Chapter 13
13
Rowan
A tlas had said something but the words didn’t immediately mean anything to me. I’d slumped against the back of the couch, the remains of the orgasm I’d just had pulsing through me, my thoughts a shattered wreck. I didn’t want to move, didn’t want to speak, didn’t want to think about anything at all. I only wanted to sit here, existing.
The way he’d made me tell him what I’d wanted, and then how he’d touched me… All he’d had to do was put that large hand of his between my thighs and press down on my clit with a gentle, agonizingly light pressure and I’d come apart instantly. Then again, I’d been so desperate for him, had had so many forbidden fantasies and heated dreams about him, that holding out against that kind of pleasure had never been an option.
But as the aftershocks of the orgasm began to fade, embarrassment caught at me. All I could hear was my own husky, needy voice replaying in my head as I’d surrendered to him. I’d given in so quickly, lost control so utterly…
Ugh. I wanted to cover my face and sink through the floor.
Atlas’s mouth hardened, the gold of his eyes gleaming with temper. Then he bent and twitched my skirt down.
Oh, that’s right. He’d told me to cover myself, hadn’t he?
Another wave of embarrassment washed over me at his expression. He was definitely angry. Was it me? Had I done something wrong? Forced him into doing something he didn’t want? Then again, it couldn’t be that surely? Yes, I’d kissed him but then he’d been the one forcing me to tell him what I wanted, not me forcing him. So why was he getting pissed at me?
I sat up, smoothing my skirt, my own anger rising in response. “Sorry,” I said tartly. “Not very ladylike of me is it?”
“Don’t apologize. You’ve got nothing to be sorry for.”
The edge in his voice caught at my already raw emotions like steel wool. “Then why are you looking at me like I’ve done something wrong?” I snapped before I could think better of it. Then another thought occurred to me. I glanced down at his fly, and sure enough I could see the hard line of his cock pressing against the zipper.
Oh. No wonder he was annoyed.
I licked my dry lips. “Do you want?—”
“No.”
The word was hard and sharp, like a stone flung at me. “I see,” I said woodenly. “Why did you touch me then? What the hell was that even about?”
He stared at me for a long moment, then unexpectedly looked away, biting off a curse. “You don’t understand,” he said. “You don’t understand a single fucking thing.”
“I don’t understand what?” The warm, delicious pleasure was ebbing away now, leaving behind it a cold and sick feeling. “You made me say?—”
“I didn’t make you say anything,” he interrupted. “All I was trying to do was to get you to be honest with me for the first time in your fucking life.”
“And I was.” I shoved myself up and off the sofa, straightening. “Is that why you’re pissed off? You’re angry that I gave you the truth? That I want you?”
His gaze burned like a sunbeam focused through a magnifying glass, intense, scorching. “No. I’m pissed off that I’m hard and I shouldn’t be. You’re too young, you’re too naive, and you have no idea what you’re fucking doing.”
His confession shouldn’t have surprised me, yet I was shocked all the same. Oh, he was hard, I could certainly see that, but surely that had more to do with the situation rather than about me in particular.
“You don’t want me,” I said, angry at him for being annoyed that he was aroused by me, not to mention also for the horrible suspicion that all those things he said about me were true. “My God, if you’re so pressed about your stupid hard-on go and find some other woman to fuck.”
A muscle leapt in his jaw, his shoulders tense. He was furious, I could see that, and part of me relished it, loving that I’d managed to draw his temper out, especially when with one touch he’d wrecked me.
“If it was that simple I’d have done it, believe me,” he bit out. “But it’s not that simple.”
“Why not?”
“Because it’s not some random woman I want to fuck.”
Another little shock pulsed down my spine at the implication. So. Apparently it was me he wanted. Almost as soon as I realized that, a surging kind of triumph filled me. I did affect him. Me, as young and inexperienced and naive as I was, had affected him badly enough that he was furious about it.
I swallowed, dry-mouthed all of a sudden. “Well, you know what I want so we could?—”
“No,” he interrupted again, his voice rougher this time. “Christ, no. That will not be happening. In fact, I shouldn’t be doing anything with you at all.”
“So why are you doing things with me?” I asked, unable to keep the edge of hurt from my voice. “Especially after I told you repeatedly that I didn’t need you. And now you’re getting all pissed at me for something that sounds like a you problem.” I took a few steps towards him, closing the gap between us. “You made me beg, Atlas. You made me tell you that I wanted you and I did, and I’m not taking it back. But I didn’t force you to put your hand between my legs.” My voice began to rise and I let it. “You were the one who decided to do that. You were the one who decided to kiss me and hold me by my hair, so how about you stop blaming me and start questioning your own stupid judgement!”
Silence came crashing down, the angry words bouncing off the walls.
I’d gotten close him, perhaps too close, his furious golden gaze burning into mine. I felt as if I was about to burst into flames at any moment. Then it came to me in a second of intense realization, that before he’d put his hand on me, I’d have stiffly apologized and backed down. Pretended that he hadn’t hurt me, that I was fine.
Yet, I wasn’t doing that right now. In fact, I was doing the opposite of pretending. I was admitting that I wanted him, accepting it, and confronting him with his own desires right back. And he didn’t like that. He didn’t like that at all.
I’d made him furious. I’d made him want. I’d affected him and that made me feel powerful in a way I’d never felt before.
For a long moment he just stood there staring at me. Then abruptly he reached out and grabbed me by my upper arms, gripping me hard, making my adrenaline surge and leaving me trembling with a kind of wild anticipation.
In that moment anything could have happened and I wanted it to.
Then the door buzzer sounded and Atlas let me go so suddenly I almost stumbled. “ Fuck, ” he said viciously, then stalked past me to the front door.
My heart was beating so fast and so loud I could barely hear anything, a seething mix of anticipation, fury, and desire still fizzing in my blood.
I’d only seen Atlas stripped of his easy-going, laid back facade once before and that was last week in the bathroom of La Chouette. Now, I’d seen it again, the lazily amused, playboy persona vanishing as if it had never been. And all because of me. I’d pushed him and now I wanted to push him even harder, and why shouldn’t I? When he’d done the same to me?
There might be consequences. Consequences you won’t like.
I shrugged the thought away. If those consequences were sex, I’d be happy to suffer them — if suffering was the right word for sex with Atlas Blackwood.
He pulled the front door open and I heard the bass rumble of his voice followed by Charlotte’s dulcet tones, and a thought hit me. A way to get under his skin even as he got under mine.
Before I could second guess myself, I turned my back on the front door, quickly unzipped my skirt and shimmied out of it. Then I shrugged off my blouse and bra, not caring about the voices behind me, and went over to where the dress was laid out on the chair by the sofa. I picked up the hanger, took the gown out of the garment bag then slipped into it.
The silk was deliciously cool and slinky against my hot skin, and I shivered as I adjusted the draperies around me, tying some swathes of ivory silk in a knot on my shoulder. Of course it fitted and beautifully.
I unpinned the rest of my hair, half of which was already coming down due to Atlas’s handling, and let the rest of it fall down my back. Then I carefully arranged the veil over my head. Lastly, I picked up the gorgeous bouquet of peonies.
There was no handy mirror around to see how I looked, but I was in white, his virgin bride, and I knew he wouldn’t be unaffected. After all, I hadn’t missed the way his golden eyes had flared when I’d told him I was a virgin. He liked that, apparently. Which gave me another weapon to use against him.
Gripping both my bouquet and my determination, I turned around.
Charlotte, wearing an elegant pale green silk dress, was coming across the massive open space of the loft, a smile lighting her face. “Rowan,” she exclaimed. “What a beautiful dress! Did you take my advice then, hmm?”
Ah yes, the advice to dress for ‘Mr Blackwood’. I opened my mouth to say no, of course not, but Atlas got in ahead of me. “I bought it,” he said flatly. “The dress, the flowers and veil too.” He stood behind Charlotte, the expression on his face unreadable, but his gaze was molten as it roved over me, taking in the way the silk molded around my breasts, hips and thighs.
“Yes,” I said, meeting his hungry stare head-on. “You did. So thank you. And you were right, the dress fits.”
“I can see that,” he murmured.
Tension gathered in the space between us, hot and electric, and Charlotte, obviously noticing, glanced at him then at me, her expression calculating. “It’s beautiful,” she said, “and so are you, Rowan. Now, let me introduce you both to Father Graham.”
The priest who’d come in with Charlotte was an officious older man who clearly didn’t want waste any time since he got the ceremony underway without any formalities.
Soon I was standing next to Atlas, clutching my flowers as Father Graham began the lead-in to the vows, acutely conscious of what was happening and of the man beside me. Of his height and his heat, and the mouthwatering scent of his aftershave. Wondering if he was as conscious of me as I was of him. Wondering if he was thinking about his hand between my thighs the way I was thinking about it right now. How it had felt when his finger had pressed down right where it needed to be and something inside me had burst apart…
God .
My cheeks were hot and I couldn’t look at the priest, not with those thoughts in my head, so I looked at the floor instead. When the time came to say the vows, I turned to face Atlas, meeting his gaze through the gauzy silk of my veil. The look on his face was enigmatic, yet something hot burned in his eyes .
Yes, he was definitely thinking about that moment too. I don’t know how I knew, but I did.
“Do you have the rings?” Father Graham asked portentously, looking at Atlas.
“Of course.” Atlas reached into the pocket of his black pants before producing a dainty platinum band set with tiny blueish purple sapphires.
I’d forgotten entirely about rings and as he took my hand and pushed it onto my finger, I stared at it in shock. Then he began repeating the vows, the look on his face fierce with something I didn’t understand.
When the time came for me to say mine, I didn’t expect him to produce a wedding ring for himself, yet he held out a heavy, plain platinum band for me to put on his finger all the same. And I did, stammering my way through my vows to him, caught by that complicated, fierce expression in his eyes.
Then I realized. The last time he’d said those vows, he’d said them to my mother. Now, he was saying them to me.
Mom had always been honest with me about why she’d married him. It was so he could protect her from one of her exes, nothing to do with love. Yet I’d always known that she’d lied to me, because when he’d left she’d taken to her bed for a whole week.
The strangeness of it made me feel dizzy and weird, especially when the priest pronounced us husband and wife. I was dressed in white, carrying flowers and wearing a veil, to all intents and purposes a bride. Marrying my ex-stepfather.
Except I also wasn’t a bride. Because while this wedding might have had all the trappings of reality, it wasn’t real. I didn’t love Atlas and he didn’t love me and we were only doing this because my grandmother had insisted on it, and for some reason Atlas had agreed.
It was an odd dislocation I couldn’t quite handle, especially when Atlas drew up my veil and lifted it back over my head, exposing my face.
His expression was grim, the glitter in his eyes giving nothing away. He was going to kiss me, that was obvious since it was the done thing for a husband to kiss his new wife, but I could tell he didn’t want to.
Again, the woman I’d been when I’d first walked in here might have interpreted his expression as one of distaste, yet only now did I understand that it was the opposite.
I stared up at him, feeling that strange sense of exhilaration pass through me again, making me send a silent dare to him before sweeping my lashes down demurely. He didn’t say a word but when his fingers gripped my chin and he tilted my head back, I couldn’t resist a faint smile of triumph. Except his kiss, when it came, was featherlight and not enough, and I knew that was his reply. A dare in return.
I wanted to reach up and take his face between my hands, hold him there to prolong the kiss, but I didn’t want to give myself away to Charlotte. So instead I rose up on my toes, pressing my mouth more firmly to his. Only to have him pull away. A slight, satisfied smile turned his mouth. He was as pleased with his effect on me as I was with my effect on him.
My heartbeat thudded and I barely took in the formalities of signatures and paperwork that followed. The priest had other appointments so he left almost as soon as the ceremony was over, and then Charlotte, beaming at Atlas and I as if we were her children, said something about a celebratory drink.
Except the smile that had turned Atlas’s mouth had long gone and the grim expression was back. “No drinks,” he said curtly. “I need to talk to Rowan alone.”
Charlotte gave him a wicked smile. “I bet you do,” she said, her tone heavy with an insinuation that made me blush like a fool.
“Out,” Atlas growled at her, almost pulling her along to the door and basically shoving her out of it. Then he shut it behind her with slam and turned, stalking like a great cat across the expanse of the loft towards me, his mouth in a hard line.
My heartbeat thumped, my breath catching, but the look I gave him was calm and contained. Steady. He wasn’t going to ruffle me again. This time it was my turn to ruffle him.
“Well,” I said breezily. “Now that’s done, I suppose I should get back to work.” I gave him a look from beneath my lashes. “Unless you’ve got something else in mind?”
“Stop it.” The words were bitten off, making the satisfaction deepen inside me. I was bothering him that was clear. “That little strip tease you did before,” he continued. “Was that for my benefit?”
I’d wondered if he’d noticed and obviously he had. Good. “I was only putting on the dress,” I said, deciding to play the innocent to push him even more. “You bought it for me after all.”
Temper glittered in his eyes. “You want me to fuck you, Rowan? Is that what this is about?”
The blunt way he said it made my cheeks heat, which in turn caught at my own temper for letting him get to me. “Don’t you want to, Atlas?” I shot back in the same hard tone, consciously imitating him. “Isn’t that what this whole blowing hot and cold thing you’re doing is about?”
A muscle jumped in the side of his hard jaw, everything about him tense as he very obviously fought to control his anger.
Perhaps him being angry should have scared me because he was after all, much taller than I was, not to mention much more powerfully built, but I wasn’t scared. He’d never scared me, not in that way, and now, if anything, I felt even more satisfied. Because yes, I was getting to him. I was pushing him and if ever a man needed to be pushed it was Atlas Blackwood.
“You don’t even know what game you’re playing, do you?” he demanded.
“I’m not playing any game,” I said calmly. “You’re the one being a complete and utter fucking dick without giving me the slightest hint about what I’ve done wrong.”
“You haven’t done anything wrong,” he growled, taking another step towards me. “You just have no idea what you’re doing.”
“You keep saying that.” I lifted my chin, staring up at him. “So, tell me. What game am I supposed to be playing?”
He kept on staring at me, tension seething around his tall figure. “You’re pushing me, beauty. And you shouldn’t”
My skin tightened in response to the rough note in his voice. “Why not? I didn’t see you having any problem pushing me last week at La Chouette .”
“I apologized for that.”
“By getting me to tell you I wanted you before making me come, then getting pissed at me for some inexplicable reason.” This time it was my turn to take a step, half furious, half full exhilaration at my own daring. “I know you want me, Atlas. I saw how hard you were. So what’s the issue here?”
“Fuck’s sake,” he muttered. “You really want to know? Okay then. The issue is that my father was a complete and utter prick. He married my mother when she was twenty and he was in his forties. She loved him and he used that love to manipulate her, to get her to do anything he wanted. He fucked around, threw other women in her face, belittled her and undermined her, making her so miserable, she eventually took her own life when I was eighteen.”
Shock hit me and I blinked. I’d been expecting him to give me some sort of evasive nonsense not… this.
“He owned her,” Atlas went on, his eyes burning. “He was a controlling, narcissistic asshole and he owned her. And the problem, Rowan, is that I’m very much like him and what I’d like is to own you too.”