The Princess (Filthy Trilogy 2)

“Me? Look who’s talking. Don’t you accuse me of keeping secrets and taunting you. I never taunted you and I never kept a secret that I wanted to keep. I promised you on the plane that I have no more secrets.”

“You know you used the promise of another one to get me up here.”

I ball his shirt as tight as possible in my hand and step into him. “I said I had something you needed to hear.”

“I’m still listening,” he says. “I’m still waiting.”

And here it is. That moment of truth I committed to when I brought him up here. “I have needed you since the moment we met and no amount of time or space would ever erase the impact you’ve had on me. You affect me. You scare me. You own me in ways I don’t want to be owned, and yet I do with you. If you do this, if you go at your father in the way I know you want to tonight, I’ll lose you again. And I don’t want to lose you again. I just found you.”

He doesn’t immediately reply.

He stares down at me, his eyes hooded, his expression inscrutable, seconds ticking by in which I start to fear I’ve said too much. I start to fear I’ve asked for too much. Time and his silence close in on me with such heaviness that I can’t breathe, but then he’s molding me to him, his fingers splayed on my lower back. “I’ve been obsessed wit

h you since the moment I saw you across that pool, Harper. You affect me, too. You belong with me and I’m not losing you again.” His mouth closes down on mine, brutal and punishing, hot and seductive, long strokes of his tongue caressing mine until I can barely breathe. When he finally relents, his hand moves roughly over my breast, and his lips linger above mine, his breath hot, and his voice a near growl. “You’re mine now, Harper. I own you. No one gets to take you from me. You understand? No one.”

His emotions pound on me, punishing me like his kiss, the way he wants to punish them. “Eric—”

“They tried to kill you tonight, Harper. I believe that. You aren’t the one who ends up dead.”

“If you kill your father or your brother, you could go to jail. Then I lose you again.”

“I’m way better than a common criminal, sweetheart. I won’t go to jail.”

Those words punish me yet again. He’s brutal. He’s a killer. And I love him. I do. I love him. “What if Walker screws up?”

“Walker won’t know. I handle my own dirty work. I’m going to handle this and then I’m going to come back up here and fuck you in my bed just like I promised. And the word ‘again’ applies because I’m going to fuck you, lick you, and kiss you, again and again.” His fingers tangle in my hair, rough and erotic. “You’re never going to want to leave my bed. That’s a promise.” And then he’s kissing me again, sealing that promise with a deep, demanding stroke of his tongue before he orders, “Stay here,” and he moves me, setting me away from the door.

I’m instantly cold, ice in my veins freezing every inch of me. He’s already reaching for the door, and I can’t let him leave. I dart forward and place myself between the door and him again. “You will not kill anyone. That’s an order.”

He tangles his fingers in my hair again. “You will not say those words again. You will not speak of murder. You will not speak of any of this. Understand?”

“No. No, I don’t understand. You will not—”

His turns me toward the door, pressing my hands on the hard surface, framing my body with his. “You will not repeat those words. Ever.”

“I’m not agreeing to that,” I pant out.

He shoves my hands over my head. “Damn it, Harper. You will listen to me.” He buries his face in my neck. “You will listen or I swear I’ll make you listen.”

There’s an erotic promise in those words that shouldn’t turn me on, not in the context he speaks them, but they do. They so do. “Make me then,” I challenge, welcoming whatever that means, my sex aching, wet. My nipples puckered and throbbing. I want whatever he’s offering. I want him here with me.

His hands slide over my waist, cupping my breasts, pinching my nipples through my shirt and bra. “I should,” he whispers. “I really fucking should, but I’m not going to. Not like this. Not when I’m like this. Fuck.” He pushes away from me, leaving my sex aching and wet, my body screaming for some unknown pleasure it’s been denied.

I rotate to find him standing with his back to me, his hand at the back of his neck. “Fuck,” he curses again, turning to me. “What the hell are you doing to me, woman?”

His eyes are dark, stormy, his body a hard line of edgy need. I want to understand that need. I want to understand this man. I want to satisfy the burn in him for revenge, and I know only one way to do that. To satisfy another need in him, to drive him over the edge, and then bring him down, and then maybe, just maybe, he’ll let go of his anger to see a solution that doesn’t include murder. Maybe I’ll save him and us. That means now, before he puts something in motion I can’t stop.

“You can’t leave this room yet,” I say. “I won’t let you.”

“You can’t stop me, Harper.”

He’s wrong. I can and I will.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Harper

I’m still against the door of Eric’s bedroom, my body all that’s stopping him from leaving this room and acting on his promise to end his father. My declaration that he’s not leaving the room between us. His declaration that I can’t stop him, right there with it. And he’s right, of course. I can’t stop him. Not if he really wants to leave. The man is six-foot-two or three at least, and a wall of solid, hot, hard muscle. He has that control. He is, in fact, one hundred percent in control of the physical equation. He’s in control of what happens next if he wants to be, and that’s a problem because I know, I know, that if I let him leave this room right now, I won’t be able to stop him from acting against his father. I don’t know the right move to make to deal with the hell we’re in, but I know with certainty that making any move right now, in his current state of mind, is not a decision made of the genius he was born with.