Prisoner (Criminals & Captives #1)(24)

“Don’t,” I gasp.

“Don’t what?” he whispers, lowering his lips to my neck, pressing them to my tender skin. He scrapes his teeth across my pulse point. “Don’t what, Ms. Winslow?” He rubs his hands up and down my arms, soft through my sweater.

I let out a puff of air I didn’t know I was holding. Maybe it’s desperation. Maybe it’s desire. All I know is it’s f*cked up. “Just don’t.”

He slides his hands up to cover mine, locking his fingers over mine, balling my hands into fists. It’s a little bit like he’s holding my hands and a little bit like he’s controlling me, and it feels like a metaphor for everything between us now.

He lifts himself off me, nudging me over.

“No,” I say, but in one rough, efficient movement, he makes me turn over. A lack of sight doesn’t seem to hinder him whatsoever. He clamps his legs over mine, and I’m trapped, staring up at his shut eyes. Tears dot his dark lashes like diamonds.

“Grayson,” I say. “Don’t.”

He grips my wrists in just one of his huge hands now, and he runs the other hand down the side of my chest.

I gasp.

“A class I recently took—because as you know, I’m the scholarly type—stressed the importance of using just the right word.” His hand is a heavy weight on my belly. “A precise word over a vague word. Don’t. That’s not very precise.”

“Don’t do this.” I’m scared now.

“This,” he whispers. “That’s vague too, don’t you think? Don’t do this.” He shifts off me a little more, sliding a hand over my breast now. “You’re better than that, Ms. Winslow. Dig deep and find that precise word. I know it’s in you.”

The electric feeling of his hand on me blazes through my sweater, my bra. It’s like I have nothing on, like I’m laid bare to him. Even my glasses are off. He simply helps himself to me, roaming a gentle hand over to my other breast.

I need it to stop feeling good.

“Don’t what? Don’t touch you?” His gentle fingers make me feel all lit up. He shifts a leg between mine.

“Grayson,” I whisper.

He moves his hand back down to my belly, and then I feel rough fingers under my sweater, trailing over my tender skin. I gasp when he hits the sensitive place below my belly button.

“Get off me,” I say, twisting, which just allows his leg to press farther between my legs. The press of his thigh to my sex sends a pulse of feeling up through my core.

“Is that really what you want, Ms. Winslow?”

“Fuck off,” I say. “Yes, it’s what I want. You off.”

He grips my wrists more tightly, anchoring them to the soft pine needles. I close my eyes as his fingers travel ever upward under my sweater, up my belly to my chest. He reaches my breast, slides his fingers lazily back and forth over my nipple. “You’ll lose this fight, you know,” he says matter-of-factly as he slides his calloused fingers over the thin fabric of my bra.

“Congratulations—you can dominate somebody half your size.”

“That’s not the fight I’m talking about. You’ll lose the fight you’re fighting with yourself.” He kisses my neck. “The fight to not feel this. The fight against desire.”

The fight against desire. It feels like a well-worn phrase. He kisses my cheek—a gentle kiss.

His gentleness contrasts wildly with his iron grip on my hands, preventing me from gouging his eyes out.

“It’s always how it goes.” He kisses me again. “Always. It’s okay to lose. Everybody loses. The toughest f*ckers I know lose this fight.”

Dimly I wonder where this comes from—my memoirist’s radar tells me there’s something in there. But I can’t care about that now. “I want you the f*ck off,” I say, panting as he pulls the fabric of my bra aside, as a rough finger circles my nipple.

“It’s okay to lose,” he whispers. “Be okay with it.”

I feel like I’m sinking into his touch, like he’s taking me over. Worst of all, I can feel the wetness between my legs; that’s what makes this evil. I am losing the fight. “Fuck,” I say, trying to jerk my hands. “Why don’t you just kill me?”

He laughs softly and kisses me. “You don’t mean that.”

Oh God, his hand is heading south now. Maybe it’s perverse, but I don’t want him to touch me there because I don’t want him to know I’m aroused. I try to kick out from under the press of his legs as he plunges his fingers under the waistband of my skirt.

He slides his finger into my panties. It comes to me that we’re breathing together again, but it’s not the calm, measured breaths from before; it’s something darker.

“Ms. Winslow,” he whispers as he strokes my core. Tears of shame burn through my closed-off eyelids as he finds my sensitive nub and begins to strum the feeling higher.

“I don’t want it,” I pant.

“I know,” he says in a strange tone. “I know, but sometimes it’s better if you tell yourself that you do.” He kisses my neck and keeps on touching me, stroking me higher. I feel like I might be losing my mind, like my brain is a plane that’s just taken off from the runway, soaring up into the air, out of touch, out of communication. Something turns in me as he touches me, pushing the desire further.