Mine To Take (Nine Circles) (22 page)

“I told you. They were friends.”

“I want more.”

Her mouth dried. “You can’t stop me from leaving.”

“Can’t I?”

“Unless there’s another handy button you can press to lock the door from here, then no, you can’t.”

“I don’t need to lock the door.” He didn’t move, didn’t come any closer and yet still it felt as if he was looming over her, overwhelming her. “Because you’re not going anywhere.”

Anger shot down her spine. He was the one who’d shattered her life. Who’d brought Alex back. Who’d revealed her father’s secrets. Who’d exposed the man she’d come to love like a father. Whose very presence cracked the armor she needed to wear in order to feel like she had control over her life.

She’d been right to be wary of him. He was chaos. Everything she didn’t need in her life. And she didn’t want anything more to do with him.

She stepped to the side again and he blocked her. Breathing fast, she feinted to the other side but he seemed to know exactly what she was doing because her side step only brought her up hard against his chest.

Honor gasped as his arm wrapped around her waist, holding her there. Her heart thudding, she snapped her head up, looking into his face. There was no mercy at all there. No softness. His expression was unyielding, his eyes almost black. “Like I said, you’re staying here.”

She wouldn’t demean herself with a struggle, especially since any kind of movement only made her even more achingly conscious of the leashed power in his big, muscular body. Of the heat pressed against her. The sheer force of nature that was their chemistry. She didn’t want anything to spark that particular conflagration, not now.

“So, what?” she snapped. “You’re going to bring out the spotlight and start water boarding me?”

“You don’t want to know what I could do to get you to talk.”

She gritted her teeth. “Look, if you’re wanting to know about Guy’s business activities, I don’t know any more than you do.”

“It’s not just his business activities. I want to know about his private life, too.”

“Why? What use is that kind of information to you?”

“Anything you can tell me will be useful.” There was a savage-looking glint in his eyes. “I was looking to invest in good faith, Honor. And if there’s one thing I can’t stand, it’s people thinking they can fuck with me and my money.”

For a second, anger was stamped all over his brutally handsome features. A hot, molten kind of rage that, for some reason didn’t frighten her the way it should have. Mainly because she got the feeling that he didn’t often show genuine emotion. The only other time she’d seen anything like it had been when she’d taken him in her mouth. She’d caught a glimpse of it then, too, a flash of the real man behind his cold, hard exterior.

Desire began to tighten inside her along with a kind of panic. God, why was she feeling this now? After everything he’d told her? She was supposed to be getting away from him, not wanting to get closer.

“Let me go, you bastard,” she said, her breathing coming faster, harder. “I don’t have to tell you a thing.”

His other hand slid along her jaw, behind her ear, his fingers curling in her hair, forcing her head back. “Why are you protecting him?” His voice was a soft kind of growl that sent whispers of heat over her skin. “You said you wouldn’t.”

“He’s my stepfather,” she gasped. “He’s not a bad man and I won’t do anything that will see him hurt.”

“No matter if he takes you down with him?”

Honor closed her eyes. She didn’t want to look at him. Didn’t want to see the truth she knew she was going to have to face sometime. That Guy wasn’t the man she thought he was and hadn’t been for a long time. That he and her father had knowingly led a secret criminal life. A life that had also somehow destroyed Alex.

Too many links. Too many coincidences. Too many secrets.

“Please,” she whispered hoarsely. “Let me go.”

He didn’t move. Didn’t speak. Then the hand in her hair and the arm around her waist tightened almost imperceptibly. And his mouth covered hers.

Deep down, she’d been expecting it, a part of her longing for it. Craving it. In fact, it seemed to be the most natural end to their meeting. Heat to combat the icy grip of shock. God, one of the most intriguing aspects about Gabriel Woolf was that on the surface he could be so cold, like ice. Like granite. Yet, under that, he was a furnace hot enough to melt metal.

Certainly enough to melt her. Burn her to ashes.

Are you crazy? You can’t do this with him again.

Yes, she could. And she would. He was a drug she couldn’t refuse, an addiction she couldn’t resist. And right now, still reeling from everything he’d told her, all she wanted to do was get high. On him.

So she didn’t fight. She opened her mouth under his instead and let his kiss take her. Fill her up with desire and hunger. Replace all the shock and the questions with pleasure, with sensation. Anything so she didn’t have to think, if only for a moment.

He made a deep, hungry noise in the back of his throat, thrilling her right down to the bone. His fingers curled painfully tight in her hair, pulling her head back even farther, the kiss becoming deeper. Harder. Consuming her.

She dropped her purse and pressed her palms against the wall of his chest, loving the feel of hard, hot muscle beneath the cotton of his T-shirt.

He broke away all of a sudden, his eyes glittering, a stripe of color on his cheekbones. “What are you—” she began, only to have her question cut off as he took her hands and held them behind her back, locking his fingers around her wrists. Then he forced her against him again, gripping her chin in his free hand and taking her mouth in another annihilating, savage kiss.

Somehow it felt different from what had happened between them in Vermont. He’d been slow then. Almost methodical. But he wasn’t either of those things now. She could taste desperation in his kiss. Hunger. A wild edge that had her own desire stretched to the limits of control.

Gabriel backed her up to the dining table and before she knew quite what had happened, he’d lifted her on top of it, pushing her back. She sucked in a ragged breath as he slid her skirt up her thighs, then tugged hard on the sides of her panties. The lace that held them together was only a thin thread and it snapped easily. His gaze was riveted to the view between her legs and he didn’t look away as he tossed her underwear to the floor. As he spread her thighs wide.

Honor trembled, her hands on the hard wood of the table, pushing herself up so she could see. The sight of him looking down at her, an unbearably hungry expression on his face, was so erotic she could hardly breathe.

At her movement he glanced up, fire in his eyes. “You want to watch me eating you out, baby?”

Heat coiled at the base of her spine. Why did she like the dirty things he said to her? Why did she like his roughness? His dominance? The way he took her control and broke it to pieces in front of her?

You know why. Because you like letting go.

“Y-yes,” she stammered hoarsely.

“Stay like that then,” he ordered. “Take your eyes off me and I’ll stop.”

So she watched him, her heartbeat echoing loudly in her ears as he leaned down, his big hands holding her legs spread wide, his palms hot on her skin. He licked her, running his tongue up the center of her sex, drawing a gasp from her as fire streaked over her nerve endings. Then he did it again, another long, slow lick that had her shaking, a cry building in her throat. “You taste good,” he growled, holding her down harder. “Are you watching? Because I’m fucking hungry.”

The muscles in her thighs began to burn and she began to shake as he lowered his head again. The cry escaped as his mouth covered her, his tongue pushing inside her.

She couldn’t tear her gaze away from the sight of his blond head between her thighs, of his large, strong hands on her pale skin. Gripping her tightly. Holding her. The eroticism of it made her pant.

How easily he could hold her down, her strength no match for his. How fragile and vulnerable he made her feel next to his height and power. The brutal, dominant masculinity of him. Something about that excited her beyond words. Back in Vermont, it had felt threatening to have her veneer of control stripped away from her. But she didn’t feel threatened now. Now, she wanted the escape it gave her. A small taste of a freedom she’d never be able to take for herself.

It made her want to test him. Push against him. See what would happen.

As the pleasure gathered into a tight hard knot, she tried to close her legs, but he wouldn’t let her. Keeping them spread wide, he tasted her, exploring the folds of her sex with a precision and skill that had her soft moans beginning to change into a scream.

Her head fell back, her eyes closing. “Gabriel … Gabriel, please…”

But the mouth between her legs moved away.

Honor’s eyes snapped open, her whole body drawn to the edge of breaking point. “No,” she panted hoarsely. “No, don’t—”

“You looked away.” He’d pushed himself back but the look in his dark eyes was still hungry, still feral. “Bad girl.”

A wave of heat swamped her. “B-but I … b-but…”

“Don’t worry, I’ll give you what you want but it’ll be on my terms. When I say. When you can prove to me how obedient you are.”

Obedience, yes, that’s what she wanted. She didn’t want to make decisions now. She wanted to be told what to do, so she didn’t have to think. “W-what do you want me to do?”

“Just lie there and watch for now. Because in a minute or two you won’t be able to.”

He stepped back from the table and in one smooth, fluid movement, he took his T-shirt off over his head, biceps flexing, exposing tanned skin and hard cut muscle. God, he was beautiful. She’d seen him naked before, in Vermont, but hadn’t had a chance to fully appreciate the sheer beauty of him till now. Broad shoulders, lean hips. An intricate Celtic cross tattooed over his heart. The one that had intrigued her back at the hotel. And the other one …

Her gaze dropped to his fingers as they undid the buttons of his jeans, slowly revealing the Gothic characters of the words tattooed on his abdomen just beneath the waistband of his jeans.
I will repay …
Vengeance. But for what? And what did it mean to this man? This dangerous, beautiful, mysterious man …

Gabriel pushed his jeans down, taking his boxers with them so that a second later he stood naked in front of her. And all thought left her head entirely. Because why bother thinking when this sight was in front of her? Muscled and lean and hard. So damn hard.

She ached. Everywhere. Her thighs, her sex, her nipples. She wanted to be naked like him, wrapping her legs around his waist and taking the heat of him inside her. Taking the release she craved like air. But no, she couldn’t. He’d told her to lie there and watch and that’s what she had to do. Otherwise she wouldn’t get what she so badly wanted.

Honor took a ragged breath as he tore open a condom packet he’d taken from the pocket of his jeans, watching as he gripped his cock and sheathed himself. Her anticipation began to build, her breathing coming faster.

Gabriel came over to the table. “Obedient. That’s what I like to see. But the time for watching is over now, baby.” His hands settled on her hips and without any warning, he flipped her over onto her stomach, pulling her back so her toes only barely touched the ground, her hips resting on the edge of the table. “Hands behind you.”

She did as she was told, turning her head to the side, her cheek pressed to the hard wood of the table, feeling his fingers close around her crossed wrists. Her legs were shaking as she tried to get her balance on the floor with her toes, desperate to brace herself. This was going to rip her apart, she knew it, and she wanted it. But she had to find some way of grounding herself so she didn’t get lost in the flood.

Honor took a breath, the heat of his bare skin burning against the backs of her thighs. Then she gave a hoarse cry as he began to push inside her, feeling herself stretch around him, the pressure so intense she shuddered, pulling against his restraint, wanting her hands free to ease it, relieve it somehow.

But he didn’t let her go, his fingers locked tight around her wrists, intensifying the feeling of being bound and somehow increasing the pleasure at the same time.

“Gabriel.” His name was halfway between a plea and a sob. “It’s too much. I need…”

He didn’t reply. Only continued to hold her wrists as his other hand slid beneath her hips, lifting her so her feet were no longer on the floor, the push of him inside her even deeper.

She gave a low, ragged cry, because there was nothing to hold onto. Nothing to brace herself against. She couldn’t move, not even to pull away. Completely and utterly at his mercy. She began to tremble. “I can’t do this,” she whispered hoarsely. “I can’t…”

Heat against her back, his voice low and rough near her ear. “You can, baby. I know you can.”

“I can’t.”

“You handled it back in Vermont. You can do it now.”

Her skin felt too tight, like she was bursting out of it. “I don’t…”

“You’re hot and tight and wet for me. I can feel it. You want to come. You want to come so badly.”

Another wave of heat went through her. She did and yet she didn’t think she could deal with the intensity of this. With the feeling of helplessness, of pleasure. Of total surrender to him.

You want to surrender to him. You want him to make you. So you can be free of control. So you can let go.

“Give it to me, Honor.” His voice was full of darkness and heat. “Give it to me now.” And he drew back, sliding out of her, then in again, a deep, slow thrust. And again. And again, until she’d forgotten why she couldn’t handle it. Forgotten everything except the ecstasy that was breaking her. Cracking her wide open.

He began to move faster, his arm around her hips, his hand on her wrists, holding her tight, giving her no choice but to take whatever he chose to give her.

And she couldn’t say the words to make him stop. Something inside her wouldn’t let her. Instead she gave a hoarse moan and closed her eyes, surrendering completely.