Page 24 of Owned

She gave a convulsive swallow, her attention so completely on me it was as if I was her whole world, and that was getting me hard. Did she know what she was doing to me? Was she aware of how she was getting beneath my skin?

Women liked me and they all loved how I fucked them. They wanted the easy-going playboy, the lover extraordinaire who’d do them any way they wanted, who’d fulfil all their sexual fantasies. But they never saw the beast. The monster my father had brought me up to be, dominant, possessive, controlling. I made sure I kept him locked up tight, where no one could see and where he couldn’t do any damage, so I had no idea why little Rowan James had somehow unlocked the cage I kept him in.

Perhaps it was the way she looked at me, as if she could see that beast beneath my skin and wanted what he could give her. Was desperate for what he could give her. Desperate for me.

Except, she really was an innocent and no, she likely had no idea what she was doing to me, and she should be afraid. Because I was the last thing a woman like her should ever want.

To prove my point, I pressed insistently against her, shifting my hips so the hard line of my cock nudged the softness between her thighs.

Her whole body shuddered. “A-Atlas…”

Yes, she should say my name like that. Whispered, like a prayer. Then she needed to get down on her knees, open her mouth and worship me the way I wanted her to. The way I demanded to be worshipped.

She will love it and so will you.

I would, that was the problem. I’d been a good boy for years, getting women off however they asked me to, always a generous, unselfish lover. Yet the dark heart of me, the selfish part, was tired of giving. It wanted to take and take everything from this sweet, innocent young thing. Take that innocence, defile her, own her, and make her love every second of it.

“That’s my name,” I murmured. “If you want me to stop, you just have to say ‘stop, Atlas’.”

Her jaw firmed, resistance stiffening her muscles as she glared furiously at me. But there was no ‘stop, Atlas’. There was nothing but silence.

And I still hadn’t gotten what I wanted from her.

“It’s like that then, is it?” Very slowly, I traced the line of her lower lip with my thumb, relishing the tender heat of her skin. “Time to tell me the truth, Rowan.”

A convulsive shiver ran through her, though she didn’t pull away. But if looks could kill I’d be carried home in a bucket. “Why should I?” she demanded, her voice breathless and husky. “Why should I tell you anything at all?”

The better part of me was lost now as the monster rose to the surface, and I nearly smiled, admiring how she was still fighting me. Good. I liked that. It would make her eventual surrender so much sweeter. “Because I fucking asked you to.”

“I’m not your slave,” she shot back.

“But I think you want to be.” I spread my fingers out on her jaw, caressing. “I think being my slave is exactly what you’re so desperate for.”

For one long second she stared at me as if hypnotized, and I could see something raw, hungry flicker deep in her eyes. Then her hands came up and she pressed them against my chest, the heat of her palms burning through the cotton of my T-shirt. But she didn’t push me away. Instead, she kept on staring up at me, the hungry light in her eyes beginning to dissipate as confusion took its place.

Keep playing with her. She’ll give you what you want eventually..

That thought made a cold thread of reality wind through me, cutting through the haze of desire fogging my brain. What I was doing was wrong. I shouldn’t be holding her like this, touching her like this, because it was clear that she truly didn’t understand what she wanted or even understand her own desires. Maybe she was even horrified by them, and yet here I was, using her confusion and her innocence against her to get what I wanted.

I was twenty years older than her, more powerful than her in every way, and I was her ex-stepfather. I wasn’t any kind of man for her, and yet…

“Am I wrong?” I couldn’t seem to make my fingers release her jaw. They kept pressing against her skin, gripping her firmly, forcing her to confront her own hunger.

She took another ragged breath. “Yes. Yes, you’re wrong.”

Except the look in her eyes said otherwise. Little liar.

“Then you’d better let go of my shirt, hadn’t you?” I murmured.

Her gaze dropped to where her fingers had curled into the cotton of my tee, clinging on as if they were somehow operating without her conscious control.

There was another moment of tense silence and I was painfully aware of the softness and heat of her body, and of how my cock was pressed against her, and how all I’d have to do to be inside her was to yank up her skirt, slide aside the crotch of her panties…

Rowan glanced up at me again and just for a second, like a curtain rising, naked heat glowed in her eyes, a hunger that took my breath away. Then both were gone, lost under another solar flare of anger and her hands dropped away.

“Why do you care?” she snapped. “Why is the truth so important to you?”

“Because I want to help you.” The words came out in a growl. “If Charlotte’s manipulated you into?—”

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