Page 42 of The Gambler's Prize
“No need for buts. We can end the conversation there.”
“It wouldn’t have tomeananything. It would just be like… quenching a thirst, you know? For both of us. Like the last time.” He looks at me, big eyes half pleading and half playing.
This is my fault. He’s thinking about the spanking. I made it too obvious that I find him irresistible, at least physically if not in terms of personality. Now he’s offering me a pity fuck. My servant is offering me a pity fuck. How did my plan to humble him go so far off the rails?
“I’m pretty good,” he says, without an ounce of shame. “I’d get you off first. And then… and then you could decide if I’m allowed to get off or not.” He pauses at just the right moment, flashing his blue eyes at me, heat and sin right there. “I think you might be into that.”
I think I might, too. I shut my eyes, pleading with my cock to cooperate.Whyis it so fucking interested in this ridiculous rich boy’s preposterous suggestions?
“Florian, I already told you. That’s enough.”
“Okay, okay.”
I open my eyes to find him hiding behind his curtain of dark hair. I’m not sure if he realizes how seductive that move is. Usually I’d say yes, yes, he does, but this time he seems honestly lost in thought.
“Living all the way out here in the desert is really new for me,” he says softly. “No people around, no company. You might be used to it, but I’m not. And it isn’t sex that I miss most. Like you helpfully said once, I have hands.”
“I said that?” I have no recollection of that. It sounds about right. Sounds like something I would say.
“You did. Anyway, I mostly miss having someone to talk to.”
“We talk,” I protest. “We just did that memory exercise.”
I’m glad he’s stopped talking about getting each other off, but this is hard to take in a different way. When he looks at me with so much defenselessness, it’s hard to remember that he deserves his fate. Hard to remember how he ruined my life. I remind myself of my musty cell, the tarred ropes stacked up and waiting to tear at my fingernails, Jos’ broken face after his beating.
“Sure, we talk a little,” Florian says, dragging me back from my dark memories into the light of the desert sunshine. “But not like friends. Except for the memory exercise.” He glances up, hitting me with the power of those vulnerable blue eyes. “Boss, why do you dislike me so much? I try so hard to please you, and it’s never enough.”
Shit. Now I really wish he’d go back to being coquettish and annoying. At least then, I can bat him away with insults. Looking at him now, sitting with his aristocratic ass on the bare ground, one arm hooked around his knees as he looks at me so seriously, it’s too hard to hate him. The straw hat on his head, the height of Rhennian fashion, is covered with red dust from the Galbravan desert, but he still wears it with unconscious style. His perfect nose is sunburned and new freckles dot his cheeks. His lips look soft. But it’s not his looks that draw me in. It’s the need in those blue eyes. He isn’t asking for sex anymore. He’s asking for something much more dangerous. Affection.
Too dangerous. If it’s going to come down to one thing or the other—if he won’t leave me alone until I give him either affection or physical release—I know which one I’ll choose. The one that means nothing to him.
I bundle him onto his back, fast and sudden. His hat falls off and his long hair tumbles free. His soft lips part and his eyes widen with surprise. His breath speeds as he looks up at me. The dark pupils in the center of those sky-blue eyes dilate. My body roars into life, so forceful it scares me. I’m ravenous for this... forsomeone. Because it’s been too long. Not because it’s Florian.Just because he’s a warm human body. It’s physical. He hasn’t weakened me. Danger averted: this is much safer than talking.
That said, having him pinned under me feels damn good. The hard planes of his body press into me, hips angled up like he’s unconsciously inviting me. The soft skin of his neck calls out to be nipped by my teeth. He’s been putting on even more muscle as I’ve been working him so hard and it suits him. Makes him more masculine. Yet his face is still as angelic and out of this world gorgeous as ever. The contrast excites me. My weight on top of him brings a swell to his cock that I feel through our clothes. My cock twitches in answer. His eyes pull me in like a spell. His hair lies flat and dark against the red ground, fanned out around his face. I’ve never seen anything so stunning. My throat is so tight, my breath held at the edge of wonder.
“Go ahead,” I say. “Take your pleasure.”
“You mean it?” His voice is just barely a breath. His body quivers with wonder, wondering if I’m playing with him.
“I mean it. No trick. Go on.”
Fuck, hurry up. I need to watch him. Sweat pools beneath my hood as I picture it. Watching him take his pleasure in broad daylight. Seeing the tension in his delicate neck and the arch of his back in stark sun, not half-hidden in the muffled dark like when I spanked him. I hold his arms, feeling up his newly strong biceps, crushing his hips to the ground with my own. A smile spreads across his face, decadent, like I’m something to be used. That would usually bother me, considering that he’s my hated enemy, but right now with his swollen cock pressed against me I can’t bring myself to care. He starts to grind his erection against me, ever so slowly. My chest tightens, desire surging, blood rushing south.
“Do you want to look into my eyes as I climax?” he whispers.
I nod. I can’t imagine anyone on earth saying no to that question as Florian looks at them like this.
“Do you know what’ll make me come hard?” he says.
I shake my head, barely breathing.
“Knowing I’m yours,” he says. “You’re in charge of me. My boss.”
Our history, revenge, even my own fucking name is a lost dream now. I need to watch him satisfy himself against me like it’s the only thing in the world.
“Hold me down,” he says.
I press his forearms above his head, palms up, his knuckles digging into red soil. His pupils get bigger, black pools on blue. His erection strains against my stomach.
