He traced my cheek lightly, grabbed the length of my hair, and twisted until his hand was fisted at the base of my neck. A surprised huff blew past my lips when he pulled, forcing my head back on the bed, exposing more of my neck to him.
His free hand trailed down my throat lightly, the tips of his fingers leaving a tingling trail in their wake, and an erratically pounding heart in my chest. Wherever his fingers touched was no longer a cool burn, but an open flame.
Each breath and each second brought him closer and closer to my chest, where my bare breasts were on display for him despite my need to cover them. But then his fingers brushed over one of my nipples, and instead of trying to disappear into the bed, I arched against his touch.
The touches continued—light and demanding—until it felt like I would lose my mind. I needed them to stop and I needed them to continue. I twisted and bowed off the bed, trying to get away and get closer all at once, and inhaled sharply when I brushed where he was straining against his jeans.
Stop this, Briar, why aren’t you stopping him?
My hands flew to his chest to push him away, but one gripped at the material of his shirt in an attempt to keep him close—both hands at war with each other, just as the rest of my body was.
A whimper sounded low in my throat when his fingers trailed over my breast again on their way down, down, down . . . and he responded by wrenching my head back.
I cried out in pain, but the cry ended with a soft moan when his fingers trailed over a part of me I thought only one man would ever see again.
“No,” I said breathlessly, but my whimpers and moans and the way I pulled him closer begged for so many things that I hadn’t voiced, and not one of them was for him to stop.
Because there had been pain, and I had wanted to get away from him. But heat was pooling low in my belly, and some traitorous part of me wanted this feeling to continue more than I wanted my next breath.
I couldn’t make sense of what I was feeling.
“More.”
It took too long to realize that word had left my lips. I shook my head, trying to force that small piece from my mind, and I tried to twist away from him as his fingers began teasing me, but his body between my legs didn’t allow me to get far. “Please . . . please stop. St—” Another moan tumbled from my mouth and was followed by the slightest, most invigorating tug on my hair.
Shame filled me and my head shook as much as his tight hold would allow. My mind and my body were completely at war with each other. In my mind I was screaming at him to stop touching me, but the throaty sounds coming from me matched the way I was trying to get closer to his hand . . . not my thoughts.
My core tightened and another plea for more caught in my throat.
How can I want this so much?
Guilt tore through my chest.
Why am I not pushing him away?
I clutched his shirt tighter in my hand when he slid a finger inside me.
God, yes . . .
Then Kyle’s face slipped through everything going on inside my mind. Guilt and shame overwhelmed me, threatening to choke me.
Kyle. Oh my God, what am I doing?
I was letting another man touch me. A man who I wanted to continue touching me just as badly as I wanted him to rot in hell.
It felt like I was going insane.
I wrenched my eyes open to find the devil’s face just above mine. In movements too fast for him to stop, I shoved him back with one hand and slapped his face as hard as I could with the other while I screamed, “I said stop!”
He grabbed both hands before I could make another move and slammed them onto the bed as I continued to yell, “You have no right to touch me.”
“I own you, Briar!”
I gathered what little saliva was in my mouth and spit in his face, regretting it instantly when his dark eyes turned murderous. But he didn’t move, and he didn’t speak again.
“You don’t, and you won’t,” I gritted out when nearly a minute had passed.
Each ragged breath that we took forced our chests to brush against the other’s and reminded me that my body was still betraying me—that I still wanted his touch.
But with each brush of his chest, and with each craving for more that rushed through me, I told myself over and over again it was all a lie. That it was nothing more than what should have been an anticipated phase from being stuck in that house with the man who bought me after I’d been kidnapped.
“This is all a process to get me comfortable around you,” I mumbled, throwing his words back at him, and I hated how weak and defeated I sounded while doing it. “It isn’t about sex. And yet . . .”
His face went void of all emotion, even his dark eyes looked bored. After a minute of studying me and steadying his breaths, he said, “And yet, I still own you.”
A sharp pang hit my chest at his callousness after the chaos he’d just created inside me. “I hate you.” The words slid out easily, and I refused to regret them.
But seconds ticked by without a response from the devil, and eventually he released me and got off the bed. A moment later he laid the comforter over my body then walked from the room.
Chapter 12
Day 19 with Blackbird Lucas
“I hate you.”
That weak, broken voice sounded in my mind again and again. The adrenaline coursing through my body grew, mixing with my own hate and the need to have the girl in that room until it became too much. A growl ripped from my throat, and I lashed out, punching the wall closest to me. I stumbled back to the opposite wall in the hallway and gripped at my hair with both hands as I forced myself not to move.
Because I wanted to go back upstairs, but not for the reasons I needed to. Not to teach my blackbird the lesson I knew I should be giving her. But because all I’d wanted in that instant after she’d said those three words was to fall to my knees and beg her to forgive me—for so many things. Because I wanted to tell her things that couldn’t be said.
Stupid bastard.
William had said I wasn’t ready.
He’d been right.
Chapter 13
William
Briar
I hadn’t spoken to the devil in the last day and a half, and I hadn’t faced him when he’d brought my food. Then again, he hadn’t tried to talk to me or get me to look at him since that night . . . and that made this all so much worse.
His silence made me wonder and worry about what I would be met with the next time he decided to speak to me, because I was terrified it would be a lesson. But a part of me—that stupid, traitorous part that had craved his touch—worried that if I looked at him, I would see that unnerving composure that revealed nothing.
I just wanted to know that he’d been living with some of the uncertainty and confusion that I was. Wanted to know that that night had affected him as much as it had me.
Flashes of those haunted eyes and his tortured look, and then his calm, indifferent expression, plagued me more than I wanted to admit even to myself.
I owe him nothing. I hate him, I told myself again. But even in my mind the words didn’t hold much weight.