Beastly Passions (19 page)

They stood there then, gazing at one another in comfortable silence.

And when Asha could finally straighten the basics of her speech, she said, “You are
such
a liar, Taras Verochka.”

He immediately frowned and she could do nothing to fight the curving of her lips. Turning about, she shrugged as she looked around the office. “This is not the act of a selfish man. This is,”—she inhaled to gather herself—“this is the greatest thing I’ve probably ever been presented with.” Asha angled his way to catch the flash of relief that crossed his features. “And it’s the most ridiculous thing, but had you told me weeks ago I could drift back to Bangalore without so much as a protest from you, I would have run from this place as fast as my paws could carry me. Yet now…now I’ve come to realize that aside from the environment itself, there’s nothing truly left for me there. Very few friends. Absolutely no one that I can refer to as family. And who would give me
this?”
she questioned, pointing to the floor. “Who would bury their ego and trust me enough to hand me the veritable keys to their kingdom?” Asha shook her head. “No one. No one would give that much of a fuck. No one would try this hard. No one would lo—” She stopped, swallowed those words and began again. “No one would bother, Taras.” Pressing her fingertips to her mouth, she whispered from behind them. “I don’t have the words to thank you.”

He’d
heard
her. When she said she needed a purpose. When she told him that she had no desire to be an exotic pet. When she’d expressed her fears of becoming a long forgotten thing to the rest of the world and seen as useless after being bartered off. Her husband, the man she’d once seen as nothing more than an attack dog, had heard her. No one else had. Not her mother or father. Not her brother or pride members. Previous lovers were a blur and it was difficult now to gauge the sense of betrayal she’d harbored.

“I don’t want your thanks,” Taras replied in a sotto voice. “Just…don’t allow anyone else to take from you. Even me.” Rounding the desk, he strolled towards the door. “I will excuse myself now and allow you time to take in new surroundings. If you need anything, you call down to my office. The extension lines are on notepad to the left of phone.”

As he neared her side to slip past her, she found herself reaching out to take hold of his forearm. Taras immediately stopped and they locked eyes. With lack of anything else to say to him in that moment, Asha went up on the balls of her feet and pressed her mouth to his. The sigh he released made her toes curl in her shoes and she cupped his nape, pulling him into her. Before she knew it, she had been backed into a nearby wall.

“Not entirely sure this is appropriate behavior for the workspace,” she whispered on a rising gasp, her nails nearly digging past the fabric of Taras’ shirt as they clamped onto his shoulders.  

“Cannot begin to express how little I care,” came his gruff response against her chin as his hands molded to places they ought not be in public. “And I hope there is medical assistance nearby for anyone who interrupts.”

Gods he had her behaving like an absolute whore! She shouldn’t have liked it…but she did. To be the weak link in her mighty beast’s chain was satisfying beyond compare. The power rush left her in a dizzying spin of mixed emotions that she couldn’t get grasp of and Asha wasn’t entirely sure she wanted to. It was a strange thing, the variation in the way she now viewed him. He was no less brutal, however she’d begun to wonder if maybe, just maybe, she could embrace the tidal wave that had swept her away rather than trying to swim against it. She’d been drowning in a sea of self-degradation for as long as she could remember, twisted and unhappy because of the choices made on her behalf. And now, here she was in the corner of a corporate office, unable to focus on any desire to get to actual work because her husband wouldn’t unclench his teeth from her earlobe or release the band of her panties at her hip. Inappropriate! It was all so inappropriate and decadent and completely unlike her.

Asha was a thinker. A logical, sometimes cheeky, motivated 
thinker. 
So how had she gotten here? Being groped by a man who she had just so thoroughly despised?

You want him. He wants you. Take it and run with it.

Gods did she want to. But that would make her a hypocrite right? 
All 
of this would make her a hypocrite. To switch sides of the coin so quickly just because she couldn’t seem to halt those little breathy noises her spouse inspired with the brush of his mouth over her jugular or the dance of his fingertips against her skin. She couldn’t stop herself from arching closer to the heat of his form or the hardness of his groin as it pushed with insistence at her belly.

She wasn’t completely sure what had even led to this. One moment she was unable to express her emotions without becoming a blubbering idiot and the next, she had what felt like literal flames licking at the apex of her thighs.

“No understanding of what it is about mouth,” Taras growled lowly. “But I cannot keep eyes off of it when you speak.” His hands tightened briefly. “Drives me to madness.”

“Really?” Asha felt the need to tease. “And here it was that I thought my exceptional conversation skills had been holding you hostage when we talk.”

He pressed a hard kiss to her lips. “I listen to every word, but truthfully, it is because of where it is coming from.” Angling forward, he caught the bottom rim of her mouth and sucked on it. She felt that all the way down to the soles of her feet. “Cannot even begin to express how many fantasies start and end here.”

Curiosity got the better of her and she nuzzled his bristled cheek with her own. “Tell me.”

“A peek at my lewd thoughts, wife? You may want to reconsider such a stand.”

“I’m not a child and I’m hardly chaste, as you’ve found out,” she replied. “Therefore, whatever filthy things you harbor beneath all of that hair, I’m more than capable of taking in.”

His smile was sharp and lusty, a hint of fang glinting as his eyes shined greedily. “Recall that you asked for this.”

Asha’s ear was then filled with things that could most assuredly be called sexual assault had she not been fully interested in listening. By the time he was finished, her face was one large, hot coal and her nipples were threatening to cut through the very fabric of her bra.

“Well,” she cleared her throat of the squeak that had tacked onto the first word she’d been able to speak for several long minutes. “You have very vivid thoughts obviously.”

Her husband gazed down at her with clear amusement in his expression. “And they have centered around no one else from the day you threatened to leave me blind and your drink garnished.”

Ah, yes, she 
had 
said that, hadn’t she?

“In my defense, I had been summoned from a very short lived vacation, put on a plane and debriefed as to how I should behave in your presence. Your lechery only served to incense me because I didn’t want to be seen as an object you could play with just because our daddies gave you permission to do so.”

He looked on the verge of laughter. “And risk what others like to refer to as my pretty face being torn from skull? I do not think so. I only touch you now because I know it is what you want.” Taras’ lashes lowered. “However, if at any moment you desire to become toy for me, know that I have always played with my things very, 
very
 well.”

Asha’s clit jumped and she swallowed. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

“Also, if you remember, you swept in adorned in wrapped dress that had an absurd amount of cleavage on display; much like this one. Every breath made breasts heave like offerings. It was nearly impossible to focus on conversation at hand because aside from the shape of your lips, I was distracted by all other…features.”

Oh? Not particularly vain, Asha had never paid her looks much mind unless she could use them to talk her way into, or out of, something that held any amount of importance to her. Other than that, she was aware of her beauty, but it was simply another tool to be used when necessary, much like her mind. To hear Taras tell her that she’d been unwittingly leading him to distraction bolstered that reckless feeling of influence she’d been experiencing as of late.

“You can be a stone at times. I would have never known,” she finally said.

“Am I stone now?” he queried, seeming to search her face.

Tilting her hips forward into his a fraction, Asha gave him a winsome grin and retorted, “I would say so.”

Eyes darkening, Taras took one of her hands and maneuvered it between them, making her grasp him through his slacks. She was fairly sure that her stare had widened exponentially.

“Thoughts need not be anywhere but on this. It would take very little to say yes right now. I just need the word, Asha. Just give me the word.”

Hypocrisy at its finest. That’s all it would be. But they’d been having such a lovely go at it, hadn’t they? He’d committed himself to showing her the best of his world. He’d stopped his fetching act and reinforced his attention by leaps and bounds. He’d touched and looked at her with such reverence, telling her that he would sooner start a war with anyone in opposition to him than allow him or her to devalue her. There had been no snide behavior, no arguments. He hadn’t attempted to return to the callousness she’d previously associated him with. Taras had been different. With her. 
For
 her. He’d been so different. And with what he'd done today Asha had seen all that she needed to in order to understand precisely how safe she truly was. So why couldn’t she allow herself this thing? This one thing that would satisfy all of those disdainful, salacious thoughts that haunted her the moment she caught his scent? He’d done nothing but spark desire in her from the minute she’d taken up residence in his home. And now, standing where they were, acting like wistful teenagers with uncomplicated lives while fondling each other and misplacing the games their families liked to play with them, she wanted that desire assuaged.

So despite the fact that she would be a backslider in its worst form, Asha took his face between the palms of her hands and she said, “Yes.”

Twelve

Taras
was certain he’d heard wrong. So infatuated with Asha’s reaction to what he’d done, he thought he’d heard the word
yes,
but perhaps he was having a brief catatonic moment that had short circuited the stem of his brain.

“Taras?” his wife hedged.

He blinked, staring down at her apprehensive face. “Hmm?”

“Did you not hear what I said?”

“I’m not entirely sure. Repeat it for me?”

“
Yes,”
Asha told him again. “I said yes.”

Inhaling, he nodded sagely. “Ah…okay.” He then tucked in his lips and scanned the room.

A small brown hand waved before his face. “Excuse me, sir? Is there a reason you haven’t moved ye—
hey!”

He stalked forward with her thrown over his shoulder, debating where to place her. The desk was sturdy but didn’t seem to be the most comfortable area. The carpeting on the floor had been recently restored to its original lush state and was clean, however the floor just seemed to be a tacky option in general; at least for their first time. The wall would require his support of her weight and though he could do that easily, he feared they’d quite possibly damage the paint or knock off one of the framed prints. His eyes landed on the oversized, leather executive’s chair that had cost a small fortune due to its designer and roved the hand rests which he knew to be retractable. Perfect.

Kicking the rolling seat out, he fumbled with the arms to get them to lower, placed Asha on her pump clad feet and then dropped down. She stood before him with her hands on her hips and her brows curving towards her hairline.

“I am incredibly confused at the moment.”

Right. She would be, wouldn’t she? Because he wasn’t exactly talking. Just sort of…grunting. It honestly wasn’t his fault. It could be blamed on the beast and its insatiable need to have her
now.
As it was, the human components were barely hanging onto his leash and he was trying desperately to garner some form of control before he laid his palms anywhere on her. But she’d said yes. And with so much confidence. No hesitation. She’d looked him squarely in the eye, faced him down, and gave him a concise answer that could not be confused with anything else. What, precisely, was he supposed to do aside from give her exactly what she wanted, how she wanted it, however many times she wanted it?

Taras pointed to the aqua blue contraption she wore. Its sleeves were capped, its fabric clingy, and its design another favorable wrap that housed the gentle sweeps of her figure beautifully. But if she didn’t desire to have it torn from her frame, she’d undo the thin ties at her hip all on her own and release herself.

“Off,” he commanded. “Take. It. Off.”

Her gilded gaze went wide. “Here? Literally
here?”

To stop himself from shredding the gods-damn thing, Taras sat back in the chair, rubbed his hands tensely over his thighs and said in his language, “One.”

“What is happening right now?”

“Two,” he continued.

“Wait…are you counting?”

“Three.”

“Taras, can you, at the very least, explain what it is you’re doing?”

He focused his gaze on her face, knowing it was alight with the predatory thoughts that currently harassed him.
“Four.”

She held up her hands before he could reach five—which had been his limit and then looped her fingers into the bow to pull it apart. The dress fell open with no more than a tug, revealing black lace and miles of perfect skin aside from the now healed mar on her hip.

Inhaling, he watched as the fabric slipped from her shoulders and landed on the floor in a pool at her feet. With measured movements, he undid the buttons of his shirt himself, knowing that if she touched him now, he’d lose what little discipline he had and throw her onto the nearest surface without any regards to what was demolished in the process. His hands then went to his belt and there was a spike in Asha’s scent that he absorbed with his eyes closed. The sight of her reddening face combined with the tightening of her nipples and the way she shifted from one foot to the other as though she had an ache between her thighs made his canines lengthen so quickly that they nicked his bottom lip.