Your body in exchange for your company. I let Anfalas live without ever tasting interference from me. All I need in return is you. At my command. For my pleasure.
He could do that. Stop all the digging he’d been doing in her company, stop looking for weaknesses to exploit. Offer her payment. And claim her body as his reward.
And he would have become the very thing he hated.
Trading favors. Taking advantage.
No. He would not allow it. He would not give himself the pleasure. Would not put himself through the hell.
He had very little soul left. It cost to get where he was. And what remained was scarred beyond repair. But he would not surrender the rest.
His body throbbed with heat, tormented him with a taste of what could be.
No. Passion was the road to destruction. It was only through control that he would ever find satisfaction. That he would ever be able to find some sort of answer, some sort of peace, for the torment inside him.
CHAPTER EIGHT
JULIA WOKE UP groggy and twitchy. Room sharing with Ferro was proving to be extremely problematic. First off, the man slept in his underwear. Which she hadn’t noticed when he’d gone to sleep on the couch, he’d laid down before she had, and had been covered with a blanket.
But then, he’d gotten up before her and the sound of him getting out of bed had woken her up, and she’d opened her eyes just in time to see him, his bare, muscular back and his butt, oh, dear heaven, his butt, in nothing but a pair of stretchy black briefs that hugged the contours of his body in such a way that there were no longer very many secrets between them, disappearing into the bathroom.
Then he’d exited the restroom, not dressed, and giving her a clear outline of the rest of his…secrets, in addition to sculpted abs and chest, dusted with just the perfect amount of dark hair.
He was like a walking female fantasy, conjured from her most base desires. A real man, with hair and muscles and all the good things that came with a healthy dose of testosterone.
She’d never craved those things before, not at a real visceral level, not like the sight of him made her crave them.
Because she didn’t let herself. She hated to admit it. She liked to pretend that Michael, that the assault, didn’t matter in a sexual context. Because in her head she knew sex wasn’t like that. She knew that most men wouldn’t hurt her like that. She knew it.
But a part of her didn’t truly believe it. And avoiding sex, and men who wanted it, was so much easier than dissecting how she felt.
So, since guys were hardly beating down her bedroom door, it had been easy to let it go and simply fantasize in private when any needs arose. It was safe that way. She didn’t have to depend on anyone. She didn’t have to trust anyone.
That was the big one.
But Ferro was making her wonder if it was worth the risk to have contact with a body like that. He wouldn’t hurt her, or force her. She knew that much.
And hey, maybe he liked her, too. He had kissed her, after all, and he had to have felt something.
Not that she liked him liked him. She just thought he was hot. Totally different from liking him. She wasn’t a dumb girl with a crush. She was a woman. With needs. She wanted to ravish him, not date him.
She pushed her chicken breast across her plate with her fork. It was time for lunch and the wedding was starting in just a couple of hours. And rather than thinking of her employee on her special day, all she could think about was Ferro’s muscles. Pathetic. Completely pathetic.
She didn’t even like the man. Except she was almost starting to.
But she didn’t really know him. She knew that. She really did. And yet, she couldn’t seem to remember when she was with him. When she was with him, she bought into the smiles. The laughter.
She was seriously pathetic.
Ferro had skipped the lunch, citing work related issues, and that was just fine with her, because she needed the break.
A Ferro break. Wow, she remembered the days, sweet, recent days, when a Ferro break was just needed because she couldn’t deal with his pranks and smugness and general jerkishness.
Now she needed a Ferro break so her neglected hormones could calm down and stop panting after him for attention. Not happening. Nope.
Because if she gave in to this weird, crazy desire for him it would ruin…it would ruin…nothing. Absolutely nothing. She didn’t like him. He didn’t like her. They were rivals bent on taking each other down and right now they were on nothing more than a temporary break from trying to obliterate each other professionally.