His for a Price

It had been a long day.

A very long day, and all of it moved in him, slow and sweet, making him want her anew when he’d have thought it impossible. He’d finally explored every inch of her delectable body. He’d taken her again and again, even after he’d thought she must surely have had enough—but all she had to do was whisper that she wanted more in his ear and his self-control deserted him.

He knew how she tasted now, everywhere. He knew what sounds she made when she was close and what cries she let out when she was feeling frustrated and deliciously greedy. He knew how she threw back her head, how she went liquid and wild then burst into flame.

And he was the only man who knew. The only man who had ever touched her like this, had her, claimed her—and Nicodemus knew he was every inch of him caveman enough to revel in that. His possessiveness roared in him, almost drowning everything else out.

Almost.

“Is this the talking part?” she asked from behind him, her voice husky in the shadows.

He could have said no. He could have simply turned, swept her into his arms again, lost himself in her the way he wanted to do. He could have put this off for the night, for the rest of their time here. Forever.

But he didn’t. He couldn’t.

“You are a liar,” he said, and this time, it wasn’t that same accusation. It was a simple statement of fact, and he heard her shift against the sheets behind him.

“Does this qualify as pillow talk?” she asked. “Because if so, I think you suck at it.”

Delivered in that way of hers that made him want to laugh, and he understood that this was why she was so dangerous. Even more dangerous than he’d thought she was when he’d only longed for her from afar. Unlike Arista, who had only ever been what he’d projected on her, Nicodemus liked Mattie.

He liked her wry humor. He liked how profoundly unafraid of him she was. He liked how willing she was to mock them both, as if all of this was simply a game they were playing instead of so terribly real and important it made him ache inside. He liked a thousand things about her that had nothing to do with how pretty she was, or how terribly he craved her, or his merger with her father’s company and the work he’d do with her brother in the coming months.

Yet none of that mattered, because she couldn’t stop lying and he couldn’t live with it. He’d had more lies in his life than he could bear. And he couldn’t help noticing she hadn’t denied it.

“That wasn’t meant to be anything but a simple truth,” he said then, shifting around so he could look at her. “It’s the central core of who you are, Mattie. You lie. Always. About everything. Even this.”

She frowned at him, though her mouth looked vulnerable, and he had to steel himself against reaching for her.

“You can’t demand that someone let you into their private thoughts. That takes time and—”

“Why did you save yourself for me?” he asked her, swift and brutal.

Her frown deepened. “It was an accident.”

“That’s a lie, even as we sit here discussing lying.” She flushed, confirming it as surely as if she’d openly admitted it. “Let’s try again. What are your nightmares about?”

She looked miserable then, and he wanted that to be enough. He wanted that to matter. But she swallowed, looking down and moving her hands beneath the sheet she’d pulled over her so he couldn’t see them. He didn’t need to see; he knew she’d made them into fists.

He knew too much about her now. That was the trouble.

“I had one nightmare,” she said in a low voice, and she couldn’t even look at him. “And you woke me.”

He felt like he was cracking open, breaking apart. Like that final lie was the last nail into a sheet of glass and it shattered everything.

“I thought I could reach you,” he said quietly. “I thought it was all a game and you’d stop playing it when we were here, alone. All this time, I thought that beneath everything, this mattered.”

She lifted her dark eyes to his, and they were bright with tears he had no expectation she’d ever shed. He couldn’t even be certain they were real, no matter how much he wanted them to be.

“This does,” she whispered. “This matters.”

“Then tell me one true thing, Mattie,” he said, more urgently than before. “One that isn’t a trap. One that doesn’t take us down your little rabbit hole of lies within lies until we are nothing but twisted into knots. One thing.”

“You know everything that matters,” she said instead. “I’m here, aren’t I? This all happened. I saved myself for you, and what does it matter why? What more do you think you need to know?”