Say the Word(57)

Would you believe that my group, who were supposed to be suppressing our thoughts about that damn bear, ended up ringing our bells three times more than the other group?

It was basic human nature. The more forbidden something — someone — was, the more we wanted it.

It became almost painful, not looking at him. Like I might die if I didn’t simply tilt my head up and meet his eyes to ensure he was still sitting there, across the room, and not some twisted figment of my imagination. My hands began to move faster, stacking magazines in neat piles and tying them together with string. My foot tapped an ever-quickening tempo against the marble, matching the rapid beat of my heart. And finally, finally, when the table before me was clear, when each magazine had been categorized and labeled and stacked away neatly in its proper place…

I looked up.

His eyes were already there, locking onto mine with a burning intensity I felt mirrored in my own gaze. I knew it was wrong to want him, wrong to feel the stirring attraction in my body as he looked at me, but I couldn’t stop myself. The heat in his stare was too hot, too raw, to bear without combusting.

And we were a box of fireworks. A sixty-gallon drum of gasoline. An unstable container of napalm.

One spark, one look, was all it took.

We went up in flames.





Chapter Nineteen





Now


Sebastian was out of his seat and around the table before I knew what was happening, the space between us vanishing so quickly I had no time to prepare for impact. When he reached me his fists locked tightly around my wrists, and I was pulled bodily from my seat and lifted up onto the table.

I gasped in shock and pain. This was no gentle placement, no tender lift. He’d slammed me down hard enough that the backs of my thighs smarted on contact and my teeth rattled in my mouth. His grip was biting, his fingers digging into the flesh at my hips with a force that hovered on the razors edge between carnality and brutality.

“Bash,” I protested, shocked at the way he was treating me. He’d never touched me like this when we were together.

“My name is Sebastian,” he bit out, removing one hand from its hold at my hip. His fingers slid around to the nape of my neck, fisting the hair there tightly enough that I whimpered. “Or Mr. Covington. It’s your choice.”

I stared into his eyes, not recognizing the look in them. They swam with desire and anger, lust and hatred. He wanted me, and he loathed the fact that he did.

I wish I were strong enough to say I was outraged at his treatment. I wish I could say that the feeling of his hands on me, even though they were rough and lacking the tenderness of the boy he used to be, didn’t set my blood boiling in my veins. I’d never been so turned on in my life — not by a long shot. Not even when we were kids, sneaking around on the back roads in his gardener’s borrowed pickup truck and discovering one another beneath a blanket of stars.

The memory snapped me back into reason. This couldn’t happen. This shouldn’t happen.

“Bash, you’re hurting me,” I told him, my eyes wide.

“My name,” he leaned forward, eyes burning into mine. “Is Sebastian. You lost the right to call me anything else seven years ago, Ms. Kincaid.”

He was so close now, I could feel each word as it took shape on his lips. He hadn’t ever handled me with anger before. At seventeen he'd been gentle, loving, respectful. The man holding me so roughly now was a different creature entirely — one stripped of any genteel fronts a young lover might construct in hopes of shielding his partner’s more delicate sensibilities.

Before me was a man, not a boy. Passion warred with anger in his eyes. Pressed so tightly against him, I could feel how much he wanted me, yet his words were cruel when he spoke again.

“What's my name?”

I whimpered in response, ashamed of the dampness I felt gathering in my underwear, of the telltale tightening of my nipples beneath my bra. This shouldn’t turn me on. This was wrong.

“Say it,” he growled, clutching me tighter against him. His other hand left my hair and found its way to the base of my skirt, viciously bunching the fabric in a clenched fist as he pushed it higher up my thigh. He ground himself against me, and I let out a whimper as the last of shred of my control slipped away.

“Sebastian,” I gasped out finally, arching my body against his chest.

“Say it again.”

“Sebastian,” I breathed, my head falling back.

“I should f*ck you right here, like the little whore you are.”

My eyes snapped open and my spine went rigid at his cold words. There was no lust in his eyes anymore — only anger and distrust. Vengeance. Maybe some hatred.

He raised a hand to grip my chin firmly between his fingers, with just enough pressure to keep me in place without causing pain.

“You,” he whispered, leaning so close our lips brushed. “Are the most selfish, manipulative woman I have ever had the displeasure of knowing, and I have regretted our every moment together for the past seven years. Frankly, the very sight of you makes me sick. But I suppose it’s nice to know if I still wanted you, I could have you on your knees begging in under a minute.”

I glared at him and raised my hand to slap him across the face, but he caught my flying fist midair within one of his own.

“Lucky for you,” he murmured, his eyes trapping mine. “I don’t do sloppy seconds.”