His for a Price

He sunk his fingers deep in her thick hair, loosely holding on to her as she tormented him, as she worshipped him. Letting her build the fire in him higher and higher, letting her take him, letting her have him any way she pleased.

Mine, he thought with every stroke of her wicked tongue. Finally mine.

And when he fell off the side of the earth and shattered into a thousand pieces, he shouted out the glory of it in words he knew she couldn’t understand.

When he opened his eyes she was still on her knees before him, those marvelous eyes big and wide and focused only on him. Another trillion dreams shattered by a far better reality, he thought. Her lush mouth was swollen slightly, and there was that flush across her cheeks that told him she was as affected by this as he was. For a moment he only stared at her, this woman who had haunted him for so long.

This woman he still didn’t understand at all.

Then Nicodemus tucked himself away and zipped up his trousers, the fire still roaring inside him. He wanted to haul her to her feet and bend her over the counter. He wanted to lick his way into her heat again, then lose himself in it, until they were both as shattered as that glass she’d thrown.

He wanted all of her. Here, now.

But he’d waited so long—and he couldn’t trust her sudden capitulation. He reached down and slid his hand along her jaw, holding the side of her face, the soft satin of her cheek warm against his palm. Something like tenderness, but with so many lies between them.

Always the lies. Always so many damned lies.

“I think I like you kneeling, princess,” he said, not wanting to face that yet. “I may make it a daily requirement.”

She didn’t like that. He could feel it in the way she quivered, could see it in the way her pretty dark eyes narrowed. But she didn’t throw something back at him the way he could see she wanted to do. She stayed there, passive and accommodating and not at all the Mattie he knew.

Not that he was complaining. Not at the moment. Not when he was still breathing hard.

“Wasn’t that...okay?” she asked, with breathy concern. But he could see the calculation in her eyes, and it helped bring him back to reality.

“You don’t listen,” he told her coolly. “I’ve told you before—I don’t care how I have you. I’m not that proud. If you want to kneel down before me and pretend it’s an apology instead of a manipulation, I won’t stop you.” He shrugged. “I didn’t.”

He was impressed with how she held herself so still. “I don’t know what you mean.”

“This kind of about-face would be suspicious in anyone, but is especially so in you.” She started to move, and he shook his head, made his voice harsh. “Stay where you are.”

“So you can indulge your domination fantasies?” She rolled her eyes. “No, thank you.”

“This is not a fantasy.” He smiled, enjoying the fury in her gaze because that was the real Mattie behind whatever sugar-coated, undeniably hot game she was playing out. “This is a fact.”

He was fascinated by the way her face changed, one emotion after the next and none readable. Eventually, her shoulders dropped. She let go of the ripe tension drawing her body so tight, blowing it out in a long sigh that drew his attention back to her mouth, which he knew, now, could make him her slave. Easily. And then she smiled at him in that way she had before, so that the exquisite little dent beside her mouth revealed itself anew.

As if she was made entirely of sunshine and sweetness.

He didn’t believe it, of course. But it made that heat flare again inside him, pooling in his groin with as much force and need and hunger as if he’d never let her use her mouth on him in the first place. As if he’d never found such sweet release.

“I’m sorry,” she murmured. “You make me feel—” She shook her head, as if she couldn’t bring herself to name it. “I don’t know how to react to it.”

“That may be the most honest thing you’ve ever said to me.” Her hair had tumbled down from the little twist she’d put it in, thanks to his hands and the madness of the way she’d brought him over the edge like that, and he brushed the silken mass of it back from her face. “But I doubt very much that’s why you’re saying it.”

“Fine.” She settled, relaxing her bottom on her feet, looking less like she was kneeling and more like she happened to be doing some kind of yoga near him. “You’re the expert on me, or so you keep telling me. So what terrible, underhanded reasons do I have for doing what I just did? Maybe you can explain why you did the exact same thing to me on the plane. Will our reasons be the same?” Her mouth curved, challenging him. “Or will you decide, the way you always seem to do, that I’m devious and motivated only by plots and schemes and deceit while you—and only you—are nobly called to action by nothing more than the purity of your intentions?”