23. Natalie

23

NATALIE

I ignore his presumptuous question and make one more half-hearted, spat-out attempt to talk myself out of this, as if every moment of deflection will lessen the burden of my inevitable sins.

‘You only want me because your ego needs to prove you can conquer any woman you like, especially one who despises you.’

‘And you want me because you’re far too intelligent to underestimate the mind-melting power of a good hate fuck,’ he says evenly, those long, clever fingers rubbing at my nipples through layers of pleated silk chiffon and satin.

God, that’s coarse. Even coarser than the way his fingers are abrading my nipples. The mere suggestion of a fuck with him, the pistons of his dick and the cinching of my internal muscles driven not by love but by something far headier, far more base, has those very muscles cramping enough that I shift my hips involuntarily forward into thin air. His hardness isn’t touching me, but it’s as difficult to ignore as it would be if he was naked .

‘Nobody’s fucking anyone,’ I say in a voice that’s despicably breathy.

‘If you say so,’ he says, still in that mature, tolerant voice that makes me want to slap him, even if the strain visible on his gorgeous face is truly gratifying. ‘Anyway, you’re wrong. I don’t want you because you hate me, Natalie.’ He speaks my name like a caress. ‘I want you despite you hating me. That’s a big difference. But I’m not under any illusions here. I’ll take any crumb you’re willing to throw my way tonight, even if it’s the privilege of my tongue in your cunt while you disgorge every obscenity you’ve been too well-bred to voice before now.’

He has no business being this articulate and filthy and persuasive with such a sizeable proportion of his blood flow having left his brain. But the urgency of his words and the force of his visuals and the supplication in those astonishing eyes are witchcraft.

He’s stirring the cauldron, and I’m gazing into its mesmerising depths, as powerless against its allure as a medieval princess is against a fateful pin prick or a poisoned apple. This man’s power lies in the very power he’s extending to me, in the potency so intoxicating it has me stupefied. He’s absolving me, preemptively waiving any guilt I should feel at compromising my moral stance so grotesquely and so basely.

It’s pointless, because I will, of course, feel guilty to the point of self-loathing afterwards, and it’s unnecessary, because I’m already fully aware that I’ll let him do whatever he likes to me tonight.

Still, I can’t say it. I can’t stand here and use my words to tell him how badly I want this, how much I need him to put his money where his filthy mouth and striking eyes are and fucking touch me, how swollen, how needy my clit already is at the mere thought of him spreading me out and fucking me with that tongue.

Maybe if I don’t admit it aloud, I can tell myself later that I was merely swept along with events. That I didn’t stand a chance against Adam Wright’s evil sorcery.

Instead, I push myself off the wall and turn sulkily to face it, lifting my hands and bracing against it like Adam did moments ago.

‘Ah,’ he says, hooking a finger through the bottom of the ribbon tie. ‘It’s a proper corset.’ He gets to work, tugging on the bow and loosening the ribbon from the bottom up. I force myself to keep my hands on the wall as he does, because I want every second of this delicious passivity I’ve gifted to myself to count. ‘Who put this on you?’ he murmurs.

‘Evan,’ I say with difficulty, because his movements have the satin lining of the cups rubbing just so over my aching nipples.

‘And who’s Evan?’ He tugs the length of ribbon so swiftly from one of the holes that its rasp is audible.

‘My pattern cutter. He made this for me.’

‘I bet he fucking did.’

‘He’s married. To a man.’

I’m not sure why I throw him a bone. It must be the inordinate pleasure of hearing his voice go from measured to roundly pissed off that softens me.

‘Glad to hear it.’ He pulls out the next section of ribbon somewhat less savagely and keeps working, the corset growing looser around me until it’s open and tumbling to the ground and I’m topless, back bared to him and breasts bared to the wall and brain whirring with thoughts: whether he’ll kiss me now; how on earth I’ll make it seem like I’m not kissing him back with every fibre of my pathetic, traitorous being; how his hands will feel as they map every inch of my skin; why I’m now consumed, lit up, with that filthy thing he wants to do with his tongue.

I don’t have to wait long.

‘Good God,’ he says faintly. There’s a featherlight kiss on my shoulder, more of a brush of his lips over my skin than anything else, a trail of his nose, too. Then his hands are on me, warm and large and certain, bracketing my waist, and dragging up my sides, and splaying over my rib-cage—‘you’re so impossibly tiny’—and finally, finally, reaching my breasts.

‘Mmm,’ he says wonderingly, ‘You feel like satin.’ He slides his hands back and forth along their undersides. They’re small—far smaller than I’d like and certainly too small to have any overhang—but he’s found the ridge, and I shiver. Then he’s cupping them, his huge hands covering them entirely, his palms brushing against my nipples and I let out an incoherent curse at the gloriousness of it all.

‘Come here.’ He keeps his hands on my breasts, tugging me up and against him, the bare skin of my back hitting crisp cotton and firm muscle and the mass of his erection solid against my lower back. From what I can tell, my estimates of his, um, dimensions in bed the other night were pretty accurate.

‘God, yes,’ he hisses. ‘Look at that. Such a pretty little thing. I want to drag you home and play with you for hours.’ I moan at that and let my head drop back against his chest, marvelling with what’s left of my brain function at how incensed I was to be bundled off to his home last week, when now his threats feel silken. Seductive.

His hands move, fingers toying, pinching, plucking, his neatly clipped beard the softest scratch against my temple, his erection moving against me, although I suspect he’s barely conscious of thrusting. I arch my back so I can push my breasts further into his grip, raising one arm to clutch the back of his head. His curls are soft as I thread my fingers through them, and I find I’m able to pull his head closer towards me that way, his warm breath fanning my cheekbone.

I turn my face and let his beard rasp over my skin, my mouth open in a silent invitation.

‘Don’t worry,’ he whispers. ‘I’m not going to kiss you.’

‘No?’ I pant.

‘No,’ he breaths in my ear. His voice is so low it’s almost a growl, and I hear in it every last ounce of the effort it’s costing him to hold that self control he promised me. ‘I don’t make a habit of kissing women who hate me. I’d imagine it’s a pretty lonely experience.’

Forlorn, vulnerable Adam is absolutely not an entity I’m equipped for right now. I want him hard and hateful and goading. I want him to show no mercy, take no prisoners.

I reach behind me with my free hand and find his bum, and I dig in as hard as I can with my fingers to all that clenched muscle beneath that lovely wool. Jesus, he’s got a fine arse. Not that I didn’t notice it the other evening, but it really is spectacular. It feels even better than it looks. I can say precisely the same about his erection, which is now pressed even more snugly into my lower back.

He makes a pleased, surprised noise low in his throat and kneads my breasts harder. ‘Look at that,’ he groans, and I look down. My skin looks positively milky under his hands. My nipples are the tightest little pink pebbles between his fingers. He’s teased them into impossible points, and the ache between my legs is now a relentless, stormy thing, intent on being slaked at any price .

It’s a good thing I’ve already decided to sell my soul tonight.

I stand there and writhe in the fine cage of his body as he strokes and drags those hands of his all over me. And when one hand moves lower, over my navel to the waistband of my skirt, I suck in my stomach to give him as much space as possible.

‘More,’ I tell him, my head rolling uselessly from side to side, the top of my ponytail digging in to my scalp. ‘I need more.’

‘I know you do.’ His hand slides under the waistband, fingertips grazing the front panel of my plain and not remotely sexy black panties. It keeps moving south until he’s cupping me through my panties, his other hand still working my breast, and I swear I could come in ten seconds flat if he just slipped his hand under the fabric and?—

‘Who do you hate the most right now?’ he murmurs in my ear. ‘Me, or yourself? Because it feels to me like this greedy little cunt is betraying you pretty badly.’

‘Still you,’ I lie through gritted teeth, because I despise every inch of my flesh right now while also not giving a flying fuck. I don’t care about anything. I don’t care if I have to humiliate myself in front of Adam or say whatever he wants me to say or even beg, because I’ll beg if I have to. I widen my legs a little, just to make space for that big hand of his, and those long fingers. God knows they’ll need it.

He laughs. ‘Of course you do.’ And then he’s pulling his hand out and releasing my breast and gripping my shoulders and spinning me around and guiding me back to the wall.

I look up, bewildered and bereft and thoroughly pissed off.

And he stands there with his crisp shirt and enormous erection and magical eyes, staring at me, disheveled and aroused and bare-breasted.

He grins like we’ve been playing chess all this time and this is checkmate.

‘If you want me to touch that pretty little cunt of yours, Natalie, then you’ll need to show it to me first. I’m not getting you off under your skirt. No fucking way.’