CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
Myra
My skin was like ice by the time I climbed out of the shower, though it hadn’t snuffed out the fire Yael had stoked still raging inside me.
I peeked down the hall to find his bedroom door shut before I tiptoed out to the couch, wrapped up in a blanket that smelled of rain and forest and all things Yael, and gladly went to sleep.
What felt like only moments later, I heard the faint sound of footfalls in a distant corner of my mind, and they were growing nearer.
I cracked open my eyes to find Yael looming over me, his sharp gaze laser-focused on my bare legs as I swung them out from under the blanket.
“I think you and I have some unfinished business, little mermaid.” The hunger in his eyes was unlike anything I’d ever seen before; wild and wanton and full of promises I couldn’t ignore.
“Do you?” I asked as I stood to face him. The narrow space between him and the couch provided little room, and I tried not to notice how my breasts grazed his torso. Given the wry smile it evoked from him, he definitely did. “Because I don’t.”
“That’s because you forever lie to yourself,” he said, inching closer. “I think if you were being honest, you’d acknowledge how much you wanted to lie back on my bed and let me do everything I promised.”
I quirked a brow. “And if I told you you were wrong about that?”
He leaned in, ducking his head low to whisper in my ear.
“I’d say that was your pride talking, because I saw your body’s reaction to me; how your breath hitched and your pulse quickened and your cheeks flushed with blood despite how much you tried to act to the contrary.
You cannot fake that level of chemistry, love. That kind of desire.”
Something deep and undeniable throbbed between my thighs, and I didn’t dare move for fear I’d unleash it. “I can fake a lot of things,” I said in a soft, husky voice that was barely my own.
“But you don’t have to. Not with me.” He pulled away just enough to level those forest eyes on me.
“Tell me you didn’t want to feel my hands sliding up your thighs—didn’t want my fingers to slip inside you slowly until they reached the spot, pulsing in and out at the perfect rhythm until your greedy hips started to grind against them, silently begging for more.
Tell me you wouldn’t have writhed beneath me as I kissed my way down your neck until my lips grazed and nipped your breasts to the point where pleasure meets pain—that the wordless cry you let loose wouldn’t have spurred me on, kissing lower and lower down your smooth, sweet skin until your breath caught in your throat the second my mouth brushed the inside of your thigh…
” Electricity thrummed through my body at the promise of everything he’d said, and judging by the way darkness swam in his narrowed eyes, he knew it.
“Tell me something, love: do you still want to say no?”
The way he bit his lip as he awaited my response made it hard to think.
I’d learned to weaponize sex when I landed in the Playground, but the truth was that it was all for show.
My heart and my body were too connected to see that kind of game through; I’d given both to Finn and nearly died because of it.
But standing there looking at Yael, with that devilish spark in his eyes and that tempting body I’d dreamed of against my will more times than I could count so painfully close, all reason left me.
I should have said yes. I should have gotten up, walked out of there, and never returned.
Instead, a faint ‘no’ escaped me while I waited with no shame for him to do everything he’d promised.
“Then lie down and let me finish what I started.” When I didn’t move immediately, he reached down and scooped me up behind my thighs, forcing me to straddle him as he laid me down on the couch.
“I’m going to need a little more compliance from you if this is going to work.
” Kneeling between my bare legs, he looked me up and down with satisfaction as his finger trailed lightly along my thigh.
“I thought you were going to unravel me with your voice,” I said with a shaky breath.
“Would you prefer that instead?” he asked as his teasing fingers slowly lifted from my skin.
The tiny moan that unwittingly escaped me in protest brought a satisfied smile to his face, and he bent forward, caging me in with his arms as he hovered only inches above me.
“I didn’t think so.” My breath caught in my throat as he dragged his body along mine, nestling down between my legs, and my pulse raced at the sight of that forest stare looking up at me.
“I wonder where I should start?” he mused as he lingered.
“It would be easy to think you’re the kind of girl who likes it rough—wants her hair pulled while she takes it hard from behind—because of your sharp tongue and feisty nature.
But I think that’s all for show; your coping mechanism for survival in the Playground.
My guess is that you really want someone to take his time with you…
tease you until you surrender.” A searing heat flared to life deep inside me at the raw promise of his words, settling in the flush of my cheeks and the aching sensation between my legs.
I shifted beneath him, and he lifted his head enough to assess my loss of composure.
“You want me to tell you what to do, don’t you?
” My lack of response made him smile with a wickedness that threatened to undo me right then and there.
“That’s what I thought. Now, this is your chance to tell me if anything is off limits before I start, little mermaid.
I suggest you be specific,” he said, nipping my earlobe, “because I can be very creative…”
My answer flew past my lips before I’d even fully contemplated his question. “My heart,” I said softly. His body went still at my reply. “You can’t have my heart.”
“That’s a shame,” he said, pulling away enough for me to see his devilish smile.
“I guess I’ll just have to settle for your body, then—at least for tonight.
” While his words settled on my mind, he turned his attention to my half-naked body sprawled across his couch.
“I watched you at Dreven’s—saw how you reacted to his touch.
How your lips parted and your head lolled back and your legs spread wider as your climax built.
” His palms pressed against the sensitive skin of my inner thighs, and I held my breath as they inched upward at a maddening pace.
“I imagined myself in his place, my hands creeping up your legs, driving you wild as I pushed your underwear aside.” His fingers toyed with the edge of the silky black fabric, tracing along the seam as though it were an impenetrable border.
“Hearing my name ripped from your lips as I slid inside you.”
“I did say your name,” I whispered.
His fingers went still. “When?”
“When he touched me… I closed my eyes, and all I saw was you.”
With a feather-light touch, his hand brushed over the semi-transparent fabric, and I sucked in a breath.
“And before this night is over, I’ll make you say my name again.
” His finger hooked beneath my underwear and slowly pushed it aside, careful not to touch me yet, which sent a shock of anticipation through my body.
I inched closer to him impatiently, desperate for him to touch me where I burned with need.
Lip caught between my teeth, a low, keening sound escaped me.
And that was all it took to break his resolve.
His left hand pressed down low on my stomach to hold me in place as the other drew a finger back and forth along my core, flirting around what I ached for him to do. When I was certain I might combust at any moment, he slid it inside with painstaking slowness, drawing a gasp from deep inside of me.
“I’ve wanted to do this for so long,” he murmured against my thigh as he kissed his way up. “And this…”
His hot tongue flicked lightly against my pulsing core, and my hips bucked reflexively.
Holding me in place with the pressure on my abdomen, he worked his mouth and fingers in unison until I was little more than a writhing time bomb, gripping the pillows of the couch like my life depended on it.
A symphony of feral sounds coming from both of us was the soundtrack to the crescendo of promise between my legs, but I was so far past the point of caring.
My dignity was a distant memory, too easily eclipsed by a pair of dark green eyes, a torso full of tattoos and muscles, and a mischievous smile that was as inviting as it was infuriating.
And when that dark green stare looked up at me over my undulating hips, I knew there would be no turning back.
“It would be so cruel of me to stop now when you’re this close,” he said as every cell vibrated at the thought of him thrusting inside me. I was lost to rational thought, nothing more than a vessel of need and desire that had to be sated at any cost. Nothing else mattered more in that moment.
“Yael!” I cried as the pounding between my thighs and my impending orgasm threatened to tear me in two.
I fisted his hair in my hands as my climax took hold, tethering him in place as my body came undone.
Panting like a wild animal, I lay sprawled out with an arm draped over my eyes, remembering the delight in his as I came.
“It’s time to get up,” he whispered in my ear just loud enough for me to hear over my pounding pulse.
Laughter ripped through the room, yanking me from my post-sex haze, and I shot off the couch, breathing hard.
My shins bit into something solid, and I fell to the floor.
Blinking repeatedly, I looked at the coffee table I’d run into that hadn’t been there a moment ago—noticed the tangle of comforter cocooned around me and the pants still covering my legs that had most definitely been naked moments earlier.
Then I found Yael staring at me from beside the couch, arms folded across a black t-shirt he hadn’t been wearing a second ago.
My brain struggled to make sense of it all. Once it did, horror shot through me at its conclusion. I’d dreamed the whole thing—while he watched.
“Well, well, well,” he said as he walked over, smiling like the all-knowing bastard he was, “looks like I unraveled you after all.”