CHAPTER SIX
Layla
“Let me go!” I bite at his hand, but my words are muffled and I lodge my elbow into his ribs. Ax grunts with my bite then chuckles darkly as he glides his hand down my arm, grasping my wrist in front of me and holding me tight.
The truth is I should be afraid, but instead something else is happening as I struggle uselessly against Ax’s strong hold.
His cedar and leather scent washes over me and sends my body into a frenzy I’ve never felt before.
His breath is even and calm as he holds me tight and kicks the door closed with his foot.
With one hand he drops the safety latch to lock us in the freezing space, while dipping his head down to my neck and taking a deep breath in, running his nose along the column of my throat.
“Fuck …” he groans, as his nose brushes the shell of my ear and he inhales.
Just the way he says it has my skin erupting with goosebumps, and every cell in my body tingles with the rush of danger and a kind of deviant desire I’ve never felt before.
I lean my head back on his chest, realizing this is an untapped fantasy, buried deep within the darkest corners of my mind.
To be taken, to be forced. But even still, I fight to be released from his hold, because that’s what I should do.
I shouldn’t want him to sneak in here and put his hands on me the way he is.
“You can’t just come in here and touch me like this,” I whimper as my cheek is pressed into the freezing cooler wall. Right and wrong bleed together like a shockingly vibrant kaleidoscope of desire and need. It clouds my head when he tightens his hold.
“Your body is screaming a different story.” He reaches down and grips one of my hips tight and I realize I’m rolling them back, rocking against him instead of away. “My ego is big enough to handle you pretending you don’t want me. In fact, I fucking love this little game.”
His lips drop to my neck again, and the moment they do I’m filled with two things: anger and need.
The two feelings colliding is like a sonic boom—and it’s something entirely new.
I feel rage toward him because he’s mysterious and frightening and beautiful.
And yet there’s stability, because I’ve never felt empowered in any man’s arms the way I do right now in his.
This connection to someone I’ve just met is completely foreign, and although it’s a hard truth I’ll only admit to myself, I want him to touch me.
“Maybe you’re just not as scary as you think you are,” I taunt, my voice sounding much raspier and in turn sexier than I intended.
I begin to fight again, against both him and my own desires, grabbing at him anywhere I can as he spins me around. I gasp when my bare back is pressed into the cold cinderblock wall. Ax’s hand comes up to my throat and he circles it with ease as his lips hover over mine.
“You have no idea how scary I can be, but I can already tell.” He pauses to watch my lips. “You want that fear, and you want to be forced to feel it.”
I whimper in response, unable to deny his words.
“I bet the idea of you not having a choice makes this tight little cunt weep for me.” He slides his free hand down and squeezes under the curve of my ass as my blood races.
His other hand stays at my throat, his thumb grazing back and forth over the center.
I imagine that the chain inked on his skin now looks like a necklace around my throat, and it’s eerily settling.
“You’re only afraid because you know you want me … the same way I want you, and you can’t explain why,” he notes in a gruff whisper.
“If you scare me, it’s only because I know what you’re capable of, but I don’t … know you,” I breathe out as my core throbs with his words and the admission that he feels the same unexplainable connection I do.
“You think you know.” He rests his forehead on mine. “And that’s exactly why you like it. But babe …” He pauses to bring his hand from my ass to my chin, bringing my gaze up to meet his. “You will know me.”
My mind races as I look into those haunting eyes, comparing this to what I’ve had with any man before this moment.
The boring dates I’ve had to force myself not to yawn through.
One serious boyfriend for a year in college who seemed sweet when we met but couldn’t even make me come without my help.
What I’m being offered at this moment isn’t any of those things.
This is sheer magnetism. Passionate and raw.
This asks nothing of me. This is only right now.
But I can’t want him … can I? I’ve only just laid eyes on him.
In one last desperate attempt to stop this, I force myself to remember that a man just like him is the reason my life went from hopeful to complete shit in a single day.
Despite the logical part of my brain that’s doing its best to take over, I cling to my monster in the dark.
And not only do I cling, I pull him closer, fisting his t-shirt.
My nails scratch through it and rake down his hard, warm chest. He hisses and tightens his grip on my throat. My pussy throbs as I let a moan escape.
“That’s it … that’s the sound I want, little dove.”
We breathe in unison, our chests heaving in the dark, frigid space.
I can barely make out the profile of the strong angles of his jaw and cheekbones in the glow of the emergency light.
Every muscle in my body is on fire, despite the chill, waiting for him to move, to do something.
To make the decision for me so I don’t have to admit he’s right.
“Your mind tells you no, but your body begs for something more, doesn’t it?
A little bit of fear, and maybe a little bit of pain?
Your body begs just the way I knew it would the second I laid eyes on you.
” He brings his arm down and wraps it around my waist to pull me tight to his body, and that’s when I feel him.
Big and hard, pressing into my abdomen. Fighting him turns him on as much as it does me.
“You can’t … know that about me … just from looking at me,” I breathe out, desperate for some form of control that I simply no longer have as his chest presses to mine and the leather from his cut grazes my nipples, making them harden and ache for his hot lips.
“I don’t even need to look at you.” He pinches one of my nipples, hard. “I can fucking smell you.” He slides his hand down my side. “And I know you’re fucking soaked under this tight little skirt.” His fingers just barely slide under the hem.
“Fuck you!” I bite out, my teeth chattering from the cold and the rush of adrenaline.
But I give in and fuel him further, reaching up to hit him in the chest. It lands, but Ax doesn’t flinch.
Instead, he smiles a satisfied grin and pushes his hardened cock against me again. My body shivers as the desire surges.
I succumb to the reality that he’s right. I want to fight him. I want to test him. I want him to take every last shred of innocence I possess. I want this stranger to take my free will from me.
“It’s obvious that you’re not from my kind of world. You know I can offer you more than any man who’s ever touched you before.”
A soft moan slips from my lips as he releases my throat and sinks his fingers into the hair beneath my ponytail, then grabs it and pulls it tight, tipping my head back so my lips pop open.
“You’re a caged little rebel,” he whispers.
“Searching for a man who can satisfy every depraved desire you’ve ever had.
” His tongue lightly skates across my bottom lip as I pant, desperate to kiss him, desperate to squeeze my thighs together—but I can’t, because he’s holding me in place.
When he lets go of my ponytail I don’t move, I don’t fight.
I wait with bated breath as his eyes trail my face, my neck.
His words are true.
I’ve dreamed of a man who can take control of me sexually. Even when I thought it was wrong, I dreamed about it. One who will claim me and handle me and teach me what it means to be desired. As wrong as this is, I want Ax to want me. My soaking wet panties and my aching core are the proof.
I give in, pressing my pussy against his thigh and moan, and he pushes back.
Just this once can I indulge? Can I let him set me free?
Ax spreads my legs wider, as much as my leather skirt allows. It inches up my thighs as he tightens the hold he now has around my waist.
“If you want to be ruined by a man you fear, then I’m the man who ruins you,” he says, bringing his thumb from one side of my bottom lip to the other, smearing my freshly applied lipstick.
Another groan leaves him as he breathes me in once more, and the sound ignites me.
“You’ve fucking bewitched me, little dove.
I don’t ever want any woman. But I fucking want you. ”
With his words, something in me breaks. I let my want take over as I grip his cut tight with one hand and let my free hand move up, my first two fingers ghosting my nipple. I whimper with desire as I look into his eyes.
“Maybe … this was my plan all along?” I lick my lips as I trace the outline of my nipple with my fingers again, and a low growl leaves his chest as his lips descend to my neck, hurried and crazed, biting then sucking in deep pulls.
His mint-and-bourbon-laced breath is hot on my skin as I mewl into him while he tortures me in the best way, plucking a nipple through my cotton bodysuit.