Chapter 11
Eleven
Persia
The devil stands before me with my handprint blooming across his cheek and a smile that makes my blood run hot and cold at the same time.
“Then here we are at the crossroads and the devil demands payment for the deal made.”
His words hang in the air between us, heavy with implication and the kind of dark promise that should send me running. But there is nowhere to run. My back is pressed against solid oak, and Rafael Milano fills every inch of space between me and freedom.
I should be terrified. I should be screaming, fighting, doing anything other than standing here with my chest heaving and my pulse pounding in places that have no business responding to a man who just told me he wants to use me as a broodmare.
But my body has not received the memo that this man is dangerous.
“I already told you,” I manage through gritted teeth, “I will not bring a child into this world to be used. Find another form of payment. I thought my virginity would be good enough.”
Something shifts in his expression, a crack in the cold facade he has been wearing since he laid out his terms. “And if there is no other payment I want?”
Now he’s just taunting me to see how far I’ll go to deny him.
Game on.
“Then we are at an impasse, Devil. I was clear I only had one form of payment. Looks like you didn’t read the fine print even though it was written in red.”
He moves so fast I do not have time to react.
One moment he is standing in front of me with that infuriating smile, and the next his hands are wrapped around my wrists and he is pinning them above my head against the door with one large palm.
His other hand finds the column of my throat, not squeezing, just holding, his thumb pressed against the pulse that is hammering wildly beneath my skin.
His thigh pushes between mine, forcing my legs apart, and the pressure against my core sends a bolt of electricity straight through my center.
“Let me go.” I try to twist free, but his grip is iron and his body is a wall of muscle that does not budge no matter how hard I struggle.
“I swear to everything you hold dear, the second you release me I am going to kick you in the balls so hard you will never produce an heir with anyone.”
His chuckle is low and dark and rolls through me like thunder before a storm. “I expect nothing less from my little hellcat.”
The sound does something to my insides, loosens something that has been wound tight since the moment he told me what he wanted.
I take a deep breath without meaning to, and I watch his eyes track the rise and fall of my chest with a hunger that makes my nipples tighten beneath the thin fabric of my tank top.
He notices. Of course he notices. This man notices everything.
“Agree to my terms,” he murmurs, leaning in close enough that I can feel the heat radiating from his skin. “Give me your word.”
“That I am going to kick you in the balls?” I spit back. “Done. Yes. I promise.”
Another chuckle, this one vibrating against my throat where his hand still rests. “Such fire. But that is not the promise I am after, and you know it.”
He turns his head and drags his stubble across the softness of my cheek, the rasp of it sending shivers cascading down my spine. The sensation is so unexpected, so intimate, that I gasp and my hips roll forward of their own accord, grinding against the thick muscle of his thigh.
The pressure against my clit is exquisite.
I have touched myself before, in the dark of my bedroom at my father's house when the loneliness became too much to bear, but this is different. This is someone else’s body against mine, someone else’s heat and hardness and the intoxicating scent of cedar and smoke filling my lungs with every breath.
“Persia.” His voice is a command wrapped in the softest silk as his teeth find my earlobe and bite down gently. “Let me hear the words.”
I am trembling now, caught between fury and arousal and the desperate need to maintain some shred of dignity. “You want me to give you an heir for saving me from Magnus?”
“Sounds fair.” His lips trace down the side of my neck, leaving a trail of fire in their wake. “Given that would have been a lifetime of misery. I am offering you something better. A partnership. A place at my side. A life where no one will ever hurt you again.”
He has a point. God help me, he has a point.
Magnus would have broken me. He would have used my body and crushed my spirit and turned me into the empty shell my mother has become. Rafael is offering me something different, something that looks like a cage but might actually be a kingdom if I am brave enough to claim it.
But a child. A baby. A living, breathing person who would be born into this world of violence and power plays and impossible choices.
“It’s blackmail of the worst kind. I cannot—”
His mouth cuts off my protest, capturing my lips in a kiss that steals the breath from my lungs and the thoughts from my head.
He releases my wrists and his hands find my ass, hauling me up his body with an ease that speaks to strength I can only imagine.
My legs wrap around his waist automatically, my skirt riding up my thighs until there is nothing between my core and the hard ridge of his arousal except the thin cotton of my underwear and the fabric of his trousers.
He is big. Even through the layers of clothing, I can feel the impressive length of him pressing against me, and a fresh wave of heat floods my center.
I kiss him back because I do not know how to do anything else. He releases his hold on my wrists. My fingers tangle in his dark hair, pulling him closer, deeper, and he groans into my mouth in a way that makes me feel powerful for the first time since I walked into his club three weeks ago.
His hands work at the buttons of the shirt I stole from his closet, and when they will not cooperate fast enough he simply tears it open, sending buttons scattering across the hardwood floor like tiny surrenders.
The tank top beneath follows, ripped down the center with a violence that should frighten me but only makes me wetter.
And then I am bare from the waist up, my breasts exposed to the cool air of his office and the burning heat of his gaze.
“Beautiful,” he breathes, and the reverence in his voice makes something crack inside my chest. “You are so fucking beautiful.”
He carries me to his desk and sweeps everything aside with one arm before laying me down on the cool wood surface.
Papers flutter to the floor, a lamp crashes somewhere in the darkness, but neither of us cares because his mouth is on my breast and his tongue is circling my nipple and I am drowning in sensation.
“Rafael.” His name comes out as a moan, and I feel him smile against my skin.
“I have waited two weeks to taste you.” He switches to my other breast, lavishing it with the same attention while his hands work at my skirt. “Two weeks of holding you every night and not touching you. Two weeks of waking up hard and aching and walking away because I was trying to be noble.”
The skirt slides down my hips and joins the ruins of my clothes on the floor. I am left in nothing but a pair of silk panties that leave little to his imagination. I’m spread across his desk like an offering, and the vulnerability of the position should terrify me.
Instead, I arch into his touch when his fingers trace the edge of my panties.
“Please.” The word escapes before I can stop it, a plea I did not know I was capable of making.
An animalistic growl tears from his lips. Raw primal power pulses with life between us and the vivid urge to let him devour me takes hold.
“Please what, little dove?” His voice is sin itself, dark and promising and full of things I have only read about in books. “Tell me what you want.”
“I do not know.” And it is the truth. I have no experience with this, no framework for the sensations flooding my body. All I know is that I need more, need him, need something I cannot name.
He hooks his fingers in my underwear and drags them down my legs, baring me completely to his gaze.
I should feel exposed, embarrassed, ashamed of the wetness I can feel coating my thighs.
But the way he looks at me, like I am something precious and rare and worth worshipping, makes me feel like a goddess instead of a sacrifice.
“Then let me show you.”
He drops to his knees between my spread thighs, and the first stroke of his tongue against my center makes me cry out so loudly I am certain the entire building can hear.
“Quiet, little dove.” His breath is hot against my most sensitive flesh. "Or do you want my brothers to know exactly what their king is doing to you right now?”
I press up on my elbows. “They can hear us?”
The thought should mortify me. Instead, it sends another pulse of arousal through my core, and Rafael laughs softly before returning to his task.
His smile is devilish. “No, now lie back.”
I do and he eats me like a man starving, like I am the first meal he has had in years and he intends to savor every bite.
His tongue traces patterns against my clit that have me writhing on his desk, my fingers scrabbling for purchase on the smooth wood surface.
When he pushes one finger inside me, testing my tightness, I nearly come apart right there.
I clutch the edges of the desk and bow in the center.
“So responsive.” He adds a second finger, stretching me in a way that burns and soothes at the same time. “So perfect. You have no idea how long I have wanted this.”
I am climbing toward something, a peak I can sense but have never reached with another person. My muscles are tightening, my breath coming in short gasps, my vision narrowing to nothing but the feeling of his mouth and his fingers and the pleasure building like a storm inside me.
And then he stops.
I push to my elbows again to see fire blazing in his eyes when he opens them and looks at me.
“No.” The word rips from my throat, desperate and wanting. “Rafael, please, I was so close—”
He flips me over with hands that are gentle despite their strength, positioning me face down on his desk with my ass in the air. I feel exposed in an entirely new way, vulnerable in a position that speaks to submission and surrender.
His hands spread me open, and I feel the heat of his breath against places no one has ever touched. When his tongue traces a path from my clit all the way back to nearly touching the tight ring of muscle there, I nearly scream.
“Has anyone ever touched you here?” His voice is rough with want.
“No.” The word comes out as a whimper. “Never. I have never—no one has ever—”
"Good." He returns to my pussy, licking and sucking with renewed intensity while his thumb traces teasing circles against my ass. The dual sensation is overwhelming, pleasure and pressure and the desperate need for release all tangled together until I cannot tell where one ends and another begins.
His fingers dig into flesh possessively.
I am so close. I can feel the orgasm building, cresting, about to crash over me like a wave.
And again, he stops.
I pound my fist against the hard wood of the desk, the air in my lungs locked in place. A sob escapes my lips, frustration and need combining into something that sounds like surrender.
I hear the rustle of papers, and then something slides across the desk in front of my face.
A warm light comes on to reveal a contract. The words blur before my eyes, but I can make out enough to understand what I am looking at.
A marriage agreement. Terms and conditions. A space for my signature at the bottom.
“Sign, my sweet dove.” His voice is velvet and steel, promise and threat all wrapped into one.
“Sign, and I will give you everything you want. The release you are desperate for. A place in my world. Protection from everyone who has ever hurt you.” His fingers slide back inside me, curling against a spot that makes stars explode behind my eyes. “All you have to do is sign.”
“What’s the fine print say?”
“An heir.”
A pause.
“You nearly died today. Don’t leave this world without knowing the pleasure of holding your own child. Or righting a wrong and raising that child with the love you were never shown.”
He curls his finger again and all the words he said makesense. There’s no way I am getting out of here without my signature on that contract anyway.
I should read the contract. I should demand time to review the terms, to negotiate, to maintain some semblance of control over my own fate. But I am spread across his desk with his fingers inside me and his breath hot against my skin, and rational thought has abandoned me entirely.
“One year.” The words come out broken, barely audible. "Give me one year. If it does not work, if I am miserable, you let me go.”
Another pause. His fingers still inside me, and I nearly weep at the loss of sensation.
“We can start there,” he agrees finally. “One year. And then we renegotiate.”
It is not a promise of freedom. It is not the escape I thought I wanted when I walked into his club three weeks ago.
But it is something. A timeline. A light at the end of a very long tunnel.
“Rafael.” My voice breaks on his name.
He takes the pen he placed beside the contract and adds the new term.
“Now. Sign.”
I reach for the pen with trembling fingers and scratch my name across the bottom of the contract. The ink is barely dry before he is pulling me up, spinning me around, lifting me into his arms like I weigh nothing at all.
“Good girl.” He kisses me deeply, and I taste myself on his tongue. "My good, brave, beautiful, sweet dove.”
He carries me out of the office and down the hallway, kicking open the door to his bedroom and laying me down on the massive bed where I have spent two weeks sleeping in his arms. But this time, he follows me down, covering my body with his own, his weight pressing me into the mattress in a way that feels like safety instead of captivity.
“I am going to make you mine now." His forehead presses against mine, his dark eyes boring into my soul. “Completely. Irrevocably. And when I am done, you will never doubt where you belong again.”
I should be afraid. I should be fighting, resisting, demanding answers to questions I have not even thought to ask.
Instead, I reach up and pull him down for a kiss.
“Then stop talking,” I whisper against his lips, “and show me.” He has my signature. I’ll let him worry about the contract I was already forced to sign with Magnus. Either way, there’s no turning back now.
The smile that spreads across his face is the most beautiful thing I have ever seen.
And then he does exactly as I asked.