Chapter 13
She felt him arrive.
The antiseptic closed over her again, mixed with the warmth coming off him.
Her heart went wild. The hands on his shoulders tightened until her nails were nearly through the fabric.
Then heat on her mouth, and a clean bright sting.
He had her lower lip between his teeth.
The pain made her open her mouth and a small sound got out of her throat.
The hand at her waist clamped down, and in the next second his mouth had closed over hers and taken the air with it.
That was not the arrangement.
Her eyes flew open and she pulled back and found a hand already waiting at the back of her skull, cutting off the retreat before she made it.
She started to fight, both hands shoving at his chest, and it was like shoving a wall.
He only tightened — his knees trapping hers where she was trying to move them, the hand at her waist pressing her further in, the hand at her head forcing her chin up. Every joint she had was moving on his instruction, like something on strings.
The kiss had started as an inquiry. It stopped being one. His hands got harder as it went.
Lily went from shock to fury to the specific helplessness of being humiliated, and then stopped fighting and let him have it.
When she couldn’t breathe anymore, the tears came, and she hated them.
Ethan tasted the salt and finally let her go.
He studied her face, wet, and let out a breath. “You are delicious. Better than I expected.”
That did it.
She glared at him, and her voice shook. “You said one bite. Was that a bite?”
He laughed under his breath and touched his lips to her forehead.
“You can’t blame me for that. Look at you.”
The reversal made it worse.
She got a hand against his chest and pushed. “You said you’d let me go. I did what you wanted.”
He didn’t move. The hand at her waist stroked once, twice, unmistakably.
He looked at her and said it the way a man reports the weather. “I’m hard.”
He delivered it as plainly as I’m hungry.
Her whole face went scarlet, and this time her ears went with it.
She thrashed. “You’re disgusting. Let go of me.”
Ethan closed his arms and put her fully inside them, and his eyes moved over her face, and something surprised went through them.
He hadn’t expected her to produce this either.
That was new. That had never happened.
Ethan had never had much interest in sex — or rather, the threshold at which he felt anything was high enough that ordinary things didn’t reach it.
Solving an impossible case, acquiring a technique nobody else had: the control in that, the completion, those could excite him.
And now, with this girl, something else entirely.
“Let me kiss you once more,” and his voice had dropped, “and I’ll compensate you properly.”
She couldn’t move at all, so she used what she had, which was a look. “You don’t keep your word. I’m not believing anything you say.”
“I don’t keep my word?” Something occurred to him and his brow went up. “Don’t forget who broke the arrangement first. The night we met, you agreed to let me bite you. Then you ran.”
She’d almost managed to forget that.
He was raising it now to build himself a reason to take more.
Lily wasn’t having it. “And you lied to me a minute ago. We’re even.”
“Lily.” He said her name, and the hand at the back of her head came around front, and his fingertips passed over the tear tracks that hadn’t dried. “Fighting too hard costs you. I don’t want you hurt. So learn to cooperate a little.”
She stared, then bit down on her lip and glared at him with her chest going hard.
She had nothing here. Not standing, not the law, not the body he had folded up against him.
“One more time. Then you let go, and you never come near me or my friends again.”
“Mm. I’m afraid not.” Barely a pause in it.
Her breathing went short. “You said one bite and it was settled!”
“I said the bread was settled,” Ethan said, his thumb moving along her jaw, low and distinct. “As for the rest — I never agreed to stop.”
His palm sat flat against the small of her back and pressed her into him.
The completeness of the hold went through her like a current.
“I’d intended to bite you once and leave it,” and his breath moved at the corner of her mouth. “I’ve changed my mind.”
“You’re too good to waste on one taste.”
“Come and work for me. You won’t have to do anything. I’ll give you money, position — whatever you want.”
He didn’t give her time to think about it. He came down again, apparently certain she wouldn’t refuse.
This one went deeper and lasted longer, and she felt herself being consumed, the oxygen going out of her by degrees.
The first second she could speak she got it out.
“Wait.”
His brows drew in, and something irritated crossed his face at the interruption. “If you don’t believe me, I’ll pay you now. Give me your account.”
“I don’t want your money. And I’m not coming to work for you.”
“Lily.” Her name again.
His voice was clean and clear and it suited the face.
Softened even slightly, it produced the impression of a man being gentle and attentive.
Exactly like the gentlemen in films from the last century. Elegant. Endlessly patient.
It was surface.
Take the warmth out of it and nothing was left but the pressure he’d been born with.
“Stop refusing me.” Lower now. “I don’t want this to get complicated. If you care what happens to the people around you, agree now.”
He tilted his head as if considering. “Or do you need to see something first, before you’ll believe I’m not joking?”
