I let the mask slip over my face slowly, giving her time to take it all back, to say something worthy of what is happening between us. I’m not excited about it either, but I’m also not going to run from it the same way she does. When I wear the bored cocky expression I so often adopted as a teenager, her eyes go soft.
“No.” I catch her chin hard in my hands and force her head back to look at my face. “No. You don’t get to pity me. Not for one damn second. You chose this. Every step of the way, you’ve made the choice to put distance between us, and you don’t get to backtrack the second you get what you want.”
She opens her mouth to speak, and I shake my head. I snag the collar of her shirt and rip it, the seams parting easily. With a gasp, she wrenches away, but I don’t give up that easily. I tug her back toward me and tear her shirt the rest of the way off. Then her bra, leaving her bare from the waist up.
She doesn’t cover herself, only stares at me, jaw rigid, waiting to see what I’ll do next.
I go for her pants button and undo them and then jerk her into me to slam my mouth down on hers. She steadies herself by placing a hand on either shoulder, but I’m not allowing her to touch me just yet. Not when she’d so readily cast me aside for someone more like her. I guess that hurts the most if I’m bent on admitting painful truths.
I suck her tongue into my mouth, enjoying the moan she doesn’t even know she lets out. A sharp sting on my bottom lip forces me off her. I cut her a glare and touch the pinprick of pain. It’s nothing, but a tiny drop of blood comes away from my skin. “You want to play like that?” I whisper.
Her only response is to hike her chin up in challenge. I lean down and drag her bottom lip between my own teeth. I’d never make her bleed, but I bite until she tenses, and then pull away, letting her sensitive flesh slide from between my teeth with the distance. “This isn’t about what you want, Princess. For once, you’re going to do as you're fucking told and give me what I want.”
Her gulp is audible in the silent room. “What do you want?”
I jerk at her pants again, loosening the zipper, and step back to let them hang away from her body. “Take your pants off. Now.”
She might have done it for me if I hadn’t added the additional command. It’s what I expect though. I grasp her around the hips, reverse our positions, and walk her backward toward her very tall bed. When her thighs and my knees hit the frame, “Wha—?” she starts, but I shush her.
“No. Right now, this is for me. This is for how you treated me downstairs in front of your little boyfriend. This is to take the edge off, so we don’t kill each other before the job is done. If you agree, do nothing. Hell, fight me if you want. If you don’t want me to touch you, then you better speak up now.
I give her a heartbeat, then another. Her anger-filled gaze bores into mine, but she keeps her mouth clamped shut. It’s the permission I need. Not that I’m entirely sure I’d have let her walk out of this room anyway.
I peel the tie off my neck and loop it over her head until it’s between her teeth, then I tie it off at the back. She shoots me a livid look, fighting harder now.
Not even the tiniest bit gently, I press my hand to her back, forcing her on her belly to the bed. To my surprise, she stays, and I don’t get a headbutt for the effort when I bend down and strip her pants and underwear off her at her ankles.
Standing again, I press my hand to the center of her back. She looks so fragile in my hold, her muscles tensing hard as I explore the softness of her skin here.
“What the fuck are you doing?” she asks through the gag.
I fold my body over her so she can feel my cock against her ass through my pants. Her eyes go wide, and she drops her forehead onto the bed, her back rising and falling harder under my hand.
I kick off my own pants and underwear in seconds and enjoy the way my cock looks planted between the round globes of her ass. It’s almost obscene in the best fucking way possible. “Do you know how beautiful you are like this? So much power, and for right now, you belong to me.”