His for a Price

She took a deep, ragged breath that she didn’t have to fake, and then she reached over and put her hands on his rock-hard thighs. He didn’t appear to move at all, but she felt him tense beneath her. And he was so hard. So absurdly perfect in every way it made her feel something like drunk.

“I’ll ask you again,” he said, in a voice gone fierce and hot and lethal. “What do you want?”

She slipped from her stool and stood too close to him. Not quite leaning into him, but not losing contact with him, either. Then she slid her hands to the waistband of his trousers and felt him turn to stone beneath her palms.

“If you truly did fall and hit your head, you should tell me now,” he said in that dry way of his that she was afraid would be the death of her, because he might make her laugh and that would make this all much more difficult. Much more real. “Before I assume the worst and have you treated for a concussion.”

And Mattie understood, then, in a sudden flash that made her wonder how she’d missed it before, that she had far more power here than she’d imagined. That he was as off balance as she was. That perhaps he always had been, and she’d never noticed. She’d never allowed herself to notice. She told herself she could use that—and ignored the sudden hollow place in the vicinity of her chest.

She didn’t speak. She shifted closer and let her hands drift down, until she could cup the bold length of him through the fabric of his trousers. He didn’t groan. He didn’t push her away. But he was hot—so hot—and he let out a very long breath as if it hurt him.

As if she did.

“Mattie.” His voice was brutal. Clipped and hard. His hands came up to wrap around her upper arms, but he didn’t move her off him. And his touch was gentle, belying the tension she could feel in every part of him. “What the hell are you doing?”

She tilted her head back and looked up at him through her lashes, testing the length of him against one palm while he shook slightly, very slightly, and scowled back at her.

“I don’t know,” she told him.

But she did know. She’d never felt anything quite like this before, like every time she stroked him and felt him tense, the same shudder he fought to conceal worked its way through her. She felt molten, wild. And she’d hardly done anything yet.

She thought he was at the edge of his control and she didn’t know what might happen if he tipped over, so she moved quickly. She unzipped his trousers and reached inside, freeing him, holding him in her hands at last. At last. He was velvet and steel. Hot and silken to the touch, and so powerfully male it was difficult to breathe.

And she didn’t know who was shaking more at that point, her or him.

That was as terrifying as it was thrilling, and she didn’t want to examine it. His eyes were so dark now they looked like the small hours of a long night, and he was muttering in Greek, almost beneath his breath, oaths and invocations. Curses and prayers, if the look on his face was any guide.

“Mattie.” Like her name was another curse, a heftier one.

She sank down to her knees, never breaking eye contact with him, never letting go. He was big and heavy everywhere, hotter than should have been possible, and she forgot that this was supposed to be a weapon. Her weapon. She forgot what game she was playing, or why. She wanted to taste him so badly she thought she’d do anything, say anything—

“What is this?” he asked, his accent heavier than she’d ever heard it, his voice thick, but he didn’t push her away. He didn’t stop her. His chest was rising and falling too fast to mistake, and the sight made her feel almost as needy, almost as molten bright and greedy, as he’d made her feel with his mouth.

“An apology,” she whispered, which wasn’t what she’d meant to say and had more truth in it than she liked, and so before she could think about it or betray herself further she leaned forward and took him deep into her mouth.

CHAPTER SIX

HE WAS DYING.

Or dreaming—but Nicodemus had had this dream a hundred times before or more, and it had never, ever been this good. Never.

Mattie’s mouth was so hot, her tongue so delicate and wicked at once as she licked him and tasted him. Tracing patterns, then taking the whole of him deep inside. She moved as she knelt there before him, the culmination of a thousand fantasies and far better than any of them, rocking slightly as if she really was dancing for him, at last, and he died.

Again and again, he died, and she kept going.

Nicodemus was no fool. This kind of sudden reversal made no sense, especially not from Mattie. But he couldn’t seem to care about that.

And it would take a far better man than he was to do anything about it now.