They.
I’d never paid one fucking bit of attention to what they said.
“Fuck that, fuck whoever they are,” I growled into her ear as I drew my fingertip up to create some tension on her clit. Playing pain against pleasure; soothing one with the other in equal turns. “I’ll marry you the old way. The only way that counts.”
“You’d… take me,” she panted, gyrating her pelvis into my hand.
Greedy little brat. But I wasn’t in the mood to withhold on her. Not yet. I added my middle finger, and stimulating her with both, I rolled her clit between them, against them, and back again. That ebb and flow.
I wanted to keep her right there on the edge between too much and never enough. I wanted her begging for my touch even when I was already touching her. I wanted her addicted to me, like those poor fuckers in the opium dens. I wanted her to crave me, even when I was fucking her raw.
I slid my other hand up her stomach to her tits, feeling the weight of them, their round firmness. Though her frame was thin, her tits were full and supple. By the firelight, I saw the faint ridge of barely visible stretch marks radiating out from her nipples. I didn’t even try to stifle my groans; those days were over. She was mine to groan over, as loud as I wanted.
“You’ve got no fucking idea how long I’ve waited for this, Anika.”
She dug her fingernails into my thighs. “Tell me.”
The first time I ever saw her, she was in a pale yellow dress. Modest but plenty tight. Our parents had already married, and they introduced us at a big fucking production of a dinner.
God awful, except for Anika.
I’d seen her across the banquet hall and I’d known then, stepsister or not, that I was a fucking goner. She was it.
“Yellow dress. That fucking dinner. I wanted to be inside you before I ever knew your goddamned name.”
Her body tightened with a half-gasp, half-laugh. Sultry and dark. I loved this side of her. I loved learning her, feeling her. I loved being the one to make her find her power. And her pleasure.
“That first night, you were so mean to me. I went back to my room and cried.”
I slid my hand up to her throat, placing just enough pressure on her windpipe and jugular to make her remember exactly who was in charge.
“I know. I fucking watched you.”
She sucked in a breath of surprise and then relaxed into me, like suddenly everything made sense. “Were you always watching?”
Every movement, every emotion. Everything. “Fucking always.”
She hesitated before she spoke again. I felt her eyes on me, but I didn’t meet them. Not yet.
“So then why were you always so mean to me?”
Now I did look her in the eye, turning her face toward mine with my fingertips on her jaw. This part was complicated even for me to understand. But as I looked her in the eye, it all became fucking crystal clear.
“Looking at you hurt my fucking heart. I was like a wounded animal.”
She understood at once. I could see that by the flash in her eyes.
“I couldn’t fucking look at you; I couldn’t even talk to you. I didn’t want to make small talk with you, Anika. I didn’t want things to be fucking ordinary with us. I loved you. I wanted you. I needed you. And if I couldn’t have you like I wanted, it was better not to have you at all. From the first moment, no other women existed. Only you.”
Her pretty eyes fluttered shut, her lashes kissing her cheeks. Nudging me with her nose, her forehead, she said all that she needed to say. That she understood. That she was here. And that we were together at fucking last.
I worked on her clit with more focus, feeling her heartbeat in her throat. I got her close to orgasm, but I didn’t let her spill over the edge. She needed to understand my power from the inside out.
And I was still pissed off with her. Running away like she had that day, she could have fucking died. I could have lost her forever. Just the thought of it filled me with white-hot anger, and I tightened my grip on her throat, making her gasp.
“Don’t you ever run away from me again,” I told her. I slid my tongue down the shell of her ear, making sure I scraped her hard with my stubble.
She whimpered, actually fucking whimpered, as I ran my tongue back up her ear. Again, her grip on my thighs tightened. “It wasn’t you that I was…”
Bratty and mouthy. She was going to have to learn to obey me and learn it fast. I shifted her clit from between my fingers, adding my thumb, and told her what I thought of her fucking excuses with a merciless pinch.