Shark (Wall Street Beasts 1)

“Aren’t we both just entirely full of analogies,” Alex smiled rakishly. He seemed to be enjoying their morning banter almost as much as she was. This might have been the first time they had ever spoken to one another simply as people.

“We are,” she agreed. Maybe being on this island made them somehow more equal. Maybe she wasn’t so much a prisoner as a guest. Or maybe she was fucking delusional.

Was this Stockholm syndrome? Or did she have to be locked in a basement for that to be the cause of the feelings of warmth rising in her, both emotionally and carnally?

She reached for him, tentatively. There was passion between them, a heat which could not be denied. She’d been feeling that sexual charge from the very first time their eyes locked in the Apex restaurant.

He had spanked her, teased her almost to climax. Sex felt inevitable. Alex had always been hot, but now he was more than hot. He was her literal savior. Losing herself in physical pleasure felt like it would be a relief, and something she could give back. She had nothing to give but her body. If not for Alex, her body would be wearing a prison jumpsuit right now.

He sat very still, watching her with those dark eyes, neither stopping nor encouraging her until her fingers made contact with his chest. He pulled away sharply with a hiss as if she had burned him with her touch.

“Don’t,” he said, his voice rough with desire. “I am not like other men. My needs are not the kind you are used to.”

“What do you mean?”

Even the question was devastatingly innocent. The answer was simple. He wanted to defile her. Take every bit of innocence in that sweet, blonde body of hers and corrupt it thoroughly. He wanted to take this poised princess and turn her into a messy wreck, good for nothing but fucking.

Alex had worked his entire life to fight those desires. They were sadistic. No. That was an effort to hide himself from himself, and he had promised he would at least be honest with himself. He was sadistic. He enjoyed inflicting pain. He liked the power he felt when he hurt someone, the more innocent and less deserving, the better.

These were monstrous urges at their worst. At their best, they could pleasure a compatible partner who would never receive the same kind of attention anywhere else. But Sophie was not a masochist. She was not even a submissive. She was an innocent caught up in chaos beyond her control — and that made him absolutely salivate for her.

“If we were to be any closer than we are now, I would remake you,” he told her. “But you are not ready to be broken the way I would break you in bed. Keep hold of your innocence as long as you can. You will miss it when it is gone.”

“I know you're into kinky stuff,” she said in an attempt to make herself seem more worldly.

“Kinky stuff,” he snorted. “My dear, what I am ‘into’ is not kinky in the sense you might understand it. My sexuality is based entirely in pain.”

“Right. So. Kinky.”

Kinky.

He was so far beyond kinky, she couldn’t begin to understand. She had no idea how close she was to being turned into a human cock sleeve for his use. Alex took a deep breath and quieted the monster within.

He didn’t seem to like being called kinky. His brow rose in a stern way, and she saw his chest rise and fall in a way which suggested something close to a sigh. He no doubt thought he was above such a term. It was too cutesy for him. Not dignified enough. Not serious enough.

She found herself smiling cheekily. She liked teasing Alex.There was something about plucking at the facade of the most powerful man in her world which made her feel a little powerful herself.

“Go to bed,” he told her, as if the sun wasn’t rising over the bay.

“You’re constantly sending me to bed,” she pouted. “And I only just got up.”

Because the alternative to sending you to bed is tying you to a bed and fucking you until you don’t know your own name anymore.

He refrained from saying the words out loud. She had been through enough for one day, and in spite of the sometimes sick desires he had, Alex did actually try to be a good man. That meant protecting the innocent and the weak, even from himself.

“Go to bed or I will spank you, little girl.”

She looked him dead in the eye and smiled. “Maybe I like you spanking me.”

His cock throbbed with intense heat. He was just barely holding onto his self-control when it came to Sophie. She was such a perfect little package. The right mix of sass and submission — even if she didn’t know it. There was still an innocence about her which had not yet been ravaged away by the cruelties of life.