Bitter Spirits (Roaring Twenties #1)(81)

“You see a mirage.”

“Better to use my sight for hope than remain blinded by guilt.” She put a hand on his arm. “And if you’re a mirage, how is it that you feel solid to me?”

His head turned. He looked down at her hand as if he could will it away. She gripped him harder. When his eyes met hers, she saw nothing but cold outrage and a barely checked rancor that made goose bumps swell across her arms. It was as though he was daring her—just daring her to look away.

She dared him right back.

An explosion of fire leapt behind all that coldness. His big arm shot out, snagged her around the waist, and lifted her right off the floor.

• • •

He meant to punish her, but she met him halfway, wrapping her legs around his waist and digging her nails into the back of his neck.

How do you punish someone who wants to be punished?

The kiss was angry. Aggressive. Searing. His cock hardened immediately. Christ, she felt good, and he was starved for her. Had it been two days since he’d had her? It seemed like years. He pulled her hips against him and slid his tongue into her mouth, teasing a tortured moan out of her. Yes, that’s the sound he’d been missing. Her capitulation. Her pleasure.

She wrenched herself away from the kiss, gasping for breath, breasts heaving. “We were supposed to be lovers, nothing more.” She was practically shouting in his face. “That was the agreement. You didn’t want anything permanent—that’s what you said.”

“Nothing’s changed.” A lie. The biggest lie in the world.

She slid down his body until she was on her feet again. Fingers fumbled at his fly, freeing his cock, heavy and aching for her. His balls tightened while she gazed at it, watching it bob between them.

And she dropped to her knees.

One warm hand wrapped around his cock—the sensation of her soft skin on him nearly enough to rocket him through the roof—as she gave the head a few tentative kisses that sent a dark shudder through him. Big, brown eyes looked to him for approval. He urged her on with a hand on the back of her fine, straight hair. Soft kisses gave way to a testing lick, then another—oh please, oh please, oh please—then she took him inside her mouth.

He nearly died with pleasure.

Were they fighting? He forgot instantly. Forgot everything but her mouth, wet and warm and doing her best to take as much of him as she could. He made desperate, uncontrollable noises, completely at her mercy. Unable to reason out the why behind what she was doing, only astonished and grateful that she was. Gaining confidence, she took him in deeper, another inch, cheeks becoming concave as she suckled.

He glanced to the side and saw her from a different angle . . . their reflection in the dressing mirror. Mother of God. Aida on her knees servicing him. He’d never seen a more beautiful sight.

Was this on purpose? Damn her, and damn her again.

His hips bucked. Her fingernails dug into his legs. She pulled back to get a breath, continuing to pump at him with one hand, then gave him a smile, an exhaled single delirious laugh of joy, before going at him again. She’s enjoying it, he thought madly as he looked in the mirror. But why wouldn’t she? He enjoyed burying his tongue between her thighs.

This was something more, though. She was angry . . . wanting control—of him, or of her dismantled life? Of the unseen bond that pulled them together? If she wanted him to admit defeat, he would shout it across the city. She defeated him with far less than this.

After a few more pulls from her warm mouth, he felt an unmistakable pressure at the base of his cock, the urge to thrust. He wouldn’t last much longer if she kept this pace.

“Enough, enough.” He hooked his hands around her shoulders and pulled her up. “Christ, Aida, I want to be inside you. Help me.”

He made quick work of her clothes: dress lifted over head, chemise yanked down over hips. The stockings could stay. Why was she insistent on unbuttoning his shirt? Keyed up and anxious, he slung his arms around her waist and lifted her off the floor, excited by her protest, and threw her on the bed.

His brain was barely working. He was in a singular savage mode, racing against his own drive to have her, and couldn’t process anything besides the basic mechanics it would take for his monstrous body to align with her petite one in the simplest way possible. He dropped his suspenders over both shoulders so he could shove his pants lower, struggled with the tin of Merry Widows in the bedside table drawer—nearly dropping it in his haste—and prepared to flip her onto her hands and knees, so he could take her while standing at the edge of the mattress.

“No.” She pressed the heel of one palm between her legs, as if to quench an ache—possibly the single most arousing sight he’d ever seen. “Like the postcard,” she demanded.

He tore his gaze from her hand. It took a moment for his dull brain to catch up. The postcard. She wanted to be on top—there was that damned control of hers. Hell, did she think he’d stop her?

“Yes, yes,” he murmured. “Fine idea. Let’s do that. Come here.”

He sat up on the bed, his back against the headboard, and helped her as she crawled to straddle his lap. Damp curls brushed across his balls, making his cock jump. He slipped fingers between her legs. Unbelievably wet. Warm. Swollen with need. Ready for him. He guided her down, and when she impaled herself on him, taking as much of his length as she could in one fierce movement, gasping loudly, he nearly lost his mind.