Chapter 25 #2
Heat crawls up my neck. “Yeah, yeah,” I mutter, pretending his compliment doesn’t hit nearly as hard as it does. “So what do I tell this guy tomorrow?” I need that answer fast because if I stand here much longer, I’m going to end up getting into that tub with him.
“We’ll come up with something he doesn’t know, something harmless that buys us time to find Kayla. Then we strike.” He crooks his index finger at me in clear invitation.
“We strike? What do you have in mind?” I ask as I start towards him, tired of resisting this magnetic heat between us. Getting closer doesn’t mean anything’s going to happen, right? I can control myself.
But the closer I get, the darker his eyes become, his pupils dilating until only a thin ring of green remains. Fire licks my skin and my chest heaves with the deep breaths I have to take just to get enough air past my constricted lungs.
“We’re going to find Kayla in his lair or somewhere nearby, of course.”
“Of course,” I echo, barely listening anymore.
I’m at the edge of the hot tub now, and my gaze flicks down to his cock again.
It’s… gorgeous. A hard golden length already leaking pre-cum that sends a fresh rush of saliva flooding my mouth.
My hands twitch with the overwhelming urge to touch it, to wrap my finger around that impressive girth and—
Before I can blink, Roan grabs my wrist and pulls.
I topple headfirst into the tub, the warm water immediately soaking through my clothes and heating my blood, making more wetness spill between my thighs—both from the water and my needy core.
“What do you think you’re doing, you fucker!” I snap as I surface, water dripping down my face and hair, my shirt and shorts clinging to my body like a second skin.
“Getting you exactly where we both want you,” he rasps, and he tugs me again, his hands slipping down to grip my ass and position me right on his lap, his hard cock trapped between our bodies.
I gasp, my head falling back as a bolt of pleasure crackles through me. “We shouldn’t do this. We’re—we’re enemies.”
“Enemies working together against a common enemy.” His lips graze the shell of my ear, his warm breath fanning my skin and making me shudder. “So I’d say that makes us allies. Not enemies anymore.”
I want to shove him away.
Tell him to let me go.
But my body betrays me the moment I feel his skin against mine—bare, burning, unrelenting—and I know I’m losing this battle before I even try to fight.
My heart pounds frantically, my thighs press together, and I’m way too aware of how naked he is beneath the water…
and how stupidly easy it would be to just give in.
Again.
He tugs at the hem of my shirt, dragging the wet fabric over my head, and when my hands drop to help him undo my shorts, I don’t even realize I’m doing it.
He lifts me off his lap—just enough to get the shorts down my hips.
Then he expertly undoes my bra clasp, tossing the garment aside carelessly.
My panties follow, yanked off and discarded until suddenly I’m completely bare before him.
Exposed. Vulnerable in a way that tightens my chest and sends my thoughts scattering.
I should be panicking at how easy it is for him to make me surrender to him. I should be running from him and this intoxicating feeling.
But I can’t move. Can’t stop looking at him.
“I hate you,” I breathe, but it comes out thin, shaky, like even I don’t believe it anymore. “I hate everything you stand for.” Everything you do to me. How weak I am against you.
His hand slides between my thighs, and then his fingers are inside me, slow and deep and absolutely maddening. The shock punches through me, leaving me breathless, my hands latching onto his shoulders just in time to keep myself from sinking under the water.
“Oh yeah?” he growls against my skin, his mouth moving to my shoulder as his fingers curl inside me. “Then why are you soaking for me?”
“It’s the water,” I moan, but the way I clench around him betrays me. My body wants him. Desperately. And he knows it.
“Liar.”
I grab his face and kiss him, hard, with every ounce of frustration and lust and confusion scorching through me. I hate him. I hate that I’m here. I hate that I want this—but I do, God I do. I want him so much. More than I’ve ever wanted anyone else.
“Just shut up and fuck me already.”
His hands clamp onto my hips, lifting me just enough to line us up, then he thrusts into me with one smooth, brutal stroke that knocks every bit of air from my lungs.
I cry out, clutching his shoulders, my forehead pressed to his as I try to breathe through the pleasure tearing through me all at once.
“I hate that I want you too,” he murmurs, kissing the corner of my mouth, his thrusts deep and slow at first, like he’s savoring every second. “But God, it’s so fucking sweet… taking something I shouldn’t have.”
The words should hurt. Should remind me this is temporary, meaningless. But right now, I don’t care.
I rock my hips eagerly, meeting him stroke for stroke, needing more, needing everything he’ll give me.
The water sloshes over the sides of the tub with every powerful thrust, splashing onto the balcony floor, but all I can focus on is the way he feels inside me—thick and hot and relentless, hitting that perfect spot that makes my vision blur and my legs shake.
He curses under his breath, his grip bruising on my hips, dragging me down harder, deeper, until all I can do is cling to him and moan. I’m unraveling. Completely coming apart. No logic, no control, just raw sensation and a helpless need that drowns out every thought except more, more, more.
I don’t even realize I’m crying out his name until he kisses me again, swallowing the sound with a groan of his own.
My orgasm hits fast and devastatingly hard, ripping through me in waves that leave every nerve on fire—and he fucks me through it, holding me tight as he spills into me with a growl and a snap of his hips.
When it’s over, I collapse against him, trembling, heart racing wildly, arms looped around his neck like he’s the only stable thing in the world. I feel ruined—not just physically, but somewhere deeper, as if something inside me has cracked wide open with no hope of ever being whole again.
I’m so screwed. Totally, hopelessly, screwed. Because Roan owns me now—my body, my thoughts, my damn soul—and I have no idea how to take any of it back.
We don’t speak. I couldn’t even if I tried. My throat is tight, my thoughts spiraling dangerously out of control.
Am I… falling in love with my enemy?
Oh, you’ve gone and done it now, Katie.
No, no, no, that’s not what this is. It’s just the aftershocks from incredible sex. The L-word is a long stretch. Too long of a damn stretch.
Eventually, he lifts me out of the tub, and I cling to him because my legs sure as hell won’t support me right now.
Roan carries me into his room without a word, his arms locked tight around me.
I’m still wet, water dripping from my hair and trailing down his chest, soaking into the floor beneath us.
He sets me on the edge of his bed, then disappears into the bathroom.
When he returns, he has a towel in hand and starts drying me off, slowly and quietly, like he’s done it a hundred times before—like this is normal. Like we’re normal.
He starts with my shoulders, then moves down my arms, his hands steady and gentle as he works the water from my skin.
I sit in silence, watching his dog tag sway hypnotically with his movements, my chest rising and falling too fast, my mind spinning out in a dozen different directions, none of them helpful.
I still don’t speak, because I don’t trust my voice not to break—or worse, not to ask him what this is, what it means.
I don't want the answer yet, because deep down I do know what it means to him. He said it himself only minutes ago—taking something he shouldn’t have.
He runs the towel down my thighs, over my knees, then gently presses it between my legs.
I flinch, not because it hurts, but because I feel so exposed.
So raw. And not just because I’m physically naked.
The whole night cracked me open in a way I wasn’t ready for, and now I’m sitting here, stripped down to my most desperate truth: I want him. I want this to be more than just sex.
And I don’t know what the hell to do about it. Because I can’t have this. He’s not mine to have. Once he finds Kayla and the man who sent me here, I’ll have to leave his estate and try to build a new life with my sister.
A new life without him.
Once I’m dry, he drapes a second towel around my shoulders, then goes back to the bathroom to grab one for himself. He rubs it briskly through his hair, down his chest, and finally knots it around his waist before climbing onto the bed beside me.
He lies back like he owns the whole space, like he owns me, then reaches out and pulls me into his arms.
I go willingly—there’s no resistance left in my body. I’m his now, whether he wants me or not.
I rest my head on his chest, letting the steady beat of his heart against my ear soothe me.
One of his hands finds my hip and settles there like it belongs, his thumb moving back and forth in lazy strokes.
My eyes slide closed for a moment as I just breathe him in, feeling the heat of his skin, the solid weight of his body beside mine.
It should terrify me. It does terrify me. But I don’t move.
Because this is the first time in weeks I’ve felt anything close to safe.
I try not to think about the impossible mess we’re in. About the fact that Roan is a man born into violence, raised to kill, to manipulate, to protect only those he claims as his own—and despite the possessive words he says during sex, I know I don’t really mean anything to him.
I’m something he knows he shouldn’t have. A momentary distraction from his grief. A mistake he’ll regret when his head clears. And despite knowing all this, knowing this won’t—can’t—work out, I’m still falling for him.
Fucking hell.
Of all the men to fall in love with, Roan Permeti is the absolute worst choice. Because men like Roan don’t love. Not the way I need.
The Nightshades found love, whispers a traitorous thought that makes my chest ache. Whatever they found with their wives… Roan and I aren’t even close to that. This is just—
The bedroom door opens.
I jolt upright with a squeal and dive under the blanket, the sheet sticking to my skin. My heart’s in my throat, pounding so hard I can barely breathe.
Dhimiter stands in the doorway, arms crossed, his expression somewhere between furious and deeply unimpressed.
“What the fuck?” Roan mutters, sitting up, towel barely hanging onto his hips.
My face burns with heat, and I’m not sure if it’s from embarrassment or the harsh slap of reality slamming back into me, but I stay under the covers, hiding my burning face against Roan’s side like that might make me invisible.
“I didn’t give you the key to my house so you can come and go as you please, barging in like a goddamn lunatic,” Roan snaps as he rolls off the bed. “Get out.”
“I’ll wait for you downstairs,” Dhimiter says flatly, then spins on his heel and leaves.
Dhimiter also probably knows the truth about my identity by now, and he never liked me in the first place, so this is just fantastic.
When the door clicks shut, I let out a long, mortified groan and bury my face into the mattress. “I want to die.”
Roan chuckles—low and rough and entirely too amused by my suffering—as he picks up a pair of sweatpants from the armchair and pulls them on. “You’ll live.”
Then he walks out of the bedroom without looking back, presumably to go deal with his second-in-command.