Rough Rhythm: A Made in Jersey Novella (1001 Dark Nights)(24)

Lita slammed her thighs together and attempted to crawl away on her elbows, crying out in surprise when James pounced on top of her. Not with his entire weight, but enough that she had no chance of freedom. That fact didn’t stop her from struggling, bucking up into his immovable hips with her backside. His arm wrapped around her upper half, putting his forearm beneath her mouth, so she bit him. Bit him until he repositioned them with a threatening growl and captured her jaw. Lita was a total prisoner now and it caused shivering thrills to race from the tip of her head downward, curling her toes. Yes. Don’t let me move. Keep me.

“What are you fighting me for, plaything?” He rasped into her ear. “You’ve been asking me for this all morning. ‘Come and get it, James.’” His hips rolled against her bottom. “I heard you even if you weren’t saying it. I can hear you now.”

“No.” Yes. I’ve been begging. “I didn’t ask…I don’t—”

Lita’s protest died when the jean shorts were yanked down her body, along with her panties. Her lips fell open to suck in frantic breaths. They were outside doing this. Her pants were down, exposing her. Outside. And she wanted what would come next so bad, her fingers curled into the dirt, grinding the grains against her palms and creating abrasions. The same way she wanted to be marked. Claimed. Corrupted. Now, please, now.

Their bodies were so close, the back of his hand grazed her bare backside as his zipper was brought down. When he heaved a groan, she knew he’d removed his erect flesh, could picture its ruddy girth clasped in his hand. The way he stroked its length above her imprisoned body. Looking down on her. Preparing to take.

Using what felt like his knee, James shoved her thighs apart, dragging her wider knees in the damp earth. “Next time you’ll think twice about heading into the woods alone. Won’t you, little girl?”

A whimper tumbled from her mouth. Depending on who was listening, the sound might have been distress or arousal. Her thighs could have been shaking out of fear or anticipation. She could barely keep up the pretense of non-consent anymore. Another minute and she would be screaming for him to get inside her.

She felt the fleshy head of James’s arousal slide through her core, pausing at her entrance. “Oh God, oh God…” she chanted, voice cracking.

James jerked her hips up, leaving her bottom in the air, her cheek pressed against the ground. “He can’t help you, either.”

When he seated himself inside her body, it took Lita’s scream a few seconds to work free of her throat, oxygen was at such a premium. Even when the piercing cry finally found its way into the air, James’s hand cut it off after only a few seconds. Her vision wavered under the attack of his body on hers. No quarter was given. No mercy. He was a hostile man determined to use her body as an outlet for lust. His hips dipped down and rammed up in forceful thrusts that jarred her teeth inside her skull. Without the brawny arm supporting her midsection, keeping her center in place for the taking, she would have fallen flat.

Inside her mind, a vision of James interchanged with a shadowy stranger. One he’d kept locked inside. A side that came out and turned him into a different man. But that blurry juxtaposition of trust and uncertainty only made it real. Made her the only thing standing between this man and relief from his pain. There was power in that knowledge, even with her body held immobile.

James slowed his movements and leaned forward to align their bodies, chest to back, as he teased her with slow, thorough drives. “Put you on the pill to protect you, didn’t I? From who?” He uncovered her mouth and hammered into her with a series of rough thrusts. “From who?”

“You,” she shouted.

“That’s right.” He rose again, gripping her hips as their bodies joined, again and again. “All that acting out and getting into trouble. Maybe you just needed to flash that * at me and run away, somewhere I could make you sorry and no one could hear you scream.”

Irritation flickered in Lita’s chest, traveling down through her arms. She didn’t like hearing that her efforts had been wasted. That he’d managed to maintain control around her for so long while she’d been suffering. Memories of those nights tossing and turning in her bed, wishing for James, hardened the muscles in her legs with frustration and she pushed, shoving backward. Simply to show she still could. That he hadn’t won yet. “Asshole.”

James’s hardness slipped from her body with a grunt, but he remained upright on his knees, his grip a touch looser on her hips. Enough for her to turn around and slap him across the face.

Lita’s back hit the ground a second later, adding to her shock that she’d struck him. James loomed above her to block out the filtered sunlight, pinning both wrists above her head and wedging his sweating body between her thighs. Concern swirled in the gray of his eyes, but not enough to block out the animal need there. No, his desire was visible and rampant, much like the flesh hanging between his thighs. “You know how to make me stop. And that’s not it.”

She ached to scream the words, just so he’d have to stop. Just so he’d have some idea of the pain she’d been in living without him. Knowing she might be required to do it again. But if he stopped, she would ache from now until her dying breath, would regret it with every cell in her body. She needed him. So she clamped her lips shut and fought to free her wrists, knowing full well he’d never let go.