Cruel Legacy (Cruel 3)

Sometimes, it amazed me that I knew Penn so well and still couldn’t predict what he was going to do. He kept me on my toes. And while I wanted to give in, a part of me coiled, waiting for the rug-pull. Waiting for this to be a trick, too.

It was the waiting that nearly did me in. I couldn’t relax with someone at my back. I’d had one too many knives stabbed through it.

But then I felt Penn’s hands in my mass of silvery-white hair. My eyes fluttered closed at the feel of him touching me. Something eased in my chest. I breathed out in relief before I realized what he was doing.

A pin pinged on the floor. Then another.

The pins that Amy had carefully put my hair up with earlier that day fell to the ground. And as Penn removed more and more, he loosened the strands of my hair until it fell down to the middle of my back like a waterfall whose dam had been broken. His fingers slid up into the strands, checking to make sure he’d gotten them all. When he was satisfied he slowly massaged my scalp until I was practically swaying with sleep from the relaxation.

He collected all of my hair in one hand and then put it over one of my shoulders. Then he pressed one more kiss into my neck.

“I like it better down.”

My heart thrummed in response. “I don’t wear it up often.”

But he wasn’t finished. He found the zipper on the Cunningham dress and tugged it all the way down. I slid the straps off of my shoulders and let the priceless material fall down my narrow hips to pool at my feet.

“Shoes,” he demanded.

The Louboutins followed. I faced him then in nothing but nude underwear and his crown necklace.

“Better,” he said, his eyes traveling down my naked body. “You don’t need any of that adornment.” He tipped my chin up. “You should always be unbridled with a flair of wildfire. Fearless, all-consuming, and so bright that you burn.”

My throat bobbed at his words. At the way he cut straight through me.

I was consumed by rage, and I wanted to burn the city to the ground. I was fearless in my desire to make the people pay for what they’d done to me. Finally free and wild.

But not in the way he was talking about. He was seeing me as he had seen me before. The Natalie who had let herself get run over, manipulated, used, and crushed under a stiletto heel. I wouldn’t let that happen again.

He must have seen some of that flair in my eyes because his widened. But I didn’t back down. I didn’t douse the spark that had grown to flames in my eyes. I let him see a part of the person I was now. Let him get his fill.

Then I stepped forward and captured his lips with my own. The tension sizzled between us, flames building, steam rising. The world ceased to exist around us as we set it on fire in that one searing kiss.

Chapter 4

Natalie

It was all I could do not to rip his tuxedo off. My hands were making quick work of the buttons. Hastily tugging them out of each individual loop. The restraint I’d felt evaporated.

Then Penn’s hands grasped each of my bare wrists. My arms were pushed up over my head. The grip tightened until he was once again in complete control.

My breaths came out in hot pants as I stared into his impossibly blue eyes. Dark lashes framing those midnight-ocean orbs that only got wider and wider as his pupils dilated and his gaze shifted down my naked form.

“Tell me this isn’t like last time,” he instructed.

“It isn’t like last time,” I said on instinct. At his command. The words were out before I thought of what he was asking.

Last time. When I’d found out about Lewis and we’d fucked like animals. He said yes to me when I confessed I’d always wanted him. But it didn’t make it any better. It was pure and primal need. Anger mixed with lust that fed into carnal bliss. Nothing more. I hadn’t been able to give anything more then. And he’d accepted it.

The look in his dominating eyes said he wouldn’t this time.

“Natalie.”

I huffed out a short breath and released the tension in my body. Turning into water against his hard touch. Was it different? This had nothing to do with Lewis. Nothing to do with what came next. I didn’t have to do this to reel Penn in. He wanted to talk first and foremost. But I wanted this. And I was tired of holding back. Tired of hating him so much. Of pretending that I didn’t want him when I did.

“It’s different,” I assured him.

He read my own eyes as if he could see all my secrets laid bare before him. He must have approved of what he saw in me because he nodded once. “Then we have all the time in the world.”