MY FINGERS WRAP FAITH’S SLENDER wrist, that knife between us, but as I look at her, I think that if she intends malice, she’s far better an actress than any opponent I’ve ever faced. I see no intention in her face, nor do I sense any in her energy, see any in her eyes. But this moment damn sure reminds me that I’m not here because this woman rocks my world like no other, despite the fact that she does. I’m here because my father and her mother are dead. Because she is the only logical place murder leads, even if it now feels illogical to me.
“Trust issues much, Nick?” she challenges. “Who was she? Because clearly she fucked with your head.”
“You’re the one who plays with knives, sweetheart.”
“I don’t play with knives,” she says. “You inspired me.”
“Forgive me if I’m not flattered.”
“Do you have any particular fondness for that shirt?”
“Actually, I do. It’s one of my favorites.”
“Good. I felt the same about my dress. You owe me my revenge.”
“Revenge is not a word a man wants to hear from a woman with a knife in her hand.”
“Trust me and let go of me. I know that’s hard for a dominant like yourself, but fear isn’t a good shade for you, Tiger. And if it makes you feel any better, if I was going to kill you, I’d get that orgasm you’ve denied me not once, but twice, first.”
“The name is Nick,” I say, my gaze sweeping over the knife that just happens to be right in front of her beautiful breasts, before I refocus on her face and add, “unless you attempt to stab me. Then you meet Tiger.” And I think I’m losing my fucking mind, because I’ve decided that letting her have the knife is a good character test. I release her and press my hands on the island on either side of her.
“Now what?” I challenge, the current in the air electric, the push and pull of control between us damn near explosive.
Her eyes narrow, mischief in their depths, but again, I find no malice. More seduction, and playful sexiness that I rarely partake in. I like sex. I like fucking. I don’t like games that I don’t dictate and my games are not playful. But this woman, she is not like the others, she does not affect me like anyone before her, and the jury is out on whether that is good or bad.
She grabs my shirt and pulls it from my pants, and then takes the knife to the last button. It pops and flies into the air, hitting the ground with a magnified sound. Her gaze lifts to mine, and she says, “Still scared?”
“Don’t poke the tiger, sweetheart. You won’t like the results.”
“I’m not scared,” she promises, popping another button, then another, her free hand on my stomach, and if she wasn’t holding a knife, I’d move that hand to the damn throbbing in my cock. Instead, she just makes that throb worse, that hand following the path of the knife higher, and farther away from where I want it and her. I endure the torture of not touching her, and patiently at that, until she is finally at my tie, a little too close to my neck for comfort. I grab her wrist again, taking the knife this time, and tangling fingers in her hair. “Are you going to buy me a new shirt?”
“You can buy your own,” she says, her fingers tangling in the hair on my chest and not gently, that bite of pain, adrenaline in my veins, her determination to challenge me proving relentless. “And we both know you wouldn’t have it any other way,” she adds.
I toss the knife into the sink to my left, and before it’s even landed, I’m kissing her, drinking her in and this time, and unlike the kiss by the refrigerator, I don’t hold back and neither does she. Our tongues connect, stroke, battle…but it is one I will win. I will demand everything she has to give me. I want her free will. I want her as exposed as I vowed to make her, and it’s not to prove she’s a killer. It’s for me. For the man in me who not only wants to own this woman, I will. And when she tries to resist, when I sense her trying to withhold even a piece of herself, my hand covers one of her breasts. My fingers stroke her nipple with delicate, sensual touches that become rougher and rougher.
She pants into my mouth, and satisfied that wall she just tried to put up has fallen, I nip her lips, lapping at the offended area before I pull back, fingers still tangled in her hair. I yank at my tie and unbutton the last two buttons still intact, but I don’t move away. Not yet. I kiss her again, hard and fast, and while the resistance is gone, the taste of challenge remains on her lips, but it will soon be submission. She just doesn’t know it yet.
My hands go to her hips and I lift her off the counter and pull her to me, molding every soft perfect female part of her to my harder body, one hand cupping her sweet little ass. My lips linger just above hers, and damn it, there is this deep ache in me for this woman that is unfamiliar, unwelcomed. The lies I’ve told her are a fist in my chest that I reject. I have to know the truth and it’s not a truth someone just tells.
I squeeze her ass and then draw back and smack it, testing her, feeling out the depth of those nerves she showed me, her comfort level with where I might take her. Making a judgment on where I think she wants me to lead her. She doesn’t jolt with the impact. She doesn’t act shocked or angry. She leans into me, her body already submitting to me even if her mind has not, her hand covering my hand where it covers her breast. Her message is clear: She wants the kind of escape I’ve just offered. She wants me to push her to go to places that consume, to leave room for nothing else but the here and now. No fears. No nerves. No emotion, of which I hope like hell does not include guilt.