“And you?” she fires back.
“I’ll be right there beside you, baby.”
She somehow manages to keep the shock of my declaration contained. She’s good. “You’re not touching me.”
“Who says I want to?” I force my lip into curling, looking her up and down.
I see hurt in her eyes. It throws me for a moment. Until she speaks again. “Good, because I wouldn’t let a murdering bastard like you touch me if my life depended on it.”
Bastard.
Heat flames in my veins, and before I know it, I’m across the room with her neck in my palm, my face close to hers, my lip curling. “I’d rethink that claim.” I release my tongue and lick slowly across the seam of her lips, and her chest presses against mine, her soft breasts pushing into my hard pecs. “Because your life actually does depend on it.” I slam my mouth on hers and kiss her hard. No tongues. Just hard, forceful lips, and she whimpers. Not in pain. She whimpers in want. And just as I feel her open up to me, I pull away. It takes everything in me and more. And that’s not acceptable.
She’s panting when I reach for her ponytail and fist it, tilting her head back. “You’re not much of a challenge when you’re so easy.”
“Fuck you,” she breathes, jarring her head, instigating a brutal yank of her hair. Then she smiles. It’s full of satisfaction, and I return it. It’s in that moment I realize that I’m not only a challenge for her.
She’s a challenge for me too.
A challenge to resist.
Chapter 6
ROSE
* * *
The gravity of my situation suddenly hits me. I’ve always been pretty fucked up, but now I feel utterly fucked. Just fucked. I’m the guest of Danny Black. I couldn’t fuck him if I wanted to, which I don’t. If I did, I’d be jeopardizing everything. Risking everything.
I have no phone. I’m supposed to be with Perry Adams, and Nox will be waiting to hear from me.
There’s only one way this is going to turn out.
Messy.
My stomach rolls with dread. I will be punished. I can take the beating, always do, but the pictures of him that I know will stop? They keep me going. They remind me why I’m in this hell. What will I do without them? Without seeing him and marveling at how much he has grown since the last time I was rewarded with a photograph. Granted, those rewards aren’t frequent, but knowing they could come at any time drives me. “God, Rose, what have you done?” I should have kept my eyes to myself. Should have stayed well away. I slowly slip out of my dress.
Danny Black’s physique is intimidating fully clothed. Naked?
I push my panties down my thighs and drop them on a nearby chair with my dress. Then I brace myself to climb into the huge bed. The irony doesn’t escape me. Of all the hard things I’ve done and still do, getting in this bed is one of the hardest. It’s massive. We could probably go the entire night without touching. Yet I know he’s going to make that impossible. He’s going to torture me in a way I’ve never been tortured before. And I’ve been on the receiving end of some pretty brutal punishments in my time.
It’s going to be a long night.
But I’ll survive it. It’s what I’m best at. Survival. As well as screwing.
Screwing. What would it be like to screw . . .
No. It would never be worth the risk, even if I know beyond doubt that fucking Danny Black would be an experience worth enduring. Because I’d be fucking him and wanting to.
“Jesus, Rose.” I quickly realign my thoughts. The man’s a killer. I need my head checking.
I settle and pull the sheet over me as the door opens and he enters. I close my eyes, escaping the magnificent vision. How attractive he is, how attracted to him I am, only makes me hate him more. He doesn’t know it yet, but he’s pretty much signed my death sentence.
“Open your eyes.” There’s demand in his tone that I know I shouldn’t ignore. So I do what I do best. What I’m told, though with Danny Black it’s a challenge when it should be easy, given his reputation.
His face is impassive when I find him, his long, thick fingers on his shirt buttons. He’s going to make me watch him undress. I hate him more. Every inch of his skin that’s revealed takes more and more of the air in my lungs until he gets to his trousers and I’m left holding my breath. His torso is impossibly hard. His thighs are impossibly thick. His legs are impossibly long and lean. He’s a fucking masterpiece. A deadly masterpiece. I breathe in deeply.
I have to sleep with this.