He kicks my legs wider, and I let him. Good god, it’s maddeningly hot.

He jerks me higher against the wall, positioning me like I’m hispersonal plaything to arrange however he wants. His finger is strong and precise between my legs, creating spirals of sensation that radiate through my core and make my knees weak.

“Everything,” he says, his voice a dark promise that sends shivers down my spine.

“We’ll see about that,” I say with all the contempt I can muster, but my voice trembles.

“Yeah,” he says, eyes dark with triumph. His fingers work relentlessly, each stroke leaving a wake of unwanted pleasure. “There we go.”

I realize here that he thinks I’m coming.

Where could he have gotten such an idea? Does he think he knows me better than...

Something swells inside my belly—airy and bright. My vision is pinpoints of light, and a hurricane of feeling builds inside me.

I clench my muscles, fighting it. He doesn’t get to do this. He doesn’t get to be the one.

I cry out, and an explosion of sensation quakes through me.

“That’s it,” he says as I shiver to pieces.

If he wasn’t holding me up with his body, I’d fall.

He made me come.

A horrible criminal.

In an elevator.

A bell. Doors.

I’m gasping as he picks me up and puts me over his shoulder, firefighter-style.

My mind reels. I’m jelly. Another door. A lavish room.

He plops me down onto the bed. He’s the lion, and I’m the dead antelope that he’s going to feast on.

I stare up at him, stunned. A wild tremor goes through me because how dare he treat me like that?

He gazes down at me like he feels my angry thoughts and maybe even likes them. He’s perverse.

But I feel so weirdly alive.

He turns away and pours himself a drink. “If you have to pee, you better go now.”

“I don’t have to pee,” I say.

His voice is a low rumble. “You sure?”

Deep down, I know this is my opening, my chance to tell him I’m not really down for this.

He’s the kind of person I hate. But I’m desperate for more of him. In school, we’d call this a paradox.

“I should know.”

He shoots back his drink. Downstairs, he was sipping like he didn’t care for alcohol, but everything’s different up here—for both of us, maybe.

Chapter Six