Page 4 of Desperate Measures
Freedom, true freedom, waits.
Entrapment bites at my heels.
I know he expects me to take the main route to the front door, a wide hallway that cuts nearly the length of my father’s house. It’s meant to showcase his wealth, the walls lined with priceless works of art and each open doorway giving glimpses of rooms filled with more of the same. This is where my father brings people when he wants to impress them, intimidate them, influence them.
Or at least he used to. I can’t think about that now.
I swing around the corner and race through the second door down the hall. If I can lose Jafar in the maze of rooms populating the floor plan, I might have an actual chance.
The thought barely forms in my mind when a weight hits my back hard enough to take me to the floor. I shriek and throw my hands out, but Jafar is already rolling us, taking the brunt of the impact.?1 The temptation to go limp, to give in, to not make this a fight, rises.
Fuck that.
I elbow him with everything I’ve got, and his quiet oomph is music to my ears. His grip goes slack for half a second, and that’s all I need to slither out of the cage he’s made of his body. I almost make it. He catches me around my hips and flips me onto my back.
And then he’s there, where I’ve dreaded and desired him, between my thighs, pinning my hips to the ground with his weight, his hands bracketing my wrists in a bruising grip. Overpowering me so easily, he’s not even breathing hard. I loathe him so much in that moment, I arch up and try to headbutt him. All that does is draw a low rumble of a laugh from his throat. “Brat.”
“I hate you.”
“Do you?”
How can he lie here and talk to me as if we’re having any other conversation in any other circumstance? I can’t catch my breath, can’t think past the hard length of his cock pressed against me, his heavy weight holding me down. “Let me go.”
“No.” He transfers both my wrists to one of his hands and forces my arms over my head.
I fight him. Of course I fight him. But the thrashing only loosens my robe, the silk sliding across my bare breasts and exposing me.
Jafar glances down, and his mouth goes hard. He uses his free hand to clasp my chin, stilling me. “Last chance, Yasmina.”?2
I know what he wants to hear.
If I had any sense of self-preservation, I’d give him the word that would stop everything. For reasons I refuse to examine, I won’t. I have lost so much in the last few months. I can’t lose any more. I won’t.
I wrench my chin out of his grip and bite his thumb. Hard. He doesn’t wince. To show even that much reaction would be too much for Jafar. He just leans away enough to flip me back onto my stomach before his weight pins me in place again. I fight, but I might as well rail against a hurricane. I’m helpless as he maneuvers my legs farther apart and grips my throat, arching me back until I’m looking down the hallway we lie in the middle of. His beard scrapes against my neck, and then I feel his teeth against the sensitive skin there. “Scream if it makes you feel better. We both know why you won’t make me stop. You want this.”
“I don’t want this.” I might want this.
One of his hands snakes between my stomach and the floor, working ever southward. “Shall we see about that?”
I thrash, but he’s got me too effectively pinned. Humiliation heats my face. I know what he’ll find even before his fingers slip beneath the band of my silk panties and lower yet. The truth of me. Hot and wet and aching to be filled by him.
No. No, damn it, I shouldn’t want this.
But a whimper still escapes my lips when he pushes a single finger into me. How many times have I imagined being touched like this? A thousand? A hundred thousand? More. It’s not the same when it’s my fingers driving me to new heights. I’m too soft, too tentative, too me.
Jafar is none of those things. He touches me like he’s known my body before. Like maybe he’s imagined this, too.
He doesn’t give me the chance to get over the shock of him doing this here. In the middle of the hallway where I can hear low male voices not too far away. Does he think to defile me in my father’s house? Right on the floor like a pair of animals?
He withdraws his hand and holds his finger in front of my face, wet with my traitorous desire. “Tell me again how you don’t want this.”
Time and time again, stretching back through my entire life, I have bent instead of standing my ground. Every. Single. Time. If I was smart, I’d do it this time, too.
He tenses against my back, his body filled with the promise of violence and more. Would he be gentle with me if I conceded, if I admitted just how much I want this?
I’ll never know. “I don’t want this.” Even as my mouth forms the words, my hips lift against his, the slightest undulation to betray me.
Jafar curses. “Stubborn until the bitter end.” He shoves up my robe and shifts his grip to the back of my neck, pushing my face against the cool tile of the floor. A rip and then my panties are gone, tossed against the wall in my line of sight. Discarded and forgotten.
