Ultimate Weapon (McClouds & Friends #6)(109)

She rolled closer to him and stroked the dips and curves of his muscular thigh with her fingertips. It took him only a minute before he leaned over and snapped one of the open cuffs onto a wrought iron loop that decorated the painted metal headboard.

“It looks perverse, hanging underneath the Madonna Addolorata,” she said. “Sort of sacrilegious.”

He snapped off the light. The darkness seemed much deeper now. “It seems appropriate to me,” he said. “Under the circumstances.”

She didn’t want to touch that with a ten-foot pole. She got up from the bed—and stopped cold, as hot semen trickled down her thigh.

She stiffened in shock. “We didn’t…” Her voice trailed off.

Val’s dark gaze was unapologetic, and unsurprised. “No,” he said flatly. “We didn’t.”

She stood like a statue, her hands flat on her belly. There was nothing to say. She couldn’t blame him, despite his aggressiveness. That carelessness was mutual, and they both knew it. If he hadn’t jumped her, she would have jumped him. Without a thought of protecting herself.

Fear swept through her like an icy wind, weakening her limbs. The dark got abruptly darker, the air swirling through the door colder against her sweat-chilled skin.

She felt so f*cking vulnerable.

“Is it a dangerous time?” he asked in a carefully neutral voice.

She harrumphed. “Who the hell knows? This is me, Val. This is Tam. Do I look like a woman with a predictable cycle? Could anything about me be characterized as regular? Get real.”

His chest jerked with dry laughter. “Ah, sì? And what does a regular woman look like?”

Her shoulders lifted, dropped. “Not like me, that’s for sure,” she muttered. “I don’t even eat. I go for months with no period. Nothing about me is normal.”

“Yes, this is so,” he agreed, a little too readily.

She slanted him a cool glance and hurried into the bathroom.

The water from the bidet was icy cold, and there was no soap, but it didn’t matter. She washed until her private parts burned from the cold, all too aware of the futility of the gesture. She dried off, wrapped the threadbare towel around herself. When she came out, Val was motionless on the bed.

“Promise me something,” he said.

“I don’t make promises,” she said. “To anyone.”

“I demand it.” His voice hardened.

“Demand all you want,” she replied. “Feel free. It changes nothing.”

But he persisted. “Never do that to me again, Tamar.”

“Do what?” She injected a fake lightness into her tone. “I’ve done a lot of unforgivable things lately. Help me keep them straight.”

“Do not use your body as currency.”

Anger boiled up inside her like lava. How dare he. He, of all people, should know better. “Do you think I ever wanted to, in my life?” she demanded, incredulous. “Did you ever want to, Val? What are you telling me? That you can protect me from the greed and lust and cruelty of all men forever? Do you think I can be sure I won’t be in a situation where I have to trade sex for the chance to live for another f*cking ten minutes? Like today, for instance? Don’t be stupid! It makes me angry!”

“Just…promise it.” He bit the words out slowly.

“No,” she said.

He wrenched the towel off her body. His cock was lengthening. His eyes gleamed in the dark with undimmed intensity. Oh, God. Men. As if his huge, waving erection had anything to do with anything.

She clenched her jaw. “I will not lie to you,” she said.

“I’m not asking for a lie.” His voice vibrated with intensity. “I’m asking for you to change the truth.”

She shook, a tremor of laughter that was closer to tears. “Oh? Like it’s so easy? The truth is the truth, Val. You can’t change it. You can’t control a damn thing. There is no limit to how bad things can get. If you accept that, you’ll be stronger. Maybe you’ll survive. That’s the best a person can hope for.”

“I love your strength,” he said quietly. “Your strength excites me. Your cruelty exhausts me.”

She shook her head. “It would be so easy to lie to you.” Her voice trembled despite her best efforts to steady it. “I could have said, oh, sure, baby, you bet. I promise, cross my heart. But I didn’t. Not to you, Val. I’ve given you what I’ve never given any man in my life, you thick-skulled, ungrateful prick. What I never imagined giving anyone. And you call it cruelty.”

He grabbed her hips as she began to turn away, and jerked her close, pressing his face against her mound. His mouth moved, hot and hungrily against her clit, his strong, clever tongue probing, seeking.

The feeling was knee-weakening, shockingly wonderful, but she was too electric, too emotional to bear it. She swatted at his face. “No.”

His expression was now impossible to read in the darkness. “Your ‘no’ is meaningless.” His voice was low, as soft as silk. Full of his own secret knowledge of her. His mysterious power.

She shivered at its promise. “Too bad for you. Let go.”

“No, I will not.” He flung her down onto the bed, and yanked her arm toward the headboard.

Too late, she realized what he planned, and by then, the cuff was snapped closed over her wrist. She flailed and slapped with her free hand, but he slid down the length of her and pulled her body on the bed so that she was stretched out, long and taut. All she could reach were handfuls of his hair, which she grabbed, yanked. In vain.