Chapter Nine. Ember #8
He stares at me for so long that my questions seem to ricochet off the walls, growing louder and louder.
Or maybe that’s just how the regret and embarrassment churning in my gut make it appear.
I should’ve kept my mouth shut. Never should’ve given him a glimpse into how his answer …
matters. But it does. The not knowing will eat me alive.
I need to pinpoint, to examine to death the moment I became important to Asad Prince.
Shit.
“I’m not Marcus, ma.”
“I know that.”
“Do you?”
I scoff. “Yes.”
“Then act like it.”
See? This is why we can’t have nice things. Talking to Asad without feeling homicidal is like Yogi Bear waltzing through Jellystone Park and not committing a little larceny of picnic baskets. The shit’s just not happening.
I hop off the table and head for the door.
But before I can take a third step, a big hand cuffs the back of my neck, halting me dead in my tracks like a misbehaving puppy.
The comparison sends anger spiking inside me, and I whip around—or I attempt to whip around.
That grip tightens, and I’m jerked backward, almost off my feet, slamming into Asad’s hard, wide chest.
Holy shit. Did this muthafucka just 365 Days me?
“I’m beginning to think you like this toxic shit, ’cause you stay trying me, ma.” That low, dark growl rumbles in my ear, his lips grazing the top curve.
I just manage to imprison the humiliating gasp scrambling up my throat. But there’s not shit I can do about the bottoming out of my stomach or the liquid, molten heat filling it. Or the moisture already wetting up my lower lips and panties. This man doesn’t mean my sanity or pussy any good.
“I don’t like fuck all about you,” I say, grasping ahold of my dignity with bloody fingernails.
He chuckles, and goddammit, a shiver crashes through me. There’s no way he missed it. The press of his chest to my back, the grinding of that big, long dick against my ass, clue me in that he caught every ripple that coursed through my body.
“Lie to yourself, but don’t bother doing that shit with me, baby girl.” He looses another of those rumbling, barely there laughs. “We both know there’s at least one part of you that likes me.”
He wraps an arm around my waist and dips his hand between my legs, cupping my pussy. If she wasn’t already leaking, she would be now. I sink my teeth into my bottom lip and clutch his thick wrist. To tug his hand away … to hold it tighter against me … I’m as indecisive as my sex.
Scratch that.
My pussy is decisive as hell.
“She loves the fuck outta me.” He squeezes my flesh, grinding the heel of his palm against my clit and setting off a chain reaction of electrical currents.
They crackle up to my stomach, and it goes concave, before they double back and sizzle a path down my suddenly trembling legs to the soles of my feet.
He just broke me in last night, and already my body responds to his touch like a trained circus animal.
With immediate obedience and expecting a reward.
“I can feel how hot she already is for me, and if I dragged down these dick-tease pants, I bet this pussy would wet me up. She knows who she belongs to.”
I … Oh fuck. I can’t.
This isn’t a shadowed library where I can convince myself my choices were limited.
That sex was inevitable and that he was going to take it one way or another and the act of surrendering was a way of retaining some of my power.
That pleasure from fucking him was biological, with no emotional attachment.
That I still hated him.
No, this is a cold, brightly lit conference room where none of those … arguments will stand. Not when reason isn’t clouded by greedy lust and desperate need.
Gripping his wrist tighter, I wrench it away from between my legs and tear from his hold. My neck and pussy burn as if branded, but I ignore them and turn to face him, inserting a safe space between us.
His gray eyes gleam, and for a second, I have the inane impulse to tilt my head back and bare my throat to him. Make myself vulnerable and submit to him.
Oh shit. This man is way more dangerous than I ever imagined.
He’s a threat to my very existence.
My hard-fought independence.
“Answer my question,” I say, the calm, even tone not reflecting the chaos wrecking shop inside me. “Why do you care about my opinion?”
“Do you or do you not hold a bachelor’s degree in biology and two master’s in biochemistry and chemical engineering?
” He doesn’t give me an opportunity to respond but continues.
“Were you the only one in the room with an IQ of 158?” I frown, unaware he knew that information.
“Were you the only person attending that meeting with the exclusive knowledge of our product? Are you or are you not the last living member of the Cross family?”
I wave a hand, dismissive, even though the frantic, wild knocking of my heart more accurately relays the mixture of panic, anger and—God, I hate it—yearning written inside of me.
“None of that mattered to Marcus.”
He frowns at me as if genuinely confused, tipping his head to the side. “Maybe I was too quick in mentioning that high IQ ’cause I could’ve sworn I just said I’m. Not. Marcus.”
“No, you’re worse,” I murmur. “At least with him, I could trust in his disinterest, his neglect. This”—I sweep the same hand to the right, encompassing the room—“I can’t.
Your outing me to the organization, introducing me as your fiancée, defending me to Michelle, and asking for my observations like they have weight…
” I shake my head. “No. I won’t trust it.
Sex and playing like some fucking prince storming in to slay the dragon won’t erase years of pain and torture.
So you’re absolutely right. You’re not Marcus.
I could never make that mistake. It isn’t my father who invades my nightmares. ”
Storm clouds gather in his eyes, transforming them into a gray so dark they nearly appear black. A shiver backpedals down my spine, but I force my feet to remain in place. As much as I like to believe I’m not afraid of Asad, there’s no denying he’s bigger, heavier, stronger.
God … If only it was his strength that presented the biggest threat. I wish I could claim that.
But when I bled on his dick, it usurped the crown.
Even now, shame crawls through me on its dirty hands and knees, head bowed, because while fear treads through me at the menace brewing in Asad’s narrowed gaze, so does lust. So does excitement as electric and stunning as lightning.
Head for the door. You don’t want none of what’s in those eyes.
My self-preservation is working time and a half today.
“You seem bothered by what I said.”
Fuuuuck.
“You’re one privileged muthafucka.” He shakes his head, releasing a low, rumbling chuckle. But if “ain’t shit funny” was a sound, that would be it. “A blind one, too.”
I frown. It’s the second time he’s said something along those lines to me.
“Privileged?” The “blind” comment didn’t offend me as much as that one.
No, insult me. Because Asad had me fucked up.
“Your big ass really standing here accusing me of being privileged? The same muthafucka who only had to walk through the front door of my home to be labeled the golden child by a man who couldn’t even tell you my favorite color if I held a Glock to his forehead.
Whose every wish and need were granted before he even opened his mouth to voice it?
Who inherited a kingdom simply by owning a dick and a pair of balls?
” I screw my face up. “And you wonder why I can’t trust none of this bullshit—why I can’t trust you.
Because of the shit you just allowed to come out of your mouth.
Standing there like the injured party when the reason for the hell I endured, the reason you have the keys to a stolen empire, was just sitting at the right-hand side of your table.
You know what’s fucking privilege? Being so goddamn arrogant to think I would ever believe you meant anything good for me as long as you remain aligned with that bitch of a moth—”
“Shut the fuck up.”
He moves so fast I don’t have time to blink, much less move.
One moment, he’s glaring at me from across a safe distance, and in the next, his body is crushed against mine, hard, steely muscles to my softer curves, his big fists twisted in the lapels of my suit jacket.
Snatching me up so only the tips of my stilettoes scrape the floor.
Faint echoes of alarm blare in my head, my chest, quiver in my belly. But they’re nearly suffocated by the razor-sharp, greedy edge of anticipation slowly piercing me, slicing deep. Seeping dirty excitement into my bloodstream.
This is us. This has always been us, if I’m being repulsively, yet starkly, honest.
Hatred denying lust. Revulsion masking fascination. Resentment justifying shame.
Asad Prince has always been easy to loathe.
And easier to crave.
I cover his fist, grabbing at his clenched fingers, attempting to wrench them away from me. But this is more than a struggle to free myself from his grip. It’s a futile struggle to escape the truth.
Disgust races across Asad’s face, and then he releases me so fast, I stumble backward, my heels almost slipping out from underneath me. I quickly steady myself, but there’s nothing I can do for the erratic racing of my pulse, the frantic pounding of my heart … the slick, hungry ache of my pussy.
“I swear to God, for someone so fucking smart, you don’t see a muthafuckin’ thing.
The world doesn’t revolve around you, ma, and you don’t corner the market on tragedy and loss,” he says, voice so cold, so flat, I almost wish he’d shout at me, read me for filth.
But this … this emptiness has a dread yawning wide behind my sternum, and I don’t know how to close it. How to fill it.
“Asad—” I whisper.