Crimson Warrior (Onyx Assassins 3)

“Don’t you dare tell me what I want. Not when it comes to you.” She pulled at my grip, and I let her wrists go, holding on to her shirt so she could free herself. As soon as I felt her hands cup my cheeks, I dropped the material, letting it hit the floor next to us with a subtle splash. “I want all of you.”

“Olivia…” Her body wanted me, but that didn’t mean she did.

“I. Want. You.” She wiggled out of her sports bra, and it fell to the stone beneath us.

“You only think you do,” I argued.

Her eyes flared wide for a second before she narrowed them into a glare and shoved at my chest.

She was finally coming to her senses. I should have been relieved, but instead, I felt like I’d been gutted.

I immediately lowered her to the ground and stepped back, putting a curtain of water between us as I struggled to catch my breath. Every cell in my body screamed for me to take what she’d so blatantly offered, to find release deep inside her body as she clenched around me, but I knew I’d never be able to stomach her regret in the morning.

“What am I to you?” She walked through the shower jets and jabbed me in the chest with her finger.

“What?” I blinked and wiped the water from my face.

“You heard me!” She tapped on my sternum with every word. “What am I to you, Ransom? Your friend? Your colleague?”

“Yes—” I started.

“Someone you conveniently fuck around with when we’re half a world away from Edgemont?” Her breasts heaved as her voice rose.

“What the fuck is that supposed to mean?” The water from the other jet blasted my hypersensitive skin as I took another step back, putting space between us.

She followed. “It means that this isn’t a game to me!”

“Olivia—” I raked my hands over my hair. One step closer, and I was going to be all over her despite my best intentions. The shiny, polished veneer of civility was sliding away with every pulsing throb of my cock, leaving only the predator that rose to meet her challenge, recognizing its equal.

“You’re not a game to me, Ransom.” Her shoulders fell.

My heart stuttered in my fucking chest as she looked away, shaking her head. A game? Is that really what she thought?

“Look at me,” I demanded.

She stared at her abandoned shirt near the shower drain.

“Olivia,” I whispered, taking her chin between my thumb and forefinger and tilting her face toward mine. Her blatant honesty demanded the truth in return. It might hurt us in the long run, but I couldn’t hold back. Not now.

Reluctantly, her deep brown eyes rose to meet mine.

“This is not a game,” I said low and slow so she’d know I meant every word. “I have never wanted a female the way I want you. You have me so twisted up in knots that I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to untangle.”

Her lips parted as she searched my eyes.

“I don’t know what this is.” I palmed her waist and drew her close, ignoring the demands of my body as my cock rested against her stomach. “But nothing about you has ever been a game to me. If I had to guess, I’d say it’s a few decades of pent-up desire shredding my control, but it’s sure as fuck not a game.”

“A few decades?” she whispered, her hands rising to my chest.

I nodded.

“Then why hold back? Why drive me to the brink of utter madness with your tongue and then stalk off like it was a mistake? Why leave me wanting like that?” She grabbed my wrist and brought my hand to her breast. “Leave me wanting like this?”

I groaned, my thumb circling her nipple because I couldn’t not touch her. “Because you don’t want me. Not really. Your body reacts to mine—”

She startled. “I don’t want you?”

“Liv—”

She covered my hand with her own and dragged it down her flat, muscled stomach, then beneath the band of her underwear until I cupped her core.

“Fuck,” I muttered at the heat I found there.

She pushed my fingers, and I parted her, my fingers gliding along the slick slit of her pussy. “Does that feel like I don’t want you?”

“Damn it, Olivia.” My cock twitched. She felt like hot silk against my fingers. She rolled her hips with a little whimper, and I plunged two fingers deep inside her and groaned.

“Not. Wet. Enough?” she gasped, holding herself steady by gripping my bicep as my fingers pumped in and out.

“You’re fucking perfect.” I plunged into her, stroking her walls as my thumb found her clit—already swollen and ready to be sucked and teased. “Hot. Wet. Slick. Everything I could possibly want.”

“Then stop telling me what I want.” She hooked her fingers in the waistband of my underwear and tugged them down, freeing my cock as the boxer briefs gave in to gravity and dropped to the floor. Her fingers curled around me, not quite meeting as she stroked me from root to tip.