Page 42 of Sold to the Nalgar
Her jaw clenched. Her fingers dug into her knees.
He leaned in, just enough for his breath to brush her cheek. “Pleasure can be a leash, too.”
She flinched—barely—but he felt it.
It was beginning.
He drew back with a slow, deliberate smile, not one of cruelty, but of certainty. "I will not force you, Cecilia. But I willteachyou. You will learn how it feels to be touched. Desired. Worshipped.”
He let his gaze travel over her, taking in her bare feet tucked beneath her, the tendrils of dark hair clinging to her neck, the curve of her shoulder bared slightly by the loose robe.
She swallowed.
He saw her pulse flutter.Sensedit.
Yes.
There it was.
The first crack in the wall.
“I wonder,” he murmured, more to himself than to her, “how long before you stop pretending you don’t want it too.”
He didn’t rise.
Instead, he shifted closer until their knees nearly touched on the bed. Her breath hitched.
He heard it.
Savoredit.
It wasn’t fear.
Not entirely.
There was something else.
Anticipation.
He reached out—not to seize, not to dominate, not yet—but to show. To demonstrate the control he possessed… and the restraint he would choose to use.
His hand, bare now, powerful and elegant, brushed a strand of hair from her cheek. At first, she flinched, but she didn’t pull away.
That was all the permission he needed.
Zarokh’s palm cupped the side of her face, his thumb brushing across the delicate slope of her cheekbone. She was warm beneath his touch. So warm. The contrast of her soft skin to the strength of his hand sent a thrill up his spine.
“You are… exquisite,” he said softly, letting the translator feed the words to her in perfect English—her human tongue. “Do you know what it does to me, to be so close to something so... alive?”
She didn’t answer. But her lips parted slightly, and her lashes fluttered. He watched her pulse flutter in her neck.
She was fighting him… but she was also listening.
Good.
He leaned in, closer still, so close he could scent her properly now, beneath the antiseptic tang of the cleansing chamber, beneath the faint minerals of the robe’s fabric.
There it was.
