“Pim.” I growled as her teeth scraped sensitive skin making another wave of pleasure shoot, begging for a release.
It would be so easy to let her go, to lean back and give in. To spurt inside her expert little mouth and let her take that from me.
But that wasn’t how I worked.
I didn’t take advantage of people—apart from their money. And I definitely didn’t give in. Ever.
“Stop!” Wrenching her mouth off me, I panted as my cock smacked against my bare stomach, glistening with her saliva, pulsating with the need to climb back inside her.
It would be so fucking easy to pull her head back down and tell her to finish what she started.
But the one question I couldn’t ignore gave me willpower.
Why had she started this in the first place?
Sitting forward, not caring I remained exposed or she was naked between my thighs, I grabbed her chin again. Her skin was ice beneath my fingers. I refused to look at her breasts or pebbled nipples. I focused on one thing only.
“Why?”
She didn’t meet my eyes. Her right hand crept forward and clutched my throbbing cock.
My head fell forward as her palm stroked me with the lubricant from her mouth, soaring up to squeeze my crown.
“Fuuuck.”
Keeping her chin firm in one hand, I grabbed both her wrists with the other, flinching as I yanked her touch away and the elastic of my underwear splatted my cock tight against my belly.
“Tell me why. You didn’t want to do this. You don’t even like to be in the same room as me, let alone touch me.” I shook her a little. “Have I made you feel like you have to repay me? I don’t need a pity blowjob.”
Her teeth ground beneath my hold, rebellion and secrets in her gaze.
I tightened my fingers, bruising her but unable to stop the frustration leaking through my hand. “Don’t touch me, Pim. I don’t want that from you.”
Her face crumpled before determination replaced her pain.
It was a cruel thing to say, but the truth. Only…not the complete truth. I didn’t want subservient sex. I didn’t know what I wanted, but fucking her against her will was not it.
Taking a deep breath, I amended, “I don’t want that from you unless you want it. Do you understand? I’m not going to take from you. Not like him.”
She struggled in my hold.
I let her go.
Instead of ducking for the sheet to wrap herself in, she stood seething with reckless calm.
I wished so damn much she’d talk to me, but her silence said everything I needed to hear. I cocked my head, disbelieving the reason I saw in her gaze.
Wait…
I narrowed my eyes, doing my best to see past her anger to the plan gleaming below. “You…you sucked me because you’re trying to bribe me…is that it?”
She sniffed, her chin soaring high in the air.
“Why? If not for misplaced need to repay me…then why?” I stopped myself as the answer came. Of course. Fucking hell, why didn’t I realise her thoughts would go in that direction?
Sitting forward, I glowered. “You think if I enjoy fucking you, I’ll keep you.” My voice lowered. “That I won’t sell you.”
She locked in place, her kneecaps the only thing trembling when the rest of her was stoic. If I couldn’t read her body language, I wouldn’t have seen her terror.
“That’s it, isn’t it? You thought whoring yourself out would make me want to keep you.”
Her lips parted at the awful word.
I stood, tucking my pounding cock back into its prison of underwear. “Don’t like being called a whore?” I invaded her space, our chests touching, her nipples kissing my dragon’s belly. “Then don’t act like one.”
I couldn’t be around her.
I’d do something I’d regret.
This night was fucking over.
“Next time you think you can bribe me to do something by offering sex, remember that I want other things from you. Your body is not my end goal, Pim. Your mind is.”
I didn’t look back.
A WEEK PASSED.
An awful, terrible week where Elder treated me like a member of his staff. We met occasionally on the deck where the sun shone bright and unhindered, glittering on the ocean all around us, but he merely nodded stiffly and ignored me.
There were no invitations to dinner.
No origami boats or roses.
The night I’d sucked him, I’d relapsed to the same brittle sadness I’d existed in for two years. The shame Elder smeared me with coated everything, and for all the awful attention Alrik bestowed upon me, I wished Elder would at least acknowledge my presence in some way. His temper and judgment over what I’d done drilled holes into me bigger and bigger as each day ticked past.
Not once in two years had Alrik made me feel cheap. He made me wish for death, but he prided himself on telling me how much I was worth and why that value meant he would never kill me.
Elder didn’t value me at all.