Page 45 of Clawed
Chapter Seventeen
The Brink
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EXAMINING HIS HANDIWORK, Hannah was almost impressed.
Lawes had done a decent job of removing the hair from around her sex, and he hadn’t cut her once.She had to admit it had been terrifying to watch him work.She’d never let anyone shave her there.Hell, she’d never even considered asking them to, but Lawes had bowled back into her life and broken new territory.It wasn’t that she minded being smooth—she actually liked it—but she balked at the fact he’d thought it acceptable to shave her without so much of a conversation about her feelings.
She glanced away as he sprayed down the lingering foam.Of course, he hadn’t fucking asked her.Heneverasked her.The irony was that Lawes’ dominant authority and obvious capability might have been sexy as hell if he’d only learned to seek her assent.She could imagine herself yielding to a man like him through respect and communication, but he insisted on employing fear and coercion.
She blew out a breath at the incongruity.His contrariness didn’t matter.Whatever was happening in the dilapidated house wasn’t about consent, and it never had been.Lawes would force his will on her, just like he always did.
Dropping the shower head, he moved around her to switch off the faucet.By the time he was back in her line of sight, there was a worn but clean-looking towel in his hands.
“Out now.”
Folding the towel over the edge of the bath, he reached for her arms and pulled her unceremoniously to her feet.She whimpered, nearly slipping on the wet base of the bath before he lifted her out of the tub.
Not for the first time, she was overawed by his strength.Hannah wasn’t huge, but she was no waif, either, and the idea that he could haul her around like a ragdoll petrified her even more than it impressed.A man as strong as him was a downright scary foe.
He placed her down on the mat, stretching out the towel and wrapping it around her shoulders.She waited in silence, the only sounds in the room her frantic gasps for air as he worked the towel around her impassive body.
Apparently happy that she was superficially dry, he scooped up the towel and rubbed it roughly through her hair.She bit back on the wince that rose at the manhandling, wishing she could just manage the tasks herself, yet accepting that, for the time being, that desire was futile.
Lawes was back in her life, and he was going to have his way.While nothing terrible was happening, she might as well roll with it.
He returned to the open closet, producing a hairbrush.She tensed at the sight of it, praying to all things holy that he only intended to use it on her hair and was relieved when he ran the bristles through her locks.As painful as the experience might have been, she knew he could produce much worse hurt.Her eyes flickered closed as she envisioned how dreadful it would be to be spanked with the hard plastic.
He’d already proven he could wield the innocuous as a weapon when he’d tormented her with the shower head in the bath.Pulling in a breath, she remembered all too well how intense the sensation had been on her helpless clit, but standing there, she couldn’t deny the lasting legacy of its attack.The sensitive bud still tingled, her hips rolling forward of their own accord as she imagined what it would have been like to have come at its unrelenting intensity.
“Something you want to tell me, little girl?”Lawes’ tone was wry.
Blushing, she realized he must have noticed her provocative hip roll.
“No, Mr.Lawes, sir.”She glanced down as his dark laughter bounced around the damp walls.
“Don’t lie to me.I can tell when you’re enjoying yourself.”His hand trailed along her hip, and unable to protest his point, she swallowed back her shame.
“That’s a good thing,” he assured her as he shifted to spread the towel out over the edge of the bath.“I want you wet for me.”
She loathed that she might have done anything to facilitate whatever ominous scheme he’d hatched.It was bad enough that she found his treatment so damn enticing.She didn’t have to let him know.
“You’re wonderful.”Standing at her side, he snaked one arm around her back to handle her left breast, while the other slid between her legs.“I can’t wait to be inside you.”
His fingertips slipped over her recently shaved skin, grazing her clit before they drew an invisible line across her wet lips, and there was no way she could deny it.She was wet.Her knees buckled at his touch, but caught between his arm and his hip, she stayed upright as she fought the urge to moan aloud.
“Don’t.”She hadn’t meant to speak out loud.“Please, Mr.Lawes, sir.”
“Wrong answer.”His voice was soft, but it held that dangerous mocking quality that confirmed she was in trouble.As though her clit recognized the tone, it throbbed urgently at its resonance.“I know it’s been a long time, but you don’t get to tell me no, Hannah.Especially,when you’re this fucking wet.”
“Oh God.”She knew where the path they were tumbling down ended, having crashed along it many times in the past, and even though she wanted to fight him off, there was a growing part of her that yearned to accept the pleasure.“Please!”
“You may beg.”His tone was goading.“But not until I tell you so.”
He slapped her breast, the sharp pain temporarily drawing her focus from his fingertips, which were still teasing tiny circles around her desperate clit.
“I don’t want this,” she murmured, though the truth ricocheted much louder in her head.
