“I belong with Brandon,” I admitted. “But not you. Maybe…maybe I wanted that for a minute, but I know better now. All you’ve ever been is cruel.”
“It’s all I’ve known in a very long time,” he rasped as he drew his nose along my jawline and pressed a tender kiss to sensitive skin beneath my ear. “Come home and teach me how to be kind.”
“It’s too late for that,” I said, but the words lacked punch.
I was softening, not with acceptance or forgiveness but with pain. Like a bruise. My whole body ached at his sudden sweetness, with the desire to teach him grace like he had taught me violence.
But I wasn’t a fool.
I was young and I knew nothing about this twisted, dark world of riches, but I knew enough not to get burned twice.
“If you want to be kind, you’ll let Brandon come here with me,” I told him.
Whatever gentleness he’d shown me evaporated with my words. He grew hard against me, pressing me almost painfully into the floor. I watched as his features tightened, lips peeling over strong, white teeth into a wolfish sneer.
It shouldn’t have aroused me.
That edge of pain and fear, that meanness shining through.
But I shivered and he felt it, his lids lowering with heavy arousal.
He transferred both my wrists into one punishing grip and used his free hand to tug my hair back sharply. His lips found my hammering pulse point and sucked it into his mouth.
“You can lie to yourself as much as you want, Bianca, but this body became my body the day I took you on the beach and it cannot lie to me. You want me, even if you hate me.”
“I’m not controlled by my urges like an animal,” I protested, holding still because I could feel his hard shaft against my belly and I didn’t want to incite him any further with needless friction. “Do the right thing for once in your life and relinquish guardianship of Brando and me.”
“Never,” he growled, nipping at my jaw. “You both belong to me.”
“Stop being a possessive heathen,” I cried out. “Human beings don’t belong to anyone.”
“They do,” he countered, moving his hand from my hair to my throat, collaring it gently so I was immobilised, my eyes forced to focus on his somber, devastatingly beautiful face. “Ezra, Henrik, Walcott and me belong to each other. Children should belong to their parents, but sometimes, in cases like ours, they don’t. Wives with their husbands and husbands with their wives. Brando and you. Brando and me.” He feathered his lips around my mouth so I was forced to taste his next words. “You and me, Bianca. We belong to each other, it just took me a minute to understand it. Now I do, I won’t let you go for anything.”
“I don’t want to be possessed,” I argued, but oh my heart was on fire.
Because this was what I’d wanted all my life.
What I’d yearned for.
Not money or fame.
Not world peace or an end to famine.
I wanted, selfishly and fundamentally, to be loved this way.
Bought and owned with no return policy.
To feel as if I’d never be left behind or lost again.
“It’s too late for that,” he said simply, his mouth descending to mine. “It’s too late for both of us.”
And then, he kissed me.
He kissed me in a way that had tears springing to my eyes in an instant.
Those lush lips parted my own and his tongue slid inside to claim my mouth on a low growl of male satisfaction that rumbled up his throat and over my tongue. The hand not capturing my own framed the entire side of my face. It made me feel small in a cherished way, like he could shield my entire heart with a single large palm. His thumb edged the corner of our fused mouths, dipping inside to wet the pad. Done, he traced that wet digit down my throat into the collar of my shift dress and unerringly found my hard nipple, flicking it then pinching it.
Fire arched through me, my chest pressing up into his.
“This,” he rasped as we broke for breath. “The way we fit together, feel together, it’s not normal. This madness I have for you,” he shook his head as if he could clear it of me. “It’s in my blood.”
I panted heavily, squirming. Only, I didn’t know if I was trying to get away or get closer.
“I know it’s not normal. It’s wrong,” I said, hoping to hurt him into stopping.
Instead, his chuckle was husky against my closed lips. “Maybe. Nothing about this makes sense except for the fact that I feel like I’m on fucking fire when I’m near you. Like nothing but the wet of your kiss and the wet between your thighs can put it out. Like the wet of your tears when you cry so damn pretty for me.”