10. Phoenix #2
He is still lying on my bed, reading something on his phone and waiting for me. As I enter the room, his gaze flicks over to me, and his tongue darts out to lick his lips. He sets the phone down and sits on the edge of the bed.
“Looks like I got your sizes right,” he says, his eyes tracking up and down my body. “But I need to make sure that you’re following the rules. You understand.”
I don’t reply. I don’t need to say anything. He’s going to do whatever he’s going to do, and there’s really nothing I can do to stop it. And a part of me that feels foreign and unleashed and free for the first time…isn’t altogether certain I would stop him even if I could.
I expect him to tell me to lift the dress to show him I’m not wearing underwear or to move the top aside to show him my breast.
Instead, he gets off the bed and stalks over to me, backing me up until my shoulders meet the wall.
He presses me flat against it with one hand on my chest, just below my throat.
His other hand coasts gently over my ribcage, then slips beneath the fabric to caress the side of my breast. Pain from the bruising there flares and dissipates swiftly.
My breath hitches in my lungs, and his gaze locks on mine, predatory and intent.
“No bra, good girl,” he purrs. His hand leaves my breast and slides further down the dress. A little sound escapes me—protest, encouragement? I’m not sure. “Am I going to be disappointed?” he growls. “We have ways of punishing little firebirds who break the rules.”
“I did as you asked, sir.” The sir is meant to be a taunt, and maybe if my voice wasn’t so breathy, it would have come out like one.
“Hmm. We’ll see about that.” He slides his hand down my body to my outer thigh, where he grabs an experimental handful of flesh before moving back up the inside of my leg and under my dress.
I have to close my eyes, unable to sustain eye contact. Suddenly, every nerve in my body is alight with the need to feel more of him. I want him to touch me .
This.
This was the difference in my decision to essentially whore myself out to the Titans, rather than Baldy and Pedo-stash’s boss.
I want this. I’ve wanted them for years. I’ve stuffed my fascination with them and my jealousy of all the women they’ve paraded in and out of their rooms down deep, until I hardly recognized it for what it was.
Attraction. Intense, compelling, animal attraction.
Maverick’s hand moves between my legs, and I have to flex my thighs to stop them from shaking with anticipation.
I’ve dreamed of this. Dreamed of him touching me, and more…of Con encouraging it.
Maverick has the body of a warrior and jaw-dropping strength from a powerful, well-muscled build. I want to feel that power.
I want him to pick me up. I want him to brace my thighs on his shoulders as he pins me against the wall and eats me until I scream his name.
I want him to flip me over onto a bed on all fours and fuck me.
Hard. Fast. Furious. He is never gentle, never subtle.
Maverick is nothing but sheer power, and I want every bit of it focused on me.
Those dirty fantasies flood my mind, and having him so close to me, smelling like warm spice and sin, has my blood heating.
I can’t help the way my body responds. His hand moves between my thighs, and his fingers slide against my slit, feeling how wet I am for him.
He lets out a low growl and presses the length of his body more firmly against mine. The sensation of being trapped by him should scare me, but it doesn’t.
“Such a good girl.”
My pussy clenches around his fingers when he murmurs those words, and my cheeks burn. I know he can feel how much I want him, and I can’t believe that this is happening. I can’t believe that ridiculous phrase, whispered in his rough voice, affects me so intensely, so easily.
He runs the pad of his middle finger around my clit. Not enough to give me any satisfaction, but enough to work me up .
“Did you read the contract?” he asks, his finger lingering over my clit, making me ache for him.
“Yes.”
“And you know what we intend to do to you?”
“I know what you’re allowed to do to me,” I say. A moan falls from between my lips as his thumb begins circling me lazily. “Tell me what you want to do to me.”
“Hm. A question for you, first. Why are you here, little firebird?” he asks as the pleasure in my core builds with the way his fingers are working my clit. My eyelids feel heavy, but I can’t close them. I can’t look away from his gaze.
“I’m here because you and the other Titans?—”
“No, I want to know why you’re here. I know why we want you here, but no one forced you to sign that contract. What do you want with us, little firebird?”
“You asked for me specifically.” The urge to tell him everything—the mafia’s threats, my father’s debts, the sword of Damocles swinging over my head—I want to tell him all of it .
I know better, though. Taking a breath, I lock it down and push the urge aside.
Maverick shakes his head a little. “You read the contract. You’ve gotta know Con is aiming for revenge. Why would you agree to that? Why would you agree to let us use you, fuck you, hurt you, and do whatever the fuck we want to you…for an entire year? Do you have so little self-respect?”
I flinch. That stings. Of course I respect myself. I respect myself enough not to want to end up dead.
His fingers work harder, moving faster as he demands his answer, but I don’t know how to answer him without spilling my truths, so I say nothing.
“Stay quiet, then. I’ll learn your secrets, Phoenix, every single one of them.
I will pull them from your body one by one.
Whether it requires pain or pleasure, I will find out what makes you tick.
Nothing will stop me, even if I have to spend hours taking you apart and putting you back together again. I’ll have it all.”
“Do you promise?” I ask on a swallow. I’m pretty sure his words are meant to be a threat, but they sound like they’ll make a heaven out of the hell he intends.
He smirks to cover his surprise. “You’re an odd one, Phoenix Jones.”
“What are you going to do about it?” I rephrase my earlier question, suddenly feeling bold, sexy, and wanted.
I’m not sure if it’s the dress, the fire in his eyes as he stares down at me, or the way his fingers are still moving inside my channel and over my clit, pushing me towards what promises to be the best orgasm of my life.
“Little firebird, there are so many things that I’m going to do to you.
This year, you’re going to learn to crave my cock.
You’re going to learn the right way to serve me on your knees and how to take my cock wherever I tell you to.
” He takes my hand and presses it to his chest, then slides it down his body so I can feel the hard ridges of his abdomen beneath his silky button-down shirt, and then still further, down to his jeans where I can feel his hard cock throbbing.
Sweet Saint Mary.
I knew he had to be big. There’s no way a man could get to be six feet, five inches, with shoulders as broad as Maverick’s, and not be proportionally endowed. The man is built to be a linebacker in the NFL. I knew he would be well above-average, but I didn’t expect his cock to be so thick.
I’m not sure, feeling it through his jeans, how I’m supposed to fit that anywhere. Though he did just say he was going to teach me how to take it. I have a feeling I’m going to need several lessons.
“So how long, little firebird? How long will it take to train your body to take all of this?”
I have no idea what the right answer is, but I keep my hand where he left it and stroke up and down, getting a feel for it, feeling more than a little powerful as his eyes slide closed for a moment.
“Yeah, this game’s going to be fun.” He grabs my throat and squeezes just behind my jaw so my mouth opens. Sliding his fingers from my body, he uses them to paint my lips with my own arousal.
Then he seals his lips over mine, tasting all of me in one sweet and tart kiss. I can taste myself on his tongue, an unfamiliar but not unappealing flavor.
He draws back, staring down at me broodingly. “ Good girl,” he murmurs once again, almost thoughtfully.
Releasing me, he steps back and then walks out of the room.
I remain standing there, frozen. I don’t understand.
He clearly wanted to fuck me. The way he was touching me, how hard his cock was…I don’t get why he didn’t? He can. Wasn’t that the entire point of that ridiculous contract?
Isn’t that why they had me sign away my rights for the next year? So I am theirs to do with as they please? Why would he walk away?
I suddenly feel cold and empty, tears prickling at the back of my eyes as my body continues to tremble with the remnants of my denied pleasure.
He left me on the edge of something brutal and beautiful—and I can’t decide if it was mercy, cruelty, or just another game.
But I want to win. I want him to lose his grip the way I just did. I want more than pleasure.
I want proof that even Titans can fall.