it hurt last night?”

“Evil,” is all I can say, especially when he presses a small kiss to my clit.

“My dick hurt like hell,” he says, rubbing his thumb against my clit. “Couldn’t jerk it because it made me wonder if you were with him. So I had to lie there hard as a fucking rock all night, waiting until it was morning.”

“I’m sorry,” I say on a moan, but that’s a lie. The same way he lies to me. I’m not sorry he hurt for me; it feels like the only compensation in this whole confusing situation. That his cock throbs and aches and wants the way my body does.

“You will be,” he says, his voice low and hard-edged. “You’ll be sorry when I spank your ass pink with one of these books. Then maybe you’ll know better than to tease me.”

Surprise squeezes my lungs, because I’m pretty sure he’s only pretending. Or maybe he’s really going to punish me. My body doesn’t seem to care, because I gasp and writhe in his hold, fighting him in this maybe-game we’re playing.

Large hands grasp my hips and flip me over like I weigh nothing. Then I’m bent over the counter where a hundred books must have been lent over the years. A thousand books. More?

I’m defiling all of it with my breasts pressed against the dusty wood and my hands clenching in old paper. He picks something up; I feel the whoosh of air where I’m exposed. I tense, but nothing hits me.

“Don’t worry,” he says in that hard-edge voice that means I should be very worried. “I’m going to warn you before I do it. I want you good and afraid.”

“I’m afraid,” I whimper.

He shows me the book he has—there are stacks of them haphazard on the counter, books that were returned but never shelved, forever in purgatory. It could have been any one of them, but of course it’s The Goddess of Egypt. Stylized Cleopatra looks back at me with her mysterious eyes and knowing smile. I’m going to paint her. I’ll have to paint her, in some way oth

er than in that seductive pose they always use. Maybe she’ll be bent over a table, her body shaking in almost-real fear at the man behind her.

“Ready, honey?” he asks, soft. And I know this is the time when I can speak up. Don’t hit me. I don’t want that. I’m not that kind of woman. But if there’s anything last night showed me, it’s that I don’t know what kind of woman I am. Maybe none of us really do until we have two men fighting for us. Maybe there’s a Cleopatra inside each of us.

“Ready,” I whisper.

The book makes a whistle sound in the air. It winds something up in my body, something that only springs loose when a flat pain echoes through me. I cry out, more from the surprise than the hurt. A large palm molds itself to my ass, soothing away whatever sting was left.

Another whistle; another cry.

It isn’t harder than the jolt of a roller coaster bar against my stomach. It’s not the pain that makes this good; it’s knowing that he’s doing it to me. I’m in this powerless position, because of my lust, because I chose this. Because I chose him.

His fingers find me again, slick and ready. It only takes the barest twist, the smallest circle around my clit before I’m coming apart, my legs shaking, every muscle clenched. Pleasure saturates my mind like the yellow-orange rays of sunlight at dawn, breaching the horizon.

The book drops beside me, right in my line of sight. He wants me to see it.

To imagine the imprint of my ass on the old glossy cover.

A small tear behind me, a rustle of cloth. I clench harder on the papers in my fists as if they’re rope instead of pointless forms.

He’s probably good with rope.

Yes yes yes. He’s so good with it he doesn’t need anything as primitive as fibers and knots. He has me tied down to this counter with pure force of will—not even his own. Mine. It’s my desire that keeps my breasts against the wood, that keeps my ass in the air while he strokes me with callused hands. “One day we’ll have to try a bed,” he says in that voice that pretends to be unaffected. As if I can’t feel his cock throbbing against my thigh.

“Later,” I manage to say in a voice just as bland. “To spice things up.”

A bark of laughter echoes through the library, sending a bird from its nest of dictionaries and Dickens, a flurry of feathers through the largest broken window. My gaze follows the path, even when there’s a wide heat pressing between my legs.

Even when I moan in sudden panic.

He seemed big when I felt him through his slacks, but I wasn’t specifically worried about size. Nature has its own geometry, doesn’t it? That’s what I thought, but now I’m less sure.

He pauses, easing a large hand along my lower back. Settling me back down. “Do you need to come again?” he asks.