Page 41 of A Lady's Handbook of Espionage
There was something obscene about his shamelessness. His head fell back, exposing the column of his throat, but his eyes stayed locked on Isabel’s. Like he was fucking her with his gaze.
Look, but don’t touch. Want, but don’t have.
“Take off the dress,” he commanded.
As if he had any right to be giving orders, sprawled there like a debauched king.
“Maybe I should punish you and just use my hand,” Isabel said, as if she hadn’t come in here looking for exactly this.
He grunted, moving faster now, the muscles in his stomach flexing with each pull. “Can’t have it both ways, Trouble. You break into my cabin in the dead of night, you don’t get to pretend you’re not gagging for it. So you have two choices. Either strip and ride my cock like we both know you’re dying to, or watch me spend all over my fist like a sad little voyeur too craven to take what you want.”
“There’s always a third choice. I could leave. Find someone who doesn’t think he owns me. Perhaps you’re not the man to help mescratchthis particular itch, after all.”
“If you wanted someone else, you’d be in his bed. And I’d bet everything I own that if I touched you right now, you’d be dripping for me. So. Choose.”
Insufferable, arrogant bastard.
Isabel reached for her fastenings. The weight of Callahan’s gaze was a physical thing, searing through layers of muslin and boning, dark and fevered and ravenous. There was a savage sort of surrender in baring herself to him this way. A profane offering to be devoured or destroyed at his whim.
The dress fell. Her fingers shook when she removed her bustle. He kept watching. Kept stroking himself as she fumbled with her corset next, the front-busk style for women who dressed themselves.
She hesitated at the combinations, the thin cotton all that remained. His hand moved faster, his chest rising and falling, hair tumbling over his forehead.
Enough.She needed to wrestle back some power.
“Stop,” she ordered.
He didn’t. His cock was thick in his fist, and he worked it with lazy confidence. Lips slightly parted.
“Stop or I’ll keep this on.”
“If that stays on, this is all you get,” he said. “I keep going until I spend, and you get to crawl back to your cold bed, aching and empty.”
This was always their problem. Him pushing, her retreating. Him demanding everything, her giving nothing. Except in Hong Kong. For a few hours, she’d forgotten who she was, who he was, and felt more alive than she had in years.
Give in or walk away.
In the end, the hunger won out.
She ripped at the ribbons, shoving the flimsy cotton down until she stood naked before him, flushed and panting and so very, very hungry.
Callahan’s stare drifted over every imperfection. The scars all over her torso, the puckered starburst beneath her breast, the bandage at her ribs. All the broken, battered pieces of her offered in unholy sacrifice. She counted his breaths, waiting for disgust to cross his face. The light had been so dim in Hong Kong. Kinder. Maybe he hadn’t seen the full extent of the damage. Maybe—
“Come here,” he said, voice rough.
She stepped closer. He reached out, calloused fingertips skimming over the longest scar on her hip.
Isabel flinched. “Don’t.”
“Why not?” he asked, voice low.
“Just – not like that.” Her jaw clenched. Gentleness was worse than cruelty. Gentle undid her.
But then Callahan’s mouth pressed against the raised ridge of a mark, breath hot on her skin. When his eyes met hers, they burned fever-bright with longing – as if even her scars, her flaws, her myriad failings, only made him want her more.
Too much, too close, too intimate.
“Don’t,” she whispered again.
