Page 33 of Owned

“There was a reason for that,” I snapped without thinking.

The bright gold of his eyes glittered suddenly, and just like that we were back in the bathroom of La Chouette again, with him pressing me up against the vanity, holding my chin the way he was doing now, the air taut and electric between us.

“Is it because of Cait?” he asked. “Are you doing all of this for her?”

I didn’t want to tell him. I didn’t want to give him a damn thing, but it was obvious he wasn’t going to let me go until he had an answer, and arguing with him would only make things worse.

But I couldn’t help myself. Unable to keep the intensity from my voice, I said, “Everyone left her, Atlas. Everyone. And she needs help. No one can do that for her except me, so yes, she’s why I’m doing it.”

His gaze narrowed. “No, I offered to help you, Rowan. I offered so you didn’t have to do all the marriage and baby bullshit. So why are you insisting on climbing on the pyre now? You don’t get prizes for being the biggest martyr, beauty.”

His nearness was making it difficult to think, difficult to breathe. In fact, it seemed as if everything was harder when he was around. Everything he said got under my skin irritating me, confusing me, and every time he looked at me I seemed to lose myself.

It stoked the fury that simmered away inside me. The fury I thought I’d left behind years ago, but clearly hadn’t. Fury at him for leaving Mom and I. For never getting in touch with us after he left. For being in that room in Arcadia at the same time I was. For buying me a wedding dress and a bouquet. And last but certainly not least, for stripping away some of the harmless little lies I told myself to keep from wanting things I couldn’t have and never would, exposing my stupid weakness for him, that was making everything ten million times harder than it needed to be.

“What do you care?” I burst out, the fury getting the better of me. “You walked away, Atlas. Which means this has got nothing whatsoever to do with you.”

The look in his eyes flared, but his grip on my jaw was unyielding. He said nothing, leaving space for me to hear my own desperate voice echoing around the cavernous interior of the room.

It was too much. I couldn’t bear it anymore, the dense electricity that seemed to crackle between us, the way my heart raced when he was near, and how he seemed to see right through every layer of protection I had. Right down to the same desperate, attention-starved girl I’d been all those years ago. When all I’d wanted was for him to stay and not walk out the door, leaving Mom and I alone.

I tried to jerk my chin from his grip, but he wouldn’t let me. “No,” he said roughly, holding me tight. “I might have walked away back then, but I’ll be fucked if I walk away now.”

He wasn’t going to let me go, that was clear, so I did the first thing that entered my head. I leaned forward and pressed my mouth to his.

I didn’t know what I was thinking. Perhaps some part of me was hoping he’d recoil in shock and finally release me, but of course that’s not what happened. Because as soon as my mouth touched his, a desperate, wild hunger rose in me. A hunger that felt too big, an impossible, terrifying need I couldn’t hide or contain, that was much too powerful to control.

So it was me who recoiled and tried to pull away, afraid not of him but the sheer depth of the feelings inside me. But his fingers were pressed hard to my jaw and I couldn’t.

“Shh,” he murmured against my mouth. “Breathe.”

I sucked a trembling breath in through my nose, the feel of his lips, so warm against mine, almost too much. I trembled, terrified of the battle for self-control going on inside me. And that self-control was slipping, a rope falling through my fingers that I had no hope of catching.

An unconscious sound tore from my throat, a cross between a whimper and a groan, every sense focused utterly on him and where he was touching me, those bright points of contact.

His mouth on mine. His fingers against my skin.

Everything I’d ever wanted since I was sixteen years old, and everything I’d fought so hard to deny.

My resistance was slipping too, draining out of my body, sucked away by the force of my hunger for him. I wasn’t strong enough to stop it, not now. I’d spent too long fighting it, too long denying it and now I was tired of the battle.

I reached for him, grabbing his shirt, wanting to pull him to me or pull myself up into him, I wasn’t sure which. But his other hand was somehow at the back of my head, his fingers digging into my hair, taking it in his fist and gripping me hard, holding me where I was.

“Keep still,” he ordered.

There was a hard edge to his tone that I’d never heard before and it made me tremble, made my desperation even worse. I had no control over it anymore. It was too big, too intense. I wanted him so badly I couldn’t breathe, and I didn’t know what to do. I was an empty pit of need, desperate for him to fill it.

He lifted his mouth from mine, staying only a breath away. “I know what you want, beauty,” he murmured. “Believe me, I know. But we’re getting married in just under an hour and we don’t have a lot of time to discuss this.”

“Please…” I gasped out, barely conscious of what I was saying, aware of nothing but the hunger that was eating me alive. “Please…” I tried to close the gap between us, to press my mouth to his, but his grip on my hair tightened, pain prickling all over my scalp.

“No.” The word was a growl. “Do as you’re told.”

I shuddered. Whatever he was going to give me, I wanted it. I’d gotten beyond self-control now, beyond fear, beyond shame. I was simply a creature made of desire and desire for him.

He lifted his head, looking down at me, golden eyes molten. “Another question you never answered last week. You know the one.”

Oh yes, I knew. The one about me wanting him. The words he wanted me to say out loud and yet I never did.

---