Page 23 of Deception

Fuck!

The arctic bite of the water is razor-sharp when I dive deeper into the black depth to pull the girl out. Her hair is floating about her, making it impossible to see her face as I grasp her wrist and pull her up to me. I hold her tightly to my body as I kick to the surface, using my free arm to propel us faster. The cold air burns like a motherfucker when we break through the water. Her loud gasp inflames my irritation as she grasps onto my shoulders and tries to pull away.

“What the fuck were you thinking?” I snap, pulling her body completely flush to mine even though I should hold her under for her insolence. “Are you fucking stupid?”

Breathless, Red holds my stare with that infuriating defiance of hers, gritting her teeth.

“You wanted to play games, didn’t you?”

Her hand twists in my T-shirt as she grinds her fist to my chest. Now that her fight is back, I can’t wait to go a few rounds with it. I’ve never known a person to be so resilient. It’s more than backbone, and until this moment—with the way she’s holding her ground and still giving as good as she gets—I didn’t quite appreciate her value. Breaking her would be wasteful and stupid. In the right hands—my hands—this girl is a formidable weapon. Whether she meant to, Red has given me a reason to keep her. For a while, at least.

“Don’t look at me like that!” she bites at me, her hand releasing my top and grasping my face the same way I like to hold hers. “You can let me out of my cage at your leisure and have me run laps around this place, but I will never be your pet.”

So she speaks, but her body is saying something completely different as it bows to mine. Her chest heaves while she keeps squeezing my jaw and her other hand latches onto the side of my neck as I wade us towards the bank. Full lips gape in a huff turned gasp when I clasp her slender throat, never relinquishing the tether of her eyes as I hoist her higher. My hand at her waist moulds to her ass as I relish the friction of her small body on mine.

“Wha-w-what do you want?” The shiver that wracks through her makes it impossible to ignore the press of her nipples to my chest as she looks down at me.

Hot breath skims over my face, sending a racing current down my spine. Our proximity is exhilarating. Handling Red has a dangerous edge to it, like holding a ticking time bomb. I know she’s going to explode eventually, but the knowledge only serves to knot my insides tighter than ever. And as we stand here, my chest pulses along with hers.

Tick, tick, thrum…

Water droplets drip from her lips onto mine, and like rain in the dry desert, it makes me thirsty. More parched than I have ever been for anything. My mouth dries, and my throat swells. Fuck, my lips burn with the moisture dripping from her skin onto mine.

When I lick over my mouth, barely avoiding that full pout of hers that’s trembling, she sighs. I don’t know if it’s with relief from being so close to land. I can’t discern whether her shivers are from the cold or whether it’s the same uncontainable need that I feel that’s rampaging through her, too.

It’s as infuriating as it is thrilling. A forbidden pull that is so wrong and so dangerous, but oh so fucking sweet. I can smell it in the surrounding air, edging her breath and filling my lungs.

“What do you really want from me, Tomasz?”

The assonance of my name from her lips is a sucker punch I never saw coming. My chest tightens as my heart freezes for that one second where it echoes through me.

Tomasz.

Tomasz.

Tomasz…

Licking over her lips, Red closes her eyes. Her thumbnail rakes over my throat as though she wants to snap my neck as much as I want to bite out her tongue. She lowers her face to mine, and the hand gripping my jaw sweeps into my hair, tangling at my nape at the same time as her eyes flutter open, long lashes flirting with mine.

As I walk us up the rowboat slope, she holds on tighter to me, legs hooking around my thighs.

“You refuse to kill me…” she utters, the tip of her nose brushing mine as I lower her down my body until her groin meets mine. Even through the cool wet fabric of her nightdress and my shorts, the heat of her pussy licks at my cock. “And you’ve had ample opportunities.”

So I have, and yet, here she is alive. More trouble than she might be worth if she doesn’t stop taunting me. The girl is sin personified—lust, wrath, and pride gleam in her eyes, calling to my insatiable greed. The more I hate her, the more I want her. I crave her in ways that I’ve never hungered for a woman.

“Toma—” I silence her with a hard bite to her lip that makes her stiffen in my hold.

My hand clenches tighter around her throat and hers in my hair. It doesn’t matter that she’s my prisoner or that I am her captor. For a split second, she’s just a girl. She knows who I am. She’s seen my rage and felt my violence, and in her silence, she’s begging me for more. Every cell in her body is crying out to mine, silencing the world around us so that it’s the only sound. Beautiful fucking music that I can’t help but dance to with her.

There’s no fear in her gaze as it widens on mine while I lick across the cracked skin of her lip and pull away, dragging my teeth over her flesh. I can’t stop the shudder that rolls through me at the taste of her blood singeing my tongue.

“You know what I want.” Tightening my grip on her arse, I tug her the rest of the way down my body onto her feet as I nod at the ground. “I already told you, and I don’t make a habit of repeating myself.”

“I’ll never submit to you.” Taking a step back, she rolls her lip between her teeth, sucking. Confusion flickers over her face while her hand hovers over her mouth, as though she wants to physically touch the ghost of our contact. Shaking her thoughts away, she swipes her hair from her face before pulling back some more and standing tall. Shoulders pulled back, she levels me with a cocked brow. “The more you try to break me, the stronger I’ll become.”

“Is that so?” Grabbing her hand, I tug her back to me when she spins to walk away.

The instant our hands touch, her fingers lace with mine even as she tells me, “Yes, it is.”

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