Chapter 12 #3
“No,” she rasped, through with the shame and leaning into the pleasure.
“Good.” His mouth closed over her nipple, and this time he applied more pressure, sucking deeply until something dark unfurled inside of her. She arched and moaned, but then the pleasure shifted and there was a bite of pain.
“Ah! Ash…”
He pulled back only to climb over her, capturing her other hand and pinning her arms overhead. “Too hard?”
“A little.” The way he’d been doing it had felt soft and delicate. “But I…”
“You like it a little rough?”
She nodded, confused by the pull of two polar opposite sensations. Her mind wanted gentleness, but her skin needed the ache. She wanted soft kisses with teeth, gentle petting with scraping nails. “I can’t get a handle on my emotions.”
“You don’t need to make sense of them right now. You only need to feel.” He kissed her tenderly. “Who do you belong to, printessa?”
Something turned in her stomach and her soft expression fell.
“Don’t be scared. Just answer the question. Who owns your body?”
Me! She wanted to scream. But she understood this was her reality. Her penalty and price for their protection. “You do.”
“I’ve been very gentle with you, haven’t I? Kind and patient…”
She swallowed, wondering how stupid she must be to have gotten into this position with him, naked, beneath him, with her arms pinned over her head. Now, he was going to collect his dues. “Yes.”
“You’re thinking too much.” Shifting her wrists into the hold of one hand, his finger traced the space between her brows, barely touching. “Stone makes you shut down. Hunter makes you fight. But me? I make you think.”
He was right. He broke down her walls and found her soft underbelly. She was most vulnerable with Ash, which meant he was the most dangerous despite feeling the safest. “I don’t know what you want.”
“I want to play with you. Nothing too intense. I’d planned to leave you be, but…” He glanced at her breast. “You’re quite the temptation.”
He released her hands and she automatically started to lower her arms.
“Nyet.” He pressed them back down. “I want you still. Mine to play with and explore. Understand?”
He traced a finger slowly over the swell of her breast and her breathing turned labored. “Y-yes.”
“Good, printessa.” He stripped off his shirt and tossed it to the floor.
Ripples of muscle stacked neatly along his trim torso and ropes of thick sinew corded his tattooed arms. He bent over her, teasing her lips with his, so their breath mingled.
“You worry too much. You don’t trust us. I know it’s too soon. But in time, you’ll see. We’re nothing you need to fear.”
His mouth teased featherlight kisses down her throat, so tender and hypnotizing. He touched her in all the right places, removing the strain in her muscles and replacing her anxiety with yearning.
“Kiss me,” he whispered, and she eagerly gave in to his command.
His tongue skated delicately over hers.
“Nyet.” His thumb dragged slowly over her lips. “When you kiss me, you kiss me like you mean it.” His hand closed loosely around her throat, not applying pressure, but implying how easily he could snap her neck if he wanted to. “Like your life depends on it, printessa.”
This time, when his lips grazed hers, she angled up and sealed her mouth to his. He groaned in satisfaction and deepened the kiss, his tongue stroking over hers with possessive claim as he stated without words how attracted he was to her.
When they broke apart, they were both panting. “That was much better, wasn’t it?”
“Yes,” she confessed.
“I like intensity. Whether we’re cuddling or fucking, I expect you to be uninhibited by shame or pride or whatever else is filling that head of yours. I want everything raw and unfiltered between us. Honest. Understand?”
She nodded.
“Good.” He glanced down at her chest. “You don’t fear me. Why do you think that is?”
But she did fear him. Unlike the others, Ash knew how to get inside of her psyche. “You’re…different. You weren’t mean to me like the others. You’re patient.”
Laughter rumbled in his chest. “Stone has patience. He just uses it like a weapon. Hunter...” Ash shrugged. “Hunter doesn’t believe in patience. He believes in now.”
Was he actually opening up to her? The more she knew about them, about what made them tick, the more likely she was to survive them. “And what do you believe?”
“I believe in watching. Your body language tells me everything I need to know.”
“That’s very clinical.”
“No. Clinical is Stone counting your breaths to calculate exactly when you’ll shatter. This is reverence. I won’t be satisfied with obedience alone. I want your trust.”
She lowered her gaze. She could never trust them. The moment she did, she’d be lost. They wanted to hurt her family. She couldn’t overlook that, no matter how horrible Jordan was, they would always share DNA. Therefore, they would always resent her for her sibling’s crimes.
“You’re overthinking again.”
“I’m not a doll who can just lay here—”
His hand covered her mouth. “That sass is what got you in trouble earlier.”
Something hardened inside of her. She bit his hand and he ripped it away, hissing out a swear in Russian.
He examined the bite mark and threw his head back, laughing with true amusement. “She has teeth!”
“And I bite.”
His grin turned smoldering. “So I’ve learned.
” He surprised her with another mind bending kiss that left her off balance.
He didn’t fully pull away, as he whispered over her mouth, “One day, you’ll trust me enough to take you apart, because you’ll learn how incredible it can feel when we’re broken into pieces. How freeing.”
“I’ll never—”
He pressed a finger to her lips. “You will, because you’ll believe with all you are that I will put you back together after. You will learn to trust me, printessa.”
“Stone didn’t—”
“Stone is Stone. I am Ash.” He cupped her face, thumb tracing her cheekbone. “I like learning which pieces fit where. Which ones make you gasp. Which ones make you beg.” His voice dropped, honey over gravel. “I like finding the sharp edges you didn’t know you had.”
“That sounds...”
“Dangerous?” He smiled, and there it was, that flash of something predatory beneath the gentle exterior. “We’re all dangerous, printessa. I’m just better at hiding it.”
Which made him the riskiest one of all. At least with Hunter she knew what she might be getting. And Stone had shown his true colors. But Ash was a mystery in many ways, curious but gentle, demanding but patient.
“Always thinking.” His hands slid down to her throat, not squeezing, just resting. Possessing. “When Stone pushes you, it’s because he needs your submission. When Hunter takes you, he’ll demand your surrender. But when I touch you?”
Her pulse hammered against his palms. “What do you need?”
“Your trust.” He leaned down, lips brushing her ear. “Complete. Absolute. The kind that lets you close your eyes and know I’ll catch you. The kind that lets you say yes without knowing what you’re agreeing to.”
“That’s terrifying.”
“Yes.” He pulled back to meet her gaze. “It should be. I’m just as broken as the rest of them.
But we all fracture in different ways.” His smile was slow, wicked, nothing like the gentle giant facade he wore so well.
His hands tightened just slightly on her throat, enough that her eyes widened and her breath quickened.
“I’m broken too,” she confessed.
“No, you’re only bruised. A woman who doesn’t know her own limits yet. But I can enlighten you.” His lips traced her throat, settling on her hammering pulse. “And I’m going to. Slowly. Carefully. Until you understand exactly what your body can do.”
He lifted her hand and gently kissed her palm. Only then did it occur to her that she wasn’t prying him off of her. She’d kept her hands exactly where he commanded her to put them.
Ash traced his tongue over the fading welts marking her palms. “Did it hurt?”
“Not really.”
“But you thought it would, didn’t you?”
“At first. Honestly, the anticipation was worse than the strike.”
“See? It’s a mind game that manifests in physical play.
” He reached between their bodies and unsnapped the top button of his jeans, pulling the zipper down slowly until the heated weight of his engorged cock rested heavily on her body.
“Like now. You’re wondering why I just did that.
Is he going to fuck me? Force me to suck his cock like Stone did?
Will he shove it in my ass now that I’ve been so beautifully broken in?
I’m sure those and a hundred other questions are running through your head, printessa. ”
Heat bloomed beneath her skin as a flutter of anxiety tickled her chest.
“Quiet your mind.” Ash’s command cut through her spiraling thoughts.
“Whatever you’re thinking, chase it away.
” He leaned close and whispered in her ear so only she could hear.
“He’s probably in his office right now, hard as stone and sick with regret, wondering the same things you are. Let’s let him worry for a while.”
He drew back and winked at her with a conspirator’s smile, playing good cop to Stone’s bad cop. She wanted to play with him, if only to make Stone pay for abandoning her and threatening to brand her.
“You’re intrigued by the thought.” Ash grinned.
“Maybe a little.”
“You want to make Stone pay?”
She shrugged, afraid to show how deeply he’d upset her. “Who cares about Stone?”
Ash arched a brow. “Careful. He can hear you.”
“Good.”
“Feisty little rabbit. Let’s see how fierce you really are. It’s time to come apart.”
“Wha—” He kissed her, harder and more demanding than before.
“Such a sexy mouth.” He delved deeper, taking, stealing, forcing her to meet him stroke for stroke. Then his fingers knotted in her hair and tugged, exposing her neck. “Hair like spun gold.”
His mouth closed over her throat, sucking hard enough to leave a mark. He cupped her breast, massaging as he dragged his thumb over the turgid tip.