Page 18

Chapter Fifteen

Vanessa

Is he ... dead?

He’s been asleep for almost fifteen hours. He woke up once to go to the bathroom. I could hear him thumping around while I sat next door in my office, typing out an email to my C-suite team that was as close to angry as I got. How could they have scheduled Monday for his official Champions photo shoot? He isn’t even fully healed!

Just a few minutes ago, I heard him moving around again. It’s almost nine in the morning, and we went to bed at six last night. I can’t decide if I should wake him or not. Ordinarily I’d say no, but he must be hungry. After hitting send, I head downstairs as carefully as I’m able and return with energy bars and a couple bottles of water. I debate knocking but then decide that it is my bedroom and I’m not going to walk on eggshells in my own private space. I do that in public spaces enough already.

I push open the door, make it to the bed, and set down my items, and while I had every noble intention of sneaking back out so long as he isn’t awake—which he definitely isn’t—I don’t. Pervert . Instead, I’m a bit ... enchanted.

My gaze passes over the alien in my bed, twisted like a snake among my rumpled sheets. Lying on his stomach, he’s taking up almost all of the king bed. His arms are out to the sides, his legs just like they were last night when he first collapsed onto my mattress—one straight, one hooked at the knee. His back rises and falls so slowly, and it’s so pretty , even covered in scratches. He’s got a larger one over his left shoulder blade that took some stitching, but otherwise, the rest are scrapes that already look more healed than they did yesterday. Not that I was ogling him or anything ...

Not that I was noticing how the brown of his skin is so ... so ... robust. Like he’s got a light on within. I huff-chuckle. I suppose he does. Maybe a dragon was the wrong symbol for him. Maybe we should have called him Ra like the ancient Egyptian sun god. We could have given him a falcon for a logo or a sun crest. Too bad a second rebrand isn’t in the stars for us, not with how he’s dominating the headlines. Not even Taranis’s recent work repowering a New Orleans power grid during a catastrophic storm could take top billing over the Wyvern’s recent heroics. The news cycle will eventually cycle him out, but for now the Wyvern, my boyfriend , is all anybody wants to talk about, and if I do my job right, it’ll stay that way for a few more weeks. My fake boyfriend.

I frown a little and take a step away from the bed. I debate covering him up better with the blankets, but it’s pointless. He stole the covers all night anyway—not that I needed them. He was wrapped around me like a snake with a score. I’m not going to be able to wear my flannel pajamas tonight if he plans on the same arrangement. My cheeks burn at the thought. It had been my first time sleeping all night through with a guy. I didn’t think I’d be able to—had always told myself it’d be too annoying to sleep beside someone else—but it was easy. Better than easy. It was nice.

The floor creaks under my feet, and he releases a heavy sigh. I freeze, not wanting to be caught peeping. Pervert . As luck would have it, his eyes stay closed as he kicks one knee up and rolls onto his back. His knee flops open. His elbows are spread wide, his right arm cocked up, his left hand draped over his stomach. The blanket is barely—barely—covering his ... um ... equipment. I can see his chest and his ribbed abdomen and his tree-trunk thighs and his arms, and he’s ... my goodness, he’s a good-looking guy. And with his beard and hair long and scratches covering most of him, he looks like some marauding Viking berserk who stormed the castle and plans to stay a while.

I cover my mouth with my hand, worried that I’m drooling. What am I? A dog salivating over a bone? Pervert. I’m leaving, I swear ... only I’m not. I’m still staring. Pervert! And now I’m getting closer to him because I start to notice something funny on his left pec. I thought I’d noticed a scratch last night, deeper than the others, but now that I’m able to focus on it uninterrupted by, well ... him being awake— perv —I can see marks on his skin that look more organized than any scratch would be. Almost like a tattoo, if a tattoo were raised and only slightly darker than his skin tone. Like scar tissue. A brand maybe?

I’m not wearing shoes and carefully creep right to the edge of the bed. I lean over him and inspect the nontattoo a little closer. What I find puzzles me. A series of lines, organized into a shape that looks only partially complete. It’s like a subway map where the lines all lead off into different directions before vanishing. There’s a circular line winding through the web ... yeah. That’s what it’s like. A spiderweb. Both organic and too organized at the same time. There are ... I count ... eleven lines branching outward, a circular squiggle connecting them. But regardless of where they lead, they all intersect within the circle. I see my finger enter my vision like it doesn’t belong to me. I tell it to stop what it’s doing, what it’s intending, but it doesn’t listen.

I press the tip of my pointer finger right into the center of the circle. I barely touch him, only the feather of my skin across the smooth lines of his ... but that doesn’t matter.

Hands grab my shoulders, rip me off my feet, and whirl me around. My back lands on the bed, the mattress bouncing beneath me. I blink and he’s there looming over me, his stare angry before it morphs into surprise. “Nessa, the fuck are you doing?”

“Peeping!” I blurt— pervvvv —and I don’t give any more explanation than that. Because all my awareness is currently zeroing in on the fact that he hasn’t let go of me. In fact, his hand has shifted its hold to my neck. He’s not squeezing, but the position is menacing and intoxicating—I can feel every inch of his palm when I swallow nervously—and it’s exacerbated by the fact that he’s naked , and he’s shifting his weight further on top of me, pressing me into the bed, hip to hip, putting us in a position that I’ve only been in with a man two other times. All he’d have to do is slip his knees to the insides of mine and ...

I swallow hard. He hasn’t said anything. His glare has released. His lips are parted, and somehow he doesn’t smell like morning breath, despite the fact that he hasn’t brushed his teeth, but rather still smells like smoke. Like the sun.

“We should have called you Ra,” I say, brain firing in every direction. I should push him off. I really should push him off.

But I don’t.

Humans crave touch from one another. I know this objectively, but personally , getting to the point where I can feel comfortable touching someone and being touched by them like this ... well, let’s just say that the last time it happened, I’d had to work up the courage over months. College boyfriend. He didn’t last long after we ... hooked up. I rebounded after him with the help of a lot of beer. The sex was better but not worth repeating. We fizzled after that.

But this? I’ve never felt tension like this. Need. Want. Pure and unbothered by stupid questions such as, Whose hands go where, and who does what to whom, and how do I know what you like if I’m too shy to ask you? There’s just him dragging me underneath him and looking down at me like he’s going to do whatever he wants ...

And I’m going to let him.

“You smell like fucking candy.” He drops his face to my hair and inhales deeply. His nose drags over my skin up to my temple and then back down to my neck. He breathes against the column of my throat and then nips the space under my ear with his teeth.

I gasp, the sound punching into my lungs. I swallow, and his fingers tighten just a fraction ... just enough to make my eyelids flutter and my back arch. My legs squirm against each other restlessly, and my hands, my treacherous hands, reach up from their awkward positions at my sides to touch his ribs. And the instant my fingertips graze his hot skin, he hisses, shifts his hand, and fully bites the side of my neck.

I moan loudly in a way that can only be described as carnal. There’s no doubt that it’s a pleasure sound, and it deepens when Rollo slides his hands underneath my ass, dressed in jeans—because what other masochist but me would wear jeans in their own house—and down my thighs ... and repositions his legs between mine.

The sounds I’m making are embarrassing. Embarrassing . Not because the sounds are ... sounding , but because of how desperate they are. I’ve never been touched like this, but the strangest thing is the feeling in my chest telling me that even though I might not know this type of touch, I miss it. Badly.

My eyes burn. The blankets are tangled between us, and Rollo yanks them away. Something tears, but I don’t care. Not when his hips leave the valley between mine and he sits back on his heels and reaches for the button on my pants.

“Not gonna fuck you,” he says, and I don’t know if he’s talking to himself or me because, if he’s talking to me, I’d tell him he’s gonna make me weep. Need has bludgeoned me with a cudgel, and I can’t articulate how big it is. It’s too big to get past the barrier of my teeth.

His gaze flashes bright white as he looks at me. “But I need these off.”

I nod feverishly, my head buried in the pillows behind me as I stare down the length of my T-shirt-covered body to his naked everything. His shoulders look enormous from this angle, like wings, tapering down to narrow hips between which a prominent erection stands stiff, reaching for me. His brown skin is flushed red, almost purple, over the massive domed head, which is fully visible with the foreskin drawn back, veins streaking down the sides making my mouth water like a sex-deprived succubus.

I reach down to help him with my jeans because he still hasn’t moved, but he bats my hands out of his way. “Hands up. Over your head. Don’t move them until I tell you you can.”

I’m going to pass out. My throat is totally dry. My arms feel like they’ve been pricked with pins and needles from shoulder to fingertip as my hands fold neatly above my head in a bed of my hair. His eyes are blazing with questions I don’t have answers to because I’m on a game of Jeopardy! right now; he’s my opponent, but I can’t reach for the buzzer because he told me I’m not allowed.

“Christ,” he huffs. He rubs his hand through his hair, and that image, that picture of him all scratched and scarred, looking at me like I’m something soft he can fall into. The vision is searing and one I know will be burned into my memory until the day I die.

His fingers tug my button free, and the sound the zipper makes as it descends is salacious. “Hips up.”

I comply, and he drags my jeans roughly down my legs until he reaches my ankles. He moves gently after that, freeing one foot and removing the sock I’m wearing before moving to my other foot and freeing my brace. He kisses the side of my ankle brace very gently, and I don’t like the feeling that balloons in my stomach when he does that. The lust takes a new shape, a form that begs my surrender.

My hands twitch. He glares at them, and I move them back into position, holding my right wrist with my left hand as if I might keep it from doing anything crazy. Then Rollo gently lowers both of my legs and reaches for the simple black underwear I’ve got on. I can wish I’d chosen better looking panties till the cows come home, but I’m a psycho who buys her black, full-coverage underwear in bulk. Though ... he doesn’t seem to mind.

His eyes are unfocused, black pupils covering so much of the pink as he hooks his fingers between my skin and the upper band of elastic. He drops forward onto his other fist and tortures me, just a little bit, skimming the backs of his fingers over my skin as he settles my underwear back into place.

“Mhm,” I whimper. It’s a loud whimper too. Oh my gosh, shoot me now. I sound just as needy as I feel. There’s no seduction here on my side. There’s only obvious disbelief that this is happening and an even more blatant desire for him to continue. My hips lift.

“Nessa, don’t,” he snarls, sounding a little mean and making me flinch. “I’m hanging on by a hair here. You move when I say you can move.” He pauses, leaning back on his heels, lifting away from me slowly and inhaling between his teeth. I didn’t see him straining like this on TV when he was trying to move a mountain. “You okay with that?” His hands fit to my hips, his thumbs firm as they press into the soft skin just above my pubic bone.

I nod way too eagerly, enjoying, liking, craving this possibly a lot more than I should.

“Good. I’m not gonna fuck this up.” His voice is low like he’s speaking to himself, and his words astound me because I’d been having the exact same thought. And then he drops forward and moves to cover me once again.

I clench my fists as his hips come down to meet mine, the weight of them ... the weight of what’s between them ... sinking right where I need it. The stiff shaft of his erection presses down onto my clit hard, and when he tips his hips forward, I forget my marching orders. I tilt my hips up to meet his and gasp. The friction is heavenly, and I moan even louder as he slides back.

He snakes one hand around the back of my neck and squeezes so tight, my head tips back and is stuck like this. “Jesus.” His lips trail up the front of my throat, and then, gently, way too fucking gently, he kisses the tip of my chin, still covered in crusty scabs from my fall earlier this eternity, because that’s how it feels—like an eternity has passed since then. A hundred lifetimes. A thousand.

And I fall in every single one.

It’s too much, all of it is way too much. Too fast. And the sensations rocking me sideways are telling me that none of that matters because my body wants more. My hips tip up into his, and I shift them, working myself over the heavenly heat of his solid length because he’s stopped moving. Sensation erupts in my clit, and Rollo’s head drops forward onto the pillow above my head. I can feel his warm breath through my hair as he squeezes my neck a little harder. My mouth opens on a squeak that’s part pain, part pleasure. I open my mouth to beg for ... something , but he takes advantage of that and arches his back so that he can keep our hips together and still brush his lips over mine. Tentative. Seeking.

My eyes close. I lick my upper lip, savoring the charred taste of him, and bite his lower one. And then everything slams into motion. He starts making that sound that stems from a place deep within him that humans don’t have, and as his head kicks back, his chest comes to cover my face and that sound moves through me everywhere. Everywhere. Ev-ery-where. His body is a vibrator, and my clit is not immune. I wail like a banshee, clinging to him for dear life, as desperate notes of a long-lost orgasm threaten to tear me into pieces.

Heat pricks the backs of my eyes with greater intensity. There’s no way this is happening. No reason for this to happen. I touched him, and now my legs are spread and his hips are pumping into mine bruisingly, his erection rubbing angrily through the flimsy barrier of my panties, igniting my clit and the rest of me.

Dropping onto his elbows with one hand still around the back of my neck, his free hand comes down to the hem of my shirt, which he lifts, wasting no seconds in exploring the fact that I’m not wearing a bra.

“Nessa,” he groans, breaking our kiss long enough to sweep my face with his gaze. He frowns. “You okay?”

“Yeah,” I blurt on a wet laugh. “Yes. Sorry, this is embarrassing. It’s just ... been a long time ... for me.”

He nods, and his face relaxes. “Me too.” He lifts my shirt up over my boobs, bunching the fabric along my collar. Then he looks down and bites his lower lip once before moving down, down, too far for us to maintain the friction of our lower halves. “And never like this.”

He moves to suck on my left breast, pulling the nipple all the way into his mouth. He moans around it, and just when I think I’m not going to be able to keep my hands in place, I become sure of it when one of his hands moves to rub my clit over my panties. I grab his hair, but he shoves my hands aside and gives my clit a hard spank.

No one has ever done that to me before, and I gasp, partly in shock, partly in elation, and when he does it again, I whimper even louder. As my eyelids flutter, he slides his middle and ring fingers into my mouth.

“Suck.” I suck. “Good girl.” I’m such a good girl. “You want to come?” I moan and nod and squeeze my thighs together around his hips. I can’t give any other answer. “Then you’re going to need to learn to follow instructions, Nessa. Keep your hands still.”

His fingers return to my clit, and somehow he manages to suck on my right breast, keep his fingers pumping in and out of my mouth, and keep rubbing my clit all simultaneously. At least, for a few minutes. Because as the heat in my body starts to build and I start to get closer, Rollo starts to lose tempo.

“Fuck.” He grabs my hands above my head with one of his while the other squeezes my left breast hard enough to make me cry out. His mouth captures the sound, and he kisses me brutally as he prowls back up my body, lining our hips back up. I can’t move at all. He’s too heavy. He’s holding me so close.

My clit throbs as he starts to thrust against me with more force this time. “You’re going to come for me on the count of five, Nessa.”

I nod, and it’s at this point that I start to become aware that this male may be a problem for me. Because right now, if he told me to get on all fours and bark like a dog, I would throw myself to the ground, let him collar and leash me.

“Five.” He kisses me hungrily, sucking the moans out of my throat, drinking my breath. “Four.”

“I can’t ...” I gasp, breaking the kiss, my eyelids fluttering. “I’m coming ...”

“No. You’re going to wait.” He speaks in a snarl, the rumbling of his chest so loud, it makes it hard to hear him. He lifts his hips off mine for a second, long enough to reach between us and slap my clit again, and then he does something dastardly. He hooks two fingers into the crotch of my panties and drags them to the side. He slides his cock in between the folds of my labia between my brown lips, without penetrating me, but teasing me mercilessly instead.

“Fuck, Nessa. You wet like this for me?”

“Yes, Rollo,” I whisper, full of need.

His eyes blaze so bright a white, it catches me off guard. I moan as he slips his cock through my folds, up higher this time to rub directly against my swollen clit, and he grunts. “Three.”

He pumps again, more forcefully. I’m barely hanging on. “Two.”

He starts to thrust in earnest now, and I’m not going to make it ... I’m not making it. My head is tossing side to side, my hands are reaching for him, but he keeps them locked. His hand on my tit squeezes so hard, I think I’ll burst everywhere all at once ... “One.”

The pressure of my orgasm hurts, exacerbated by the fact that my core gapes, wanting his cock in me so desperately. As if he’s heard my pleas, his fingers on my chest move down my body, and he slips two fingers inside of me.

“Christ, Nessa,” he groans.

I cry out as my entire body clenches up, and he keeps thrusting against my clit while pumping his fingers in and out of me. His fingers speed up just as I start to come down, and I don’t understand what happens in the next second because it’s never happened to me before. My clit aches, pinching acutely in the afterglow, but that doesn’t stop another orgasm from trampling right over the first. My back arches; my ass clenches. I can feel him everywhere. His heat is so much.

“Nessa.” His eyes blaze white as he roars my name against my temple. The name he gave me.

I’ve always had a complicated relationship with my name, but from his lips, that single uttered word makes me feel like I truly belong to him, claiming me in a way that the first people who ever knew me had no desire to. No. This name is his name for his Nessa, and it makes me feel like I’m the first Vanessa who was ever born into existence. That no other Vanessa ever mattered before me.

At least not to him.

And it’s a beautiful feeling.

His fingers slip out of me as he loses himself to his own pleasure, and my core clenches in the aftershocks. I feel electricity shoot through every nerve in my body as my clit takes me higher. I don’t know if it’s a third orgasm or if the second or even the first never ended, but I think I might black out, lost to whatever incantation he’s thrown over me like a blanket. Distantly I hear him groan, speaking or cursing in a language I don’t know as he reaches his own nirvana.

My eyes open seconds or minutes later; I’m not even sure. He’s draped all over me, his still-erect penis wedged between us, a hot smattering of his cum warming my lower belly ...

His face is contorted in an expression only the foolish would believe was pain, and he’s slowing. His thrusts are gentling, the movements either a gentle rocking or an abrupt spasm. His muscles are easing, but only a little. He’s cradling my head while his harsh breaths mingle with my desperate ones, and ... I can’t look at him. I need to get out of here.

He releases a final moan before stilling, spasming, and then stilling again. He leans in and bites my earlobe. I’m going to burst. It’s too much. From the first moment he looked at me in the boardroom, I should have known that same brutal, punishing intensity would translate to everything he does. The way he makes love. Maybe even the way he loves.

“You okay?” His words are a whisper spoken into the darkness of my hair.

I nod, blinking manically up at the ceiling fan like a crazy person.

“I take it too far?” he says, thrusting against my soft belly.

I shake my head.

“I hurt you?” He stills on that, even after I shake my head again.

His lips push against my cheek, and he tracks kisses from my jaw below my ear up to my nose. My own lips are floundering, desperate to respond, but he doesn’t return to them. Instead, he pulls back and looks into my eyes briefly, and then again for a little longer. His brows knit together, and I know what he’s going to say before he says it, and I curl my fingers into his sides, and I remember finally that I do, in fact, have arms. I dent his skin with my nails in my determination for him to hear my words and not think what it is that he’s thinking.

“I’m okay. I promise.” I’m better than okay, but I don’t think I can manage any more words than these. My throat is all gooey, and so are my legs. I can feel them trembling and spasming as he slowly peels himself off my body, his gaze on my face. He doesn’t believe me. He’s looking rejected ... crushed. I can’t bear it.

“You’re a lot,” I say, and my voice catches. My hands are shaking, and I rub my face, feeling like such a loser—that I’m about to lose something very precious to me. “For me.” I hiccup.

I finish rubbing the heat out of my eyes, trying to stamp it like a runaway ember, sure that he’s going to be disgusted this time when I meet his eyes. No guy wants a woman falling apart in his bed after dry humping. We didn’t even fuck. What am I gonna do if we ever get to that point? I’ll have to check myself into a mental hospital because my therapist doesn’t get paid enough to handle the mess that I am, and I definitely can’t take this to group.

But when I lower my hands and tuck them into my chest, my boobs still flying free, his cum still wet and smeared over my lower half, I see the strangest thing. He’s smiling. His head is cocked to the side, and his expression is easy, bordering on sweet. “Baby, you’ve got no fucking clue what you do to me. No tears, okay?”

Sniffling, I nod anyway.

“I mean it. You start crying, and I’m gonna have to fuck you.” My brain shorts. Should I ... cry then? I feel my expression scrunch, and he laughs, and when his head tips back and his white teeth flash, he looks like an entirely different man—uh, male. “Don’t tempt me, Nessa.”

“Why not?”

He leans in close and kisses my T-shirt-covered shoulder before yanking the material back down to cover my chest. “I’m not ready.” He groans and rolls off my body and onto his back. “Besides, you gotta buy me dinner first.”

I smile, and just like that, the tension breaks. I feel the loss of his heat when he pulls away from me and performs a casual sweep of my body before running his own hand over his face. “Fuck.” Panic licks at me. I wait for him to tell me something’s wrong, that he’s my client, he regrets it, he’s out of my league, we’re not the same species—but he says, “I made a mess of you.”

He reaches for the hem of my underwear and strokes his pointer finger over my belly, gathering his own cum on his fingertip. His gaze drops to my mouth, and he whispers, “Open.”

I open. He slides his finger into my mouth, and I taste his salty flavor, sucking his finger clean until he pops it out of my mouth. His pupils, big as they are, have dilated even further, and the light pink that they were fades even more to white. “Think I’m also gonna need a taste.”

Before I can decipher what he means, he moves down the bed, hooks my knees over his shoulders, and buries his face between my thighs. Something tears. I think it’s my underwear. But I don’t give a shit about that as he makes me come again with the hard pressure of his tongue on my clit. I’m completely unprepared for it, and when he’s finished with me, his beard is soaked. He’s kneeling in a similar position to the one he started in, hand stroking up and down his cock. His foreskin is fully drawn back again, and he looks prepared to go back on what he told me earlier. That was ages ago anyway. I spread my legs just a little bit, and he slaps the inside of my thigh lightly, but hard enough for me to jump and laugh.

“What was that for?”

He ambles off the bed, his backside looking mighty fine as he steps into the bathroom and flips on the light. “I know what you’re doing,” he grumbles as he returns to me with a warm rag. I’m only half-coherent as he wipes his cum off my stomach and gently brings the rag up between my legs. My panties he takes with him when he returns to the bathroom, along with the dirty rag.

“Wh-what?”

“Don’t play dumb. That shit may work on idiots, but I’m not that stupid. I know you’re a hell of a lot smarter than me, and if you try to manipulate me, you might just do it, so don’t.”

His words are harsh but make me warm in the cobweb-ridden recesses of my soul. The places I haven’t explored in a while, the drawers I’ve left shut for fear of what they hold.

“I have to buy you dinner first. Is that the rule?”

Rollo sticks his head out of the bathroom, a toothbrush half hanging out of his mouth. He’s got a towel slung around his waist that does nothing to hide his still-prominent erection. “Since when did you become a sex maniac?”

My jaw nearly unhinges with how big my mouth gapes. I bust out a laugh and giggle into the ruined sheets underneath me. “I am not a sex maniac. Also ... are you sure you’re okay? The mark on your chest, it looks bigger ... and is that another one on your ribs?”

“Fine. And yes, you are a sex maniac.”

“Even if you are right, it’s your fault.” He grunts a laugh, but my smile slips. “And seriously, Rollo, what is that? It doesn’t look good.”

“It’s nothing. Just some scratches. Must have gotten nicked worse than I thought when I went into that car.”

“It didn’t look like a cut when I was looking earlier.”

“Peeping, you mean?”

I blush. “Well ...”

“There are no rules to this, or if there are any, I don’t know them. You might be inexperienced, but I guarantee you aren’t as inexperienced as I am with this shit. Stuff.” He spits, and the shower goes on. He speaks more muffled, like he’s talking through the glass. “I want to take you on a date.”

“A date? Really?”

“A real one. Not a fake anything.” He sounds pissed off again, and I’m not sure why.

I feel a little insecure about this, wading into dark waters without a life jacket. “Like dinner?”

“Is that what women like for dates?”

“I don’t know.” I shrug honestly. “Like I said, I don’t really date.”

“Me either.”

I snort. “You don’t say?”

“You teasing me, Nessa?”

I can’t help the lazy smile that sweeps my cheeks. I am teasing him, aren’t I? That ... might be a first for me. “No?”

“For that, I think you have to say yes.”

“Are those the rules?”

“Told you there weren’t any rules.”

“You gave me rules earlier.” My voice is soft, but I know he still hears me.

He goes quiet until, “You’re tempting me again, Nessa.”

“Sorry,” I whisper.

He stays quiet. I roll off the bed and manage to find some clothes. I’ll need to shower too—but my stomach chooses that moment to grumble. I think I might need some lunch first. What time is it? I glance around, looking for my phone at the same time that the water turns off. As I drag on black leggings and a black long-sleeve tee and take a seat on the edge of the bed, he makes his way out of the bathroom looking every bit a god of sun.

His eyes are pure fire as they watch me, and I stay seated, my hands relaxed on the tops of my thighs, as he steps up between my knees. He’s still only wearing a towel, holding it up with one hand while his other grips my chin with his pointer finger and his thumb.

He says gruffly, “You’re good with rules, aren’t you, Nessa?”

I nod, feeling thirsty all of a sudden.

He’s staring at me, an utterly indecipherable look in his eyes, and all but whispers, “My rules.”

I nod again.

“Whose rules do you like obeying, Nessa? Use your words.”

“Your rules,” I whisper, lust tittering through me in a way that I should find scary. His voice, his commands, ignite a side of me I always knew existed but have never explored.

“The whole thing. Tell me.”

“I like obeying your rules.”

“Like a good girl.”

“Your good girl,” I whisper.

“Fuck.” He looks me over and shakes his head. “Didn’t stand a chance, did I?” He reaches up and scratches his chest—specifically the mark covering his left pec that looks like it’s gotten darker in the past minutes.

My eyebrows pull together, and I remember that I have hands and know how to use them. I point at his chest with one finger. “Are you sure you’re okay? That mark on your chest looks pretty gnarly ...”

“Fine. Just ...” He scratches it again and turns away from me, going to his phone, which he abandoned on the floor last night, and picking it up. “You like Italian food?”

I nod, but he doesn’t even see. He’s already out the door making a call. “I’ll pick you up tonight. Seven p.m.?”

“Yeah, sure. Are you going somewhere in the meantime?”

“Got somewhere to be first. But I’ll be back to pick you up. Sharp. Shit,” I think I hear him mutter as he pounds down the stairs, making one hell of a racket. “Need a car.”

“A car?” I shout after him, still sitting there where he left me. “You need pants!”