The Knight (Endgame #2)(8)
“The desk,” he says, voice guttural. “Sit.”
“Should I—” My finger hooks into the elastic waist of my panties, a nervous gesture. A question. And then, inexplicably, I blush. Red heat sweeps up my chest and scalds my cheeks. Should I take this off? A simple question considering what we’ve done together, what we’ll do in the future. Somehow everything hinges on this one question.
His groan is pure agony. “I’m one breath away from bending you over the desk and fucking you raw. But I want to taste you first, so sit on the fucking desk. Fast. Now. Before I give in.”
Taste me. He doesn’t mean my mouth or anywhere else. He means down there. The private place that already has springy hair growing in, short but present.
The blush burns hotter. “I haven’t… I mean, I’m not…”
His expression turns darker. “Let me see.”
I push down the panties and step out of them. My eyes can’t meet his, but I hear the catch of his breath. He steps close, his touch light on my stomach, my hip. Calloused fingers smoothing over bare skin. And then playing over the trim hair between my legs.
He groans a wordless denial. “You thought I wouldn’t like this?”
Embarrassment turns into hot tears, more uncertainty than sadness. “Candy waxed me the night of the auction. She knows what men like.”
“Let’s get one thing straight, little virgin. There’s nothing you could do to your body that would make me turn away, definitely nothing as natural as this. I want you in every way and place and time. I want you so fucking bad I wish I could stop, because it goddamn hurts.”
It’s the closest this man has ever come to admitting weakness. The closest he’ll ever come to admitting he cares about me. And it’s enough to give me strength. I take a step back and perch on the edge of his desk, knees together, hands awkwardly stacked on my lap. I can let him have me, but I don’t know enough to be seductive.
It seems to work anyway, sharpening his gaze on the line between my legs, the faint attempt at modesty. He slides his palm into the divide, making space for himself, grasping my thigh in a gentle hold. “So pretty,” he says, almost to himself.
A shiver runs through me, currents of heat that center at his hand.
He pushes my legs open, exposing me to the cool office air. And then his body looms in front of me, nudging me wider, the crisp wool of his suit shocking against my bare skin. I’m naked and he’s completely covered. I’m defenseless and he’s made of walls.
One hand cradles my cheek, lifting me for a kiss. The other moves around me to unhook my bra. My nipples tighten against his chest, aching for his touch—his pinch. He’s relentlessly gentle as he slides a hand down my neck, between my breasts—as he lays me back on the desk. Cold wood makes me gasp.
There’s something dreamlike about this experience. Wasn’t I going to fight him? Except his caresses on the insides of my thighs feel too good, painfully soft, and I don’t want him to stop. It would be like fighting myself, and for once—for once I want to give in. No more taking care of my father, no more virgin auctions. No more desperate struggles in a war I can’t win. Just his mouth on my stomach and lower, lower, lower.
Then his tongue touches my clit, and I arch off the desk with a cry.
“Gabriel!”
“Again,” he mutters, lips glancing my clit. Then he scrapes my raw flesh with his teeth, and I can’t help but obey, whispering his name again and again, in time with his tongue, a beat that exists in my temple, in my throat, in the hungry clench of my inner sex where I want him to be.
The stubble on his chin glances my slick skin. It’s too much. Too much sensation, too much pleasure. I squirm away, but his large hands capture my legs. He presses me down against the smooth wood, merciless and intent. This is what surrender feels like, helpless and writhing, begging him to stop but hoping he won’t.
He circles my clit, once. Twice. A third time, and my body tightens on the head of a pin. I exist as nothing but the nerves against his tongue, the starburst behind my eyes, the anguished sob that fills the room.
And even then, there’s no peace. No rest from his mouth. No surcease from the hoarse demand he murmurs against my clit: “Again. Fucking again, little virgin. Until you’re dripping down my chin.”
He draws me tight again, and I explode into light and sound, into every hope I’ve ever had.
As I come down, the shadows of the room settle into place.
Behind him, the largest canvas is slashed not with color—but with black swaths. Angels and demons. Death and sex. A riot of emotion in an otherwise sterile room. “I’m going to get my house back,” I say into the void.
Gabriel rests his cheek against the inside of my knee, expression stark. He looks tired, as if the weight is too much, as if I’m the only thing holding him up. It’s the most intimate moment we’ve ever shared, the most honest. “No,” he says softly, almost sadly. “You’re not.”
Chapter Five
I comfort myself with the reminder that he didn’t climax.
I left after his raw denial, shaken and hurt. He’d been hard beneath the placket of his trousers, intensely turned on, but he didn’t try to stop me. And why should he? He’d proven his point. He could have me anytime he wanted. He’d paid for the right. He didn’t get an orgasm, but he got everything else.