Beastly Passions (11 page)

Taras went silent, and then with galling amusement in his tone asked, “Did I do something to upset you, wife?”

As though he had to ask. He knew
exactly
what he’d done. Treacherous, cunning, oversized sociopath. In the few times that Asha had been inspired to lay with someone, they’d always made an effort to do things properly, romance her so to speak. Where was the romance with Taras? Nowhere to be found—which was why she thought it would be fairly simple to keep her hands, and other wayward body parts, strictly to herself. What did he have to offer her aside from the appalling width of his home and his shoulders? Asha had wrongly assumed the answer to that was
nothing.
And last night had been a confirmation of that very thing.

She’d paced the confines of her room for literal hours until the heat in her belly finally extinguished with exhaustion, only to awaken with a pulse between her thighs that had been placed there by dreams she wouldn’t dare recall out loud to another person. He’d done something to her; what, she wasn’t sure, but it needed to be stopped before she forgot herself. Before she forgot who
he
was.

“If so,” he went on, his tone like velvet. “I would beg forgiveness.”

“I would rather you beg your pardon instead and leave me to eat in peace.”

“This does not work for me.”

“Funny how I didn’t ask what works for you.”

Obviously done entertaining her attitude, Taras reached out, plucked the notepad from her hands and set it aside.

“I was using that.”

He ignored her and took the tray towards the terrace. “Come eat.”

She stood and followed. “My research is important to me, you can’t just barrel your way in here and interrupt it on one of your insanely childish whims.”

“It is childish to want to share meal with wife?” he asked mildly while placing cutlery down.

“Yes, it is when you have no consideration for the work and time of others after having gotten done what you wanted to during your hours of underground labor behind the doors of your laboratory.”

Taras straightened and faced her. “It is not laboratory, as you so ominously stated, but a workshop.”

“Its purpose doesn’t matter to me,” Asha told him. “You could brick yourself into the space for the next ten to twenty years and I would not bat a lash. What concerns me is that you think you somehow have the right to toil away in there and then hinder
my
work.”

“I merely ask now that you pause work in much the same way that I halted my own.”

“I don’t
want
to.”

“Funny,” Taras retorted with a sly grin. “I did not ask what you wanted.”

“You don’t get to make demands on me. I am not on your payroll. So you don’t give me timetables and tell me when I am to arrive somewhere. That stopped when I accepted this,” she lifted her left hand to flash him the ring on her finger. “And I have absolutely no intention of returning to being retrieved like a possession. I was in the middle of something that was important to 
me.
I am—”

“What?” Taras cut in and that one-scarred brow inched towards his hairline. He jammed his hands into the pockets of dark corduroys and crossed his large feet at the ankles. A linen sweater the shade of caramel made his lack of a natural tan all the more apparent under the high sun, glinting off the blonde and auburn streaks swimming in his hair.
“You are what?”

She’d been about to say,
“I matter. Treat me as such.”

Asha swallowed the words and looked away. “Annoyed,” she told him. “I’m annoyed that you won’t consider what
I
may want.”

“How am I to know if the only time you tell me is when you are yelling?” he retorted with a cheeky expression.

“Because you never ask
before
you act. You simply do what you please and it has been this way from the very beginning. I was swept away with a wave of your hand,” she intoned, gestured with an arm. “I was told that I would be living
here.
That my life would end elsewhere. That I had to blindly obey or risk your retribution.”

Her husband regarded her for a moment. “As cub I learned to play violin.”

She frowned in confusion. “What?”

His shoulders rolled. “I learned to play violin. Could imitate the likes of Matteis. Stamitz. Milanollo.”

“That has absolutely no relevance to this conversation,” she pointed out softly.

“It does,” he responded simply, fixing his posture while he arranged his hands to look as though he were holding the instrument he claimed to be a virtuoso at. “Because if you are to begin sad songs of being but a lowly pawn used for amusement, I think it wise to prepare symphony.”

Asha’s hands fisted at her sides and she closed her eyes. “Don’t mock me.”

“This is not mocking, just help for dramatics.”

When she refocused on him, he was strumming imaginary strings. “You’re a bastard.”

And still he strummed. “This is nothing new, wife. Inform me of something unknown. Sing me another song. Hum tune that is not weighed down by persecution and regret.”

“Do my feelings mean absolutely nothing to you? Are they that easy to discard?”

“Feelings have relevance when they are not accompanied by tantrums.”

Gods, it was like talking to her father! Nirav had done nothing but completely disregard her desires, her needs, from the time she was old enough to voice them. Her mother followed suit, never once making an effort to protect those desires, those needs. She’d had to
fight
for everything. She’d had to rip apart the hierarchy at the very heart of her pride to get anything. Now here she stood, before a man who was burying what she felt important beneath his feet and dancing atop it like it was shit. And to think that just hours ago the slickness on her cleft had been solely for him!

“I hate you,” Asha announced quietly, disgusted with herself for ever exhibiting physical signs of craving for a man that was no better than the one that had raised her.

That brought Taras’ taunt up short. “Do you?” he whispered.

“Yes.”

“How long did this emotional decision take?”

“I’ve hated you from the moment I was told I would belong to you,” she replied.

He regarded her silently and then stepped forward, tsking as he went, “You believe this will deter me? Cool your own wants?”

“What wants?” she gritted out between clenched teeth as her heart skittered into a beat that skipped several times.

Those cool eyes glossed over her. “The ones that harass us both; the inevitable longing that left you striding across room for hours last night while I listened from the confines of my cage.” His lids dipped. “I could smell you, Asha. The dew coating nether lips while you desperately fought the urge to touch yourself.”

She stilled, swallowing a gulp of air that almost choked her. “Rest assured that if I wrestled with masturbating within earshot of you, then I truly had no desperation to do so as I’ve put on performances before without the slightest hesitation.”

The right corner of his top lip jumped and she got a perverse joy out of knowing she’d hit a mark. Asha decided to press into the wound. “True wants, as you say, Taras, wouldn’t have stopped me from coming through that door. It never has. Several others can verify such a thing.”

He drew in a sharp breath and his chest expanded, bulking while his pupils became pinpoints, but he said nothing. Feeling victorious, Asha chose that moment to drift away with the same refinement he’d used the night before. Unfortunately, she realized too late that she’d made a mistake that many had, but would never live to tell about—she’d given a predator her back. In an instant, Taras was on her. He took hold of Asha’s hip, pressing her against the stone of his chest while he reacquainted himself with her hair as his free hand fisted in the thick strands and tugged her head back at an angle.

Panting now, her husband put his mouth to her jugular and said, “The number of men who have had the honor of fucking you does not matter to me. Do you know why?”

 
She waited for all of a minute before she ventured, “Why?”

“Because the next time that your breath shortens, body seizes, canines lengthen, eyes water and pussy spills forth honey like overflowing hive, it will be
my
shoulders your hands gouge in attempt to stay anchored. It will be
my
name you cry as you shudder through climax. It will be
me
who you perform for, wife. And if you are good—if the production of your pleasure is as satisfactory as I think it will be—I will be so kind as to gift you with accolades that you will not
ever
forget.”

“I see your delusions got no better with sleep,” Asha quipped, remaining as still as her body would allow.

“Never slept much before your arrival,” he informed her. “Do so even less now that you are just twenty feet away, troubling me with steadfast resistance and denials that I don’t disturb you as much as you disturb me.”

“You don’t,” she blatantly lied.

“Then why do you hate me?”

She had no answer for him. At least not one that she wanted to verbalize.

“Because despite best efforts, despite disdain and strife and the suffocation of this complicated, manipulative, selfish game we have been trapped into by our families, you. Want. Me. “

Asha’s head swayed rapidly. “
No.”
There would never be an admittance of that.

“Yes.”
He spun her to face him. “And it eats at insides that you could have any form of response to my touch, to the sound of my voice.”

“Your arrogance is alarming,” she announced, purposely keeping her face blank. “I no more want you than I want—”

The brush of his lips startled her into absolute silence. It was so…poignant. The sweep of his mouth unhurried and soft. It wasn’t the kiss of their wedding day. No, this was another monster in its entirety. This particular demon couldn’t be eradicated by the thought that he was putting on an act in the presence of an audience. Asha couldn’t deny the excelling of her heartbeat or the trembling in her limbs. Her hands twitched at her sides as she fought not to reach upwards and fan her fingers through his hair.

Taras’ hands spanned the length of her back and came to rest over her buttocks as he coaxed her lips into parting. The moment they did, he stopped.

Asha didn’t dare open her eyes as they stood there, inhales and exhales mingling.

“Look at me,” he ordered. When she refused, he tried again. “Asha,
look
at me.”

She finally allowed her lids to part.

The pierce of his stare chased the breath from her. Taras lifted a hand from her back to sweep the tips of his fingers over her face. The reverence there made her swallow down any previous argument.

“You will not hide from me,” he stressed, backing her into the terrace door. “Because I will not hide from you.”

“I don’t know what you—”

Taras stole her next words. She was defenseless against her body’s response. Asha’s head went back against the glass as he shoved a thigh between her legs, lifting her off the ground. His hands cupped her hips and pressed her down, leaving her sex to push forward.

She gasped and suddenly his tongue was in her mouth, twining with her own in a wicked dance that turned her nipples into stone. Her hands searched for something to hold onto and chose the width of his shoulders. His mocking words from minutes before briefly circled her thoughts but were hurtled away when he rolled her hips against him. Asha released a sound that he devoured. Pleasure spiked her with the rasp of his thigh. Her clit throbbed and she jerked when Taras suddenly caught a nipple with his fingers and tugged.

Unable to do anything else, Asha rode the muscle harder, feeling the pulse of his erection as it pressed into the opposite side of her leg. He nipped the bottom rim of her mouth and pulled, sucking. She buried her hands into his hair and enjoyed every second of the silky slide of locks across her skin. Heat enveloped her belly and her pussy clenched down in search of something hard and heavy to fill it; in search of
Taras.
She shifted again to assuage the ache, but it only heightened the need to be speared on his cock, the need to be fucked. Gods help her; she
wanted
him to fuck her. This exasperating, tiring, arresting male who claimed to have no softness in his soul yet touched her like she was spun glass.

 
His palm was suddenly beneath the thin cotton of her tunic style dress, burrowing past the lace of her bra and cupping her right breast. He squeezed and groaned. The pained sound sent a thrill bounding down her spine. Asha shivered, the inevitability of an orgasm stealing all logic; demolishing every reason that said she shouldn’t do this. That she shouldn’t allow him this concession.

The fire started from the pads of her feet and flitted upwards, coming to rest at her womb.

Taras pulled his mouth away and put his forehead to hers as he heaved, “Coming?”

Embarrassment crawled up her neck, but with his palm full of her tit and his thigh surely damp with the moisture he’d created, she couldn’t deny what was so evident.