Chapter 8
8
Atlas
I shouldn’t have done it. I knew that the moment my fingers touched her skin. Her eyes darkened into violet and they were wide as she looked up me.
I was still angry, firstly at that bitch Charlotte for manipulating Rowan, and not telling her that she’d be marrying me, which I didn’t like one fucking bit. Then there had been Rowan’s fury in response, that she was absolutely entitled to. But I didn’t like how she’d directed that anger at me.
Clearly she’d found my offer of money offensive enough to get up from the table and disappear off to the bathroom, but I couldn’t let it slide.
I wanted to know what her issue was, because if she’d been forced into this then that made the situation a whole different ballgame, and one I’d be fucked if I played. My father had been an expert at playing games and he’d taught me, back when I still loved him. When I still thought he was a hero. He showed me how to play on people’s emotions, how you could manipulate them into giving you whatever you wanted. Oh, he’d couched those lessons in business terms, as if that made using people better, but in the end I saw them for what they were. He was manipulating me just as he manipulated everyone in his life.
Now, I didn’t play any kind of games. They hurt the wrong people. Those who were too straight up, too honest, or too genuine to even realize they were playing, let alone know the rules of the game.
Rowan certainly didn’t know the rules and I wasn’t going to let Charlotte fucking Hamilton involve her in whatever shitty game she was playing, but first I needed to know why Rowan kept sniping at me constantly, because it was getting old. I needed an answer so I could help her, that was all.
Yet, as soon as my fingertips touched her warm, silky skin, I knew I’d been lying to myself. As soon as I looked into her eyes, caught the simple, sweet scent of jasmine and saw the pulse at the base of her throat racing.
It all became suddenly clear.
A part of me had known it two weeks ago, back in Arcadia, when I’d pulled back the curtain and seen her standing on the other side with her cheeks red as apples, unable able to meet my eye. It was obvious and for some fucking reason, I just hadn’t noticed. No, that wasn’t exactly true either. I hadn’t wanted to notice, because now I knew…
Something inside me clicked like a key in a lock. Something dark. The beast that lived inside me, that loved my father and his attention. That had liked his games. That had liked learning how make people adore him in turn, liked the power it gave him and he wanted more.
That beast, that monster, was tired of pretending to be a man. Tired of maintaining the facade of the laid-back easy-going playboy, who gave everyone their every sexual fantasy while never thinking of his own.
She wanted me, I could see it in her eyes. She’d been turned on watching me fuck Tina in Arcadia, and judging by that blush and her dilated pupils she was turned on now. The monster inside me knew that. It wanted to take her desire and turn it into devotion, adoration, obsession. It wanted to make her desperate for me and me alone, and I couldn’t resist it.
There was no one else in the bathroom, no one to see and no one to judge, and even though I should have let her go, I didn’t. Instead, I watched as her eyes widened further, heard the breath catch in her throat.
We stared at each other for one long moment, the air in the tiny confines of the bathroom becoming denser, electric almost.
Rowan blinked. “W-What are you doing?”
I should have released her and stepped away then, because there was no reason for me to be so close. But the monster in me was rattling the bars of its cage. It wanted the truth from her and it wasn’t going to let her go until he got it.
“The truth,” I said. “Let’s have it, kid.”
“What truth?” She’d stiffened but made no attempt to pull away.
“About why you keep sniping at me and why you keep blushing every time I’m near you.” My grip tightened a little, watching small violet sparks leap in her eyes. It was turning her on being held like this, that was obvious. “It’s not because you don’t like me, is it?”
“Don’t be r-ridiculous.” Her gaze dipped to my mouth and back up again, a betrayal she didn’t seem to be aware of. “I don’t like you, that’s the whole point. I never have. I’ve?—”
That slight stammer and the way she looked at me sent a raw kick of heat to my gut, made the beast growl with pleasure, and I didn’t think. I slid my thumb over her mouth, feeling the give of her lips as I silenced her.
“That’s not the truth,” I murmured. “And we both know it.”
Her eyes widened even further, the little sparks in them becoming flames, and I stared back, the soft, cushiony warmth of her mouth under my thumb.
She was beautiful, but beauty wasn’t special. I could get that anywhere, so I wasn’t sure why now the deep violet of her gaze held me as surely as I held her. Or why the spill of her dark hair seemed to catch the light, turning it into a glossy streak of inky satin. Why I was so aware of the generous curves of her breasts pressing against her plain white shirt, and the graceful swell of her hips and thighs in her plain black skirt.
She’s young, innocent, and she wants you. How can you resist her?
No, that was the monster talking, that wasn’t me. I’d never touch a younger woman, never. That would be treading in my father’s territory far too much for comfort. He liked young women, and he liked manipulating them with sex and power, because that’s what a young woman wanted, he said. That’s what they were desperate for, he said. Use both, he said, and they’ll do anything you want. ‘You’ve got the looks. You’ve got the knack, just like me. You’ll have them eating out of your hand, boy….’
Again, I should have some distance between us, but her skin was like silk and the way she looked at me, shock giving way to a mounting fury and desire, was intoxicating.
She’d always fought me, right from the first. She’d been suspicious, wary, and rightly so. To me back then, she’d only been a kid, and I’d felt sorry for her. Sorry that she’d had to grow up too fast. Sorry that she felt so responsible for her own mother.
But it struck me forcibly now that she wasn’t that kid anymore.
She was a woman, strong and in control, yet I could see the heat and desperation behind the fury in her eyes. That fury was a smokescreen, hiding the real truth that she couldn’t bring herself to say.
She wanted me and she didn’t know what to do with that. She didn’t know how to say it, still less ask for what she wanted.
You could show her how. You could make her say it.
“Tell me,” I ordered, fully in the grip of the beast as I slid my thumb away from her pretty mouth. “Say the words out loud so we can both hear them.”
The sparks in her eyes glittered and abruptly she jerked her chin out of my hand. “No,” she snapped. “And whatever it is that you’re doing, you can stop.”
The words pierced me like an arrow, the monster inside me flexing. That ‘no’ was a challenge to it and I reacted without thought, reaching out once more to take her jaw in my hand, at the same time stepping forward and forcing her inexorably back and up against the vanity.
Her breath escaped in a gasp, her lips a perfect O of surprise. The curves of her hips and thighs were pressed to mine, fuck, she felt good. Soft. Warm. So very sweet.
“S-Stop.” She was breathing fast and I could smell the delicate, musky scent of feminine desire. Her body knew what it wanted, even if her head didn’t.
She’ll beg for you so perfectly.
She would, oh yes, she would. In the back of my brain, an alarm bell was ringing, but I wasn’t paying attention. There was power in this, in her desire for me, and it was intoxicating.
“You really want me to?” I eased my thumb along the line of her jaw, stroking her, watching the heat in her gaze spark and flare in response. “I don’t think you do, beauty. I think you want me to keep going.”
She gave a convulsive swallow, her attention so completely on me it was as if I was her whole world, and that was getting me hard. Did she know what she was doing to me? Was she aware of how she was getting beneath my skin?
Women liked me and they all loved how I fucked them. They wanted the easy-going playboy, the lover extraordinaire who’d do them any way they wanted, who’d fulfil all their sexual fantasies. But they never saw the beast. The monster my father had brought me up to be, dominant, possessive, controlling. I made sure I kept him locked up tight, where no one could see and where he couldn’t do any damage, so I had no idea why little Rowan James had somehow unlocked the cage I kept him in.
Perhaps it was the way she looked at me, as if she could see that beast beneath my skin and wanted what he could give her. Was desperate for what he could give her. Desperate for me.
Except, she really was an innocent and no, she likely had no idea what she was doing to me, and she should be afraid. Because I was the last thing a woman like her should ever want.
To prove my point, I pressed insistently against her, shifting my hips so the hard line of my cock nudged the softness between her thighs.
Her whole body shuddered. “A-Atlas…”
Yes, she should say my name like that. Whispered, like a prayer. Then she needed to get down on her knees, open her mouth and worship me the way I wanted her to. The way I demanded to be worshipped.
She will love it and so will you.
I would, that was the problem. I’d been a good boy for years, getting women off however they asked me to, always a generous, unselfish lover. Yet the dark heart of me, the selfish part, was tired of giving. It wanted to take and take everything from this sweet, innocent young thing. Take that innocence, defile her, own her, and make her love every second of it.
“That’s my name,” I murmured. “If you want me to stop, you just have to say ‘stop, Atlas’.”
Her jaw firmed, resistance stiffening her muscles as she glared furiously at me. But there was no ‘stop, Atlas’. There was nothing but silence.
And I still hadn’t gotten what I wanted from her.
“It’s like that then, is it?” Very slowly, I traced the line of her lower lip with my thumb, relishing the tender heat of her skin. “Time to tell me the truth, Rowan.”
A convulsive shiver ran through her, though she didn’t pull away. But if looks could kill I’d be carried home in a bucket. “Why should I?” she demanded, her voice breathless and husky. “Why should I tell you anything at all?”
The better part of me was lost now as the monster rose to the surface, and I nearly smiled, admiring how she was still fighting me. Good. I liked that. It would make her eventual surrender so much sweeter. “Because I fucking asked you to.”
“I’m not your slave,” she shot back.
“But I think you want to be.” I spread my fingers out on her jaw, caressing. “I think being my slave is exactly what you’re so desperate for.”
For one long second she stared at me as if hypnotized, and I could see something raw, hungry flicker deep in her eyes. Then her hands came up and she pressed them against my chest, the heat of her palms burning through the cotton of my T-shirt. But she didn’t push me away. Instead, she kept on staring up at me, the hungry light in her eyes beginning to dissipate as confusion took its place.
Keep playing with her. She’ll give you what you want eventually..
That thought made a cold thread of reality wind through me, cutting through the haze of desire fogging my brain. What I was doing was wrong. I shouldn’t be holding her like this, touching her like this, because it was clear that she truly didn’t understand what she wanted or even understand her own desires. Maybe she was even horrified by them, and yet here I was, using her confusion and her innocence against her to get what I wanted.
I was twenty years older than her, more powerful than her in every way, and I was her ex-stepfather. I wasn’t any kind of man for her, and yet…
“Am I wrong?” I couldn’t seem to make my fingers release her jaw. They kept pressing against her skin, gripping her firmly, forcing her to confront her own hunger.
She took another ragged breath. “Yes. Yes, you’re wrong.”
Except the look in her eyes said otherwise. Little liar.
“Then you’d better let go of my shirt, hadn’t you?” I murmured.
Her gaze dropped to where her fingers had curled into the cotton of my tee, clinging on as if they were somehow operating without her conscious control.
There was another moment of tense silence and I was painfully aware of the softness and heat of her body, and of how my cock was pressed against her, and how all I’d have to do to be inside her was to yank up her skirt, slide aside the crotch of her panties…
Rowan glanced up at me again and just for a second, like a curtain rising, naked heat glowed in her eyes, a hunger that took my breath away. Then both were gone, lost under another solar flare of anger and her hands dropped away.
“Why do you care?” she snapped. “Why is the truth so important to you?”
“Because I want to help you.” The words came out in a growl. “If Charlotte’s manipulated you into?—”
“Charlotte hasn’t manipulated me. I’m not the one pushing my ex-stepdaughter up against a bathroom vanity and forcing her into admitting something she doesn’t feel.”
That cold thread of reality tightened around my throat like razor wire, bringing with it an emotion I’d long since forgotten I could even experience.
Shame.
She was right. She wasn’t the only one caught in Charlotte’s little games. That bitch had snared me too, and now here I was, trying to force an admission from a twenty-four-year-old woman that she wanted me.
What the actual fuck was I doing?
I’d forgotten myself. I’d forgotten all those lesson I’d learned the day I’d walked into my mother’s bathroom and found her lying dead in the tub. The lesson that the games my father played, that ones he’d taught me, the ones that had seemed to be so exciting, that had made me feel so powerful, had consequences. Terrible, terrible consequences.
Jesus Christ. Was that all it took to break open the cage I kept my inner monster in? The machinations of one old woman and the desire in a young and beautiful girl’s eyes?
I was a stronger man than that. I was a better man than that. I wasn’t Charles Blackwood and the games he played. I wasn’t him.
I let Rowan go and stepped back.
Then I turned and walked out without another word.