Chapter Ten
Leah
“W-what are you doing up here?” I stammer when my tongue manages to unglue itself from the roof of my mouth. Shock keeps me frozen in place, even while wild heat curls through my belly.
The unexpected rush of finding Steel in my most private space turns my legs to jelly, and I have to slam my hand out to the cool metal to keep myself from sliding down to the hard surface below.
“Told you I’d be the one to find you.” He shrugs like this is his place too, even though I know it is not. No one climbs up to the tower. It’s tall. Really tall. And dangerous. People have been warned off of it. I remember as a kid getting lecture after lecture at school to stay away from it.
Surprisingly, for the most part, people actually listened.
Not Steel though. Never Steel. He does what he wants, and the town bows to his will. That’s one of the things about him that draws me in. He exudes power, but it’s not the power of money or bluster like my father has. It’s more that quiet power that makes people want to follow.
“How’d you know I’d be here?” I challenge.
He snorts. “That’s an easy one. You and me, darlin’, we were raised pretty much the same, minus all that money and privilege on your end. My parents never wanted me. I’m sure you’re suffering from the same neglect.”
I cross my arms just to ward off the way he is looking at me—not due to the sting of his words because he’s right, and after knowing it all my life, the pain of it has ceased to wear me down.
No, that tremble at the base of my spine is only there because his eyes remind me so much of how they looked that first night we met up here.
I always knew who he was. Everyone in Helena knows Steel, but I didn’t really know him until that night. The worst and best of my life.
“Yeah.” He nods hard but doesn’t blink. He keeps his eyes locked on me, and it does things to me.
Creates a flurry of shivers and makes all my hair stand on end.
Warms me strangely, even as it chills me to the bone.
“That’s right, darlin’. I know what you’re thinking.
That it’s fitting we’re here now, where it all began, because this is the real beginning.
Of you giving me your all because I don’t just want your body. I want all of you.”
My eyes grow even wider. But I can’t blink, I’m scared that if I do then none of this will be real. Like those dreams that I have of us together.
“You’ve fought this. You said you didn’t want me.”
“That’s true. I know what I said. Know what I really meant when I said it too.
We’re gonna do this. You, me. I’ve kept away.
You didn’t need someone like me in your life, but you’re the one who came after me.
Remember that. You started all of this. This is a secret.
Our secret. I’ll make you my queen in all ways one day, but not now.
For now, you just get me. When I’m ready for it, that’s when you’ll stand with me. You think you can wait it out?”
I stare him down, hating his arched brow, hating the humor glinting in his eyes because he fucking loves being in control, and there isn’t anything I can do about it, because I want him so bad that it makes every single part of me ache straight down to my bones.
“Yeah,” I shoot back. “I’ve waited three years. All I ever wanted was a family. And you. But I want all of you, Steel.” I parrot back his words to him and watch his harsh features change, growing darker. “You think you can give that to me, then we have a deal.”
“I don’t do deals.”
“That’s how it’s gonna work.”
Steel bunches his shoulders up. He doesn’t stand, but somehow, his size and strength take up the entire platform. His eyes burn into me, branding me, scalding me like they did that first night, creating invisible marks on me that will always bind me to him.
His beautiful mouth twists up, and his eyes change. “That so?”
“Yes. That’s so.”
“Well, then, darlin’, I’m gonna warn you. I’m a man. I have a man’s needs. I ain’t good with feelings and shit. If you’re looking for tenderness, I can’t give that to you. Intimacy and shit. Don’t know what that is. What I do isn’t making love, it’s fucking.”
Jesus Christ.
I push out one gasp of a word. “Right.” My hands are so damp that I have to rub them against my dress. “Prove it.”
“Prove it?” Steel’s strong brow creases.
I toss my head back, flipping my hair over my shoulder casually like I don’t feel his hot stare on me. Like my legs aren’t trembling, threatening to give out. Like he isn’t what I crave most in the world. “Yeah. Prove it.”
He moves fast. Like that night when I had stepped close to the edge.
One second I’m challenging him, daring him, and the next I’m slammed up against the metal wall of the tower, Steel’s startlingly gray eyes staring down at me, barely restrained, his hot breath hitting my face.
I should be afraid as his big hands cage me at either side of my face, but I’m not.
Having him there, so close that he’s almost touching me, almost, but not, is exciting.
It is exhilarating in a way that I’ve never known.
His face is so close to mine, his lips only inches away.
I lean in, my body begging silently for his, for what only he can give me.
I keep my hands planted at my sides because to touch him seems like it would be going too far, but I inhale sharply and arch a little more, letting the warmth of his broad chest radiate into me.
“You’ve been warned.” Steel breathes next to my ear, creating another volley of shivers.
“You say the word now and there ain’t no turning back.
If you’re just curious, go find some fucking college boy to scratch your itch.
Be sure that you know what you’re getting yourself into.
If you do this, you’re doing it because you know full well what the consequences are and who I am.
Once you’re mine, I will never, ever let you go. ”
Somehow, I manage to push down a swallow as I watch Steel’s lips move, his nostrils flare, his eyes gleam. I can’t get out a word because he is so close that I can see the outline of a silvery scar above his eyebrow.
“I’m yours,” I say panting, and the words unleash everything he warned me about.
Steel dips his head, and I think he’s going to kiss me.
Kiss me like he did in the janitor’s room back at the community center, but instead, his lips rasp over mine, impossibly soft and wondrous.
My mouth parts and as he pulls away, his tongue snakes out to lick across my bottom lip before he nips me there, so hard that he draws blood.
I let out a gasp of surprise as the metallic taste fills up my mouth.
I raise a trembling hand to my lips as he shifts his massive palm, tucking it under my hair, and finding my neck.
He squeezes hard, tilting my face up to his with the pressure there.
He drops his head to trail kisses on the exposed column of my neck, and even though I arch into him, trying to scrape my aching nipples against his chest, rub my burning clit and trembling sex against his leg, somewhere, anywhere, to relieve the pain, he evades me.
“You’re mine.” That deep rumble that sets every single part of me on fire.
His other hand sweeps down to my waist. He grips the curve of my hip through my dress, bruising me through the thick cotton before he bunches the fabric in his palm and yanks it up roughly between us.
His whole hand splays over my mound. “This is mine.” His finger sweeps along my soaked panties, pressing the fabric into my slit, outlining my folds to his touch. He can’t hold back the groan that tears from his throat. “And this.”
He presses his hand flat, so that the heel digs in right above his fingers, right over my aching clit.
No one has ever touched me there but myself, and I tremble against the new sensation.
Against the hard, horrible need. His hand shifts, his fingers trailing lower, until they stop just above my bundle of nerves.
Even cotton clad, I feel his touch there, the hottest of brands.
“This is mine too. All of you. I’m going to fill you everywhere. I’m going to fuck you so hard that I’ll create new holes to fill.”
Shit. Who says things like that? My head spins. It’s dirty. Filthy. Primal. Of course, those words only bank the flames roaring in me. I thought I knew what I was doing, but he was right about that. I have no idea what it takes to be with a man like him.
I need to find out. I need to do this. I need him. However terrifying it might be, I can’t keep hiding. Not from him. I don’t want to be a shadow anymore. I want to be Leah. The Leah that’s struggled so hard over the years to get out of her cage. The Leah who waited so very long for this moment.
There is no turning back.
I nod because it is all I can do. His eyes meet mine, holding me and crushing me with their fire.
“Always,” I echo. “I was made for you.”
It’s a corny thing to say, but I don’t care. That hand at my neck tightens possessively, and despite his protests against intimacy, I know that Steel likes it too.
“Are you going to…” I grind into his hand. “Are you going to touch me?”
Steel lets out a bark of laughter that I don’t expect. Hurt rips through me since I am afraid that he is going to reject me.
“Oh, I’m gonna do more than touch you. I’m going to fuck you until my cum is dripping out of your honeyed pussy, down your pretty thighs.
I’m going to put my cock between those beautiful lips and let you drain me dry.
I’m going to stretch you and fill you so full that it hurts, but you’ll beg me for more.
You’re gonna give yourself to me, and I’m gonna take everything you’ve got.
I’ll give it all back to you, eat your pussy until you come all over my face.
You’re gonna be my woman. My woman. My queen. ”
Holy fucking hell. My sex throbs, sending me right to the brink of nearly coming just from hearing his promises.
“H-here?” I stammer, and the eagerness and combined fear in my voice are obvious.
A slow, lazy smile curls over his beautiful lips.
“Not here, darlin’, though I appreciate the enthusiasm.
Not here, where the whole fucking town could see if they looked out their window.
I was waiting for you here because I knew you’d come to me, but I have somewhere else to take you.
Somewhere safe. Somewhere no one will hear or find us. ”