Page 40 of The Games We Play

Easing the soap up her neck, I place my hands around it, my fingers touching on both sides. I’ve killed a man like this, and I know I’d do it again in a heartbeat if someone came for her.

I ease my touch, even as my mind runs with all the ways I want to defile her. All the ways I want her to submit to me.

As I cup her breasts, I imagine sucking on them so hard they bruise. I move down her body to her stomach, flat and perfect.

Iris grips my wrist. “I think this is maybe crossing a line I’m not ready for.”

I stop. “I can move my hand. We don’t need to do anything you don’t want to. Or you can let me help you get back into your own body.”

Her eyes are wide. “What do you mean?”

I draw a circle on her stomach without moving lower. “You got hit pretty hard today. Getting hit like that, it rings your bells. Makes you feel off-kilter. Shell-shocked, even.”

“You sound like you know.”

I huff. “Maybe.” But I don’t want to think about war right now, not when the candlelight and bubbles make my little chick seem even softer than normal.

“I shouldn’t do this,” she mutters, but her eyes close, and she lies back against the tub.

I know that feeling, and I bury the words of my prez deep inside.

“Ask me, so I know you want this.”

Her eyes pop open at that. “I ... I can’t ... it isn’t ...” But even as she fumbles to find the right words to say to me, her thighs rub against each other beneath the water.

“Say it, little chick. Just ask me and I’ll do it.”

“Can’t I just say yes?” she asks, her voice almost a whisper.

I get off on her discomfort. “No. I want to hear the words come from those sweet lips. The dirtier, the better.”

She shakes her head and looks over to the candle at the edge of the bath. The way she chews on her bottom lip tells me she wants it, but somewhere along the way, she’s learned that she shouldn’t ask for what she wants sexually. That somehow, I’ll think less of her.

“Chick?”

She looks back at me. Pins those green eyes on me.

I slide my hand to my dick and adjust it. “Why is it so hard to ask me for what you need?”

Her gaze drifts to my hand, and her breath shortens as her mouth opens slightly.

“You want to hear whatIwant?” I ask. “Would that make it easier?”

Iris nods.

“Eyes, little chick.” When she looks up at me, every dominant nerve and bone in my body stands to attention.

“I want to fuck you. Defile you, actually. I want you to ride my face, I want to stick my tongue in you, everywhere. Same with my cock. I want to fuck you until we collapse in a sweaty heap, and just then, when I was washing your neck, I wondered how easy it would be to kill anyone who hurt you.” I say the words really straightforward, as if I were reading the manual to my Harley out loud, but the whole time, I stroke my dick through the denim.

With her eyes wide as saucers and pupils flared, I see the interest.

When she says nothing as her nipples pebble and her knees press together, I know she’s currently battling herself mentally. She wants to submit, but her brain ...

“What do you want, Iris?”

“I don’t want you. I don’t want this. Your world isn’t my world.”

I shrug. “Maybe. But I didn’t ask what you don’t want. I asked what youdowant.”