Page 8 of Her Wicked Promise (The Devil’s Plaything #2)

Eva

T he CCTV is a distraction.

I’m supposed to be looking over reports from Paris on the camera footage my people have been able to retrieve of the attack on me there.

But I’m not looking at the reports. I’m looking at my obsession.

Fingers steepled, I watch Robin Rivers move through my castle like a bright little butterfly fluttering against glass.

She’s in the Great Hall now, looking out the massive window to the lake. Her strawberry-blonde seems like gold filaments in the light streaming through the glass, and I find myself adjusting the camera angle for a better view.

I’m not checking on her, I tell myself. This is routine oversight. I like to know what happens in my home. Every door that opens, every footstep in my corridors, every breath drawn under my roof—it all belongs to me.

She stays there for a few minutes, and then moves to the library next, running her fingers along book spines idly.

But the gesture is so unconsciously intimate that I find myself leaning closer to the screen.

She pauses at a section of Russian literature, tilting her head to read the Cyrillic script she can’t possibly understand.

A part of me likes this control. Robin is here because I brought her back—dragged her from her provincial little life in Vegas, against her better judgment. She fought me, tried to refuse my offer, but here she is anyway. In my castle. Under my protection.

Mine .

But another part finds her presence maddening, disruptive, dangerous. She’s too bright for this place, too soft for the world I inhabit.

Too soft for me , despite those barbed words she threw at me in the hospital.

Still…I haven’t forgotten them. Every word she said.

She selects a book. I force myself to look away from the screen, focusing instead on the stack of reports covering my desk.

It’s not just the shooting that I need to deal with.

There are still the usual problems with supply chains.

Politics. Whispers of rebellion from associates who think I won’t crush them as hard as my father would have.

My obliteration of the Gattos will be a lesson for them all.

The words of the reports blur on the screen, and on the page when I turn to printouts.

Market projections become meaningless numbers.

Strategic assessments are gibberish. My attention keeps drifting back to the monitors, to Robin as she settles into a leather armchair by the library fireplace with what looks like one of the Bronte novels.

Damn her.

She’s too distracting, too content in her little bubble of literature and morning light. It’s time to remind her where she really is.

Remind her why she’s here.

I make my way to the library. Staff members scurry out of the way as I pass, but I barely see them. My focus has narrowed to a single point: the strawberry-blonde woman reading in my library.

The room is still warm and golden when I enter, almost cheerful. Robin sits curled in the leather armchair like she belongs there. Like she’s not a temporary acquisition.

She doesn’t notice me at first. Too absorbed in her book. I watch for a moment from the doorway, look at the way her hair falls like silk across her shoulder, the slope of her breasts under her cream sweater.

The sight of her sparks a hunger in me. Not just physical desire—though there’s plenty of that—but something far darker. A need that goes beyond the flesh, beyond the temporary satisfaction of bodies moving together to completion.

I want to possess her completely. Mind, body, soul.

Heart.

Just because I’m going with you, it doesn’t mean I feel anything for you.

The memory of those words should anger me. Instead, it propels me forward.

My footsteps are silenced by the rug as I cross the room. Robin remains oblivious until I’m directly in front of her chair, close enough to see the flecks of gold in her blue eyes when she finally looks up.

“Eva! I didn’t hear?—”

I don’t bother with words. Words are for negotiations, for boardrooms, for people who don’t already belong to me. Instead, I reach down and pull the book from her hands, tossing it aside without looking at the title.

I wipe the beginnings of outrage off her face with a kiss, hard and demanding, one hand gripping her hair to hold her still.

For a heartbeat, she’s stiff and unyielding, her mouth hard. Then she melts, kissing me back with a fervor that sends heat racing through my veins. Her hands come up to pull me closer even as she submits to the invasion of my tongue.

But kissing isn’t enough. Nowhere near enough.

I break away just long enough to pull her from the chair. The way she looks at me—eyes dark with desire—makes me want to tear her apart completely.

The velvet settee by the window is the perfect height. I pull her the few steps there, then press her down against the cushions, following her until I’m braced above her, caging her between my arms and the furniture.

“Eva,” she squeaks. “Someone will hear us.”

“Not if you stay quiet.” I capture her mouth again, swallowing whatever other protest she might have made. I slide my hands under her sweater and map the warm silk of her skin, a little higher to find the plain bra that never fails to drive me crazy with need.

She arches into my touch, a soft whimper escaping her lips that goes straight to my cunt. I can feel her walls crumbling with every kiss, every caress.

This is what I need. Not conversation, not companionship, not whatever romantic nonsense she was reading about. Just this—her body responding to mine, her breath coming in gasps, her complete and total surrender.

I push her sweater up, yank her breasts out of her bra cups to bare them to the golden light streaming through the windows. Perfect. Everything about her is perfect—the pink of her nipples, the way she trembles under my gaze, the flush spreading across her chest.

“Mine,” I murmur, lowering my head to take one tight bud between my lips.

She cries out when I suck hard, and I lose myself in the soft flesh of her tits. I lavish attention on first one, then the other, until she’s writhing beneath me.

My hands slide lower, finding the waistband of her jeans. The button gives way easily, the zipper following with a soft whisper of sound. She lifts her hips to help me strip the denim away, lets me yank her shoes off as I go, and the willing participation undoes something inside me.

She wants this. Wants me . Despite everything—the circumstances that brought her here, the cold distance I’ve shown since her arrival—she still responds to my touch like she was made for it. Like she was made for me .

And no matter how much she denies it, she knows it’s true.

I just have to make her admit it.

Her underwear is the same white cotton, too. Innocent. Practical. So utterly Robin that a part of me wants to keep them on. But her scent is driving me mad, so I tug them down and toss them aside.

“Eva—” Her eyes fly open, seek the door, suddenly aware once more of her exposed state.

I press her down, nuzzling her throat. “Relax, little bird. The doors are locked. No one is going to see.”

Except for me. For the time of the contract, she is mine to do with as I please. Mine to possess. Mine to love.

Love?

The word makes me pause, and for a moment something breaks through my hunger. No, this isn’t love, this is…this is lust. Lust, and the thrill of bending someone to my will. That’s all this is. All this can ever be.

It’s enough. More than enough. And if a small, secret part of me wishes it was more, well, I can ignore that part. I always have.

Robin squirms, the motion bringing me back to the present. I sit back, admiring the picture she makes—hair wild, skin flushed, eyes dark with desire. “Spread your legs and show me how wet you are.”

She obeys, and the sight of her open and glistening, so ready for me, sends a bolt of pure need through me.

I reach out, brush a fingertip across her swollen clit, and she gasps, hips lifting.

Her hand is gripping the side of the settee.

Her teeth are worrying her bottom lip, and the sight makes me want to kiss her again.

To steal the breath from her lungs and taste her surrender.

“I have you, little bird,” I murmur, stroking her slowly, watching as her face tightens with pleasure. “You’re mine. You’ll always be mine.”

Two mutinous eyes meet mine, but I just smile and give her what she wants, sliding two fingers inside her easily.

Her hips lift, her cunt clenching around me.

She’s so slick and hot, so ready for me.

My thumb toys with her clit while I thrust into her, slow, steady, making her body beg for more even as her stubborn mind refuses.

I can feel her tightening around me, feel her hips straining toward release, and I slow my pace, drawing out her torment.

“You’ll come only after you beg me,” I tell her, “and with my permission. And you will tell me that you are mine.”

She scoffs, but the sound only fuels my desire. “No one can hear you,” I remind her. “Only me. Just say the words and I’ll make you come.” I work her gently, giving her clit the attention it needs while I pump into her, curling my fingers to hit that perfect spot inside.

“Come on, little bird. Tell me.”

She’s so close now, her body trembling with the effort to hold back. Her eyes flutter closed, and I can see her fighting it, fighting herself.

“Never.” She bites the word out between clenched teeth, and I have to smile.

My stubborn girl.

I curl my fingers in a way that makes her whole body jerk, and then back off, let her feel the empty ache inside. “You know you want to. Tell me you belong to me, and I’ll let you come.”

“No.” But her voice is shaking, her grip tightening on the settee until her knuckles turn white.

“No?” I slide my fingers deep, press against the spot that makes her moan, then withdraw.

“I can see how much you love my fingers inside you. I know how badly you want to come.”