Kitabı oku: «The Dare Collection April 2019», sayfa 8

Bloody man.

‘That doesn’t explain what you’re doing up here.’ He said each word very quietly, anger gleaming in his eyes. ‘After I told you not to.’

My own anger rose, fuelled by my helpless response to him, not to mention a fair amount of embarrassment.

I should have locked it down, but I couldn’t. I’d been trapped in his house for two days, with the timer on my brief window of freedom from Dad slowly ticking down, and I didn’t have the emotional resources to get myself under control.

‘I was curious,’ I snapped, lifting my chin. ‘And look, if you leave me alone for two days, you’re going to have to give me something to do or else I’ll find something on my own that you may not like.’

‘What are you, a toddler?’ His expression turned thunderous. ‘This area is private and I told you it was out of bounds. What made you think you could just come up here and start looking around?’

Another wave of defensive anger went through me, his tone reminding me of the way Dad would berate me for my behaviour, telling me I was an insult to my mother’s memory.

It never failed to hurt me.

‘You patronising asshole,’ I said, stung. ‘Don’t call me that.’

‘I’ll call you anything I damn well please. Especially if you’re poking about in places that don’t concern you.’

‘Yeah, I know,’ I shot back. ‘I said I was sorry. I was just curious about you, okay?’

He went quite still, like a big predator spotting prey, a kind of electricity gathering around him that made something inside me pulse with excitement despite my anger. ‘Curious about me?’

My mouth had gone dry, my quicksilver emotions changing in response, the anger beginning to fade, excitement building. ‘I wanted to find out more about you.’

‘What more?’

‘I don’t know.’ Another blush heated my cheeks. ‘Anything really.’

He leaned down, his face inches from mine, his astonishing blue eyes filling my vision. And I could smell his scent again, warm and sexy and masculine. ‘If you’ve gone through my stuff, there’ll be hell to pay.’ He moved his muscled body closer, his heat surrounding me. ‘I’m sorry about the toddler thing, but understand me: I wouldn’t allow my brothers up here, let alone the daughter of my enemy.’

My breath hitched.

He was so beautiful and I stared, my anger forgotten.

The sharp angle of his jaw was made even sharper by the faint black line of his beard and his cheekbones were to die for. The blade of his nose was straight, though I could see a few faint scars bisecting one eyebrow, scar tissue pulling at the corner of one eye.

It was a fascinating face. One that contained secrets and mysteries.

His black lashes were thick, a perfect frame for those startling pale blue eyes and the anger glowing in the depths of them.

I didn’t look away. I couldn’t. ‘I didn’t go into your things, I promise.’ God, I wanted to touch him again. To feel his hot skin and the prickle of his beard against my fingertips. ‘I only looked and then I...had to go smell your clothes a little.’

He blinked. ‘Smell my clothes?’

I wasn’t embarrassed any more, not now he was right in front of me, overwhelming me with his physical nearness. A bomb could have gone off behind him and I wouldn’t have noticed. ‘What can I say? You smell nice.’ Somehow, without my conscious control, my hand was lifting, my fingers brushing along his jaw, the delicious prickle of his whiskers against my fingertips. ‘And...you feel nice too.’

Ajax became statue-still. You’d think I’d shot him rather than simply touched him.

I shouldn’t be doing this. I should control myself better, especially when I’d already made him angry by intruding on his privacy.

But I couldn’t make myself stop. My fingertips grazed the sharp plane of his jaw, the feel of his skin sending short, intense pulses of excitement through me. This was so new, so different. It was wondrous.

The anger in his eyes changed, becoming something hotter. Brighter. ‘What are you doing?’ His voice was strange, deep and oddly husky.

‘Touching you.’ Helplessly, my gaze dropped to his fascinating mouth and I brushed the curve of his bottom lip. My God. It was so soft. Who knew there could be something soft about Ajax King? ‘Is that okay?’

He was so still and he was staring at me so fixedly.

Perhaps he didn’t want this. Perhaps he didn’t like it.

Control yourself, girl. You’re an embarrassment.

Dad’s voice echoed in my head like a warning and a part of me curled up in shame. Yet that wasn’t enough for me to take my hand away.

He was fascinating, addictive. A temptation too great for me to resist and it had been so long since I’d touched another person, so long since I’d had any physical contact with anyone at all, and I ached. I’d been so isolated and I was so lonely.

This was my chance to take something for myself.

Every other woman got to choose their own partner so why couldn’t I?

‘Stop,’ Ajax said in that strange voice.

Remember what happened the last time you made a choice.

Yes, I remembered. Cam.

The shame inside me grew larger. ‘I’m sorry.’ I snatched my hand away and looked at the floor. ‘I didn’t mean to touch you. I should have asked or something. I’m not very good at—’

‘Look at me, Imogen.’

I took a breath and looked, the note of command in his voice irresistible.

The heat in his gaze nearly flattened me.

Desire burned in his eyes. He liked me touching him. I could tell.

My breath caught.

‘It’s not that I don’t want you to touch me,’ he said roughly. ‘It’s that you shouldn’t. And you know why.’

Of course I did. The whole virginity thing.

‘But...you can kiss me, right?’ I stared up at him. ‘Dad wouldn’t know if you did.’

‘No,’ Ajax murmured. ‘No, he wouldn’t.’ His attention drifted, falling to my mouth. ‘But what I want doesn’t matter.’

That puzzled me. Why would he think that what he wanted didn’t matter? And what did he want anyway?

‘Doesn’t it?’ I asked. ‘Why not?’

Somehow he was closer than he had been a moment ago, though I hadn’t seen him move. He still had his hand wrapped around my arm and I was so aware of it I was sure I could feel every line of his fingerprints on my skin.

He didn’t answer, his gaze lifting to clash with mine again.

There was a pressure in the air around us, the relentless build of attraction getting stronger and stronger.

‘Please,’ I heard myself say. ‘I’ve never been kissed before. Not properly. And I... I’d like my first proper kiss to be with someone I want.’

He stared at me another long, aching second.

Then he closed the gap between us and covered my mouth with his.

Shock held me motionless.

I’d thought he wouldn’t do it, but he had, and now Ajax King was kissing me. Those beautiful lips I’d traced with my finger mere moments ago were now on mine and they felt...oh, God, amazing.

He must have been drinking coffee at some point, the taste dark and rich, combining with a heady flavour that was all Ajax. It was delicious. I couldn’t get enough.

The kiss was hard and yet somehow soft at the same time, his tongue tracing the seam of my mouth, getting me to open for him. And I shuddered in helpless reaction, lightning striking all over my skin, sending goosebumps racing everywhere, leaving me helpless to do anything but give him what he wanted.

This was nothing like the brief brush of his lips in the car a few days earlier. This was as similar to that as a candle flame was to a forest fire.

His tongue pushed into my mouth, beginning to explore me slowly and deliberately, and with so much heat I began to shake.

I pressed my palms to his hard chest, gripping onto the warm cotton of his T-shirt, holding on tight. A deep moan of pleasure escaped me.

I didn’t know what had made him change his mind, but I didn’t want to question it. I just wanted more.

And he seemed to understand, moving so I was pinned between him and the closet door, deepening the kiss, controlling it with such effortless mastery I nearly swooned.

Correction, actual swooning was already happening, my knees weak, my hands clenching even tighter in the cotton of his shirt just to stay upright.

I couldn’t control myself any more. It had become impossible. I’d been without physical closeness for so long, thinking about him constantly for two days straight, craving his touch so badly I couldn’t stop.

I tipped my head back, opening my mouth to give him greater access, at the same time as I tried to kiss him in return, wanting more of his heat and intoxicating flavour. Wanting more of his touch and his scent and the feel of him against my skin.

But I had no idea how to get it.

I tried to pull him closer, tugging on his T-shirt, but he wouldn’t move, making me groan in frustration.

But then he cupped my jaw in one of his big, warm hands and kissed me harder, deeper, nipping at my bottom lip, changing the angle, turning the kiss into something so unbearably erotic I wondered if it was possible to come from kissing alone.

It wasn’t enough, though. I arched my back against the closet door, trying to press myself into his hard body.

He ignored me, lifting his mouth from mine and, when I tried to follow, his fingers on my jaw tightened, holding me in place.

I was panting and I didn’t care. ‘Don’t stop.’ My mouth felt deliciously swollen and a little bruised from that kiss. ‘Please.’

The electricity in his gaze crackled over my skin, the heat burning in the depths of all that winter blue undeniable. There was a flush to his high cheekbones, a slash of red that told its own story, and I could hear his ragged breathing.

He wanted me. It was obvious.

‘No,’ he said.

CHAPTER NINE
Ajax

IMOGEN WAS LOOKING up at me, her eyes wide and dark, her delectable mouth all red from my kiss. Her hands were gripping the front of my T-shirt so tightly it was like she was afraid to let me go, her chest rising and falling fast and hard. The scent of roses and the faint musk of feminine arousal were winding tight around me, making my breath catch.

I shouldn’t have kissed her. Why the fuck had I?

All I’d meant to do was ask her why the hell she was in my room after I’d explicitly told her she wasn’t allowed up here.

But then she’d touched me. Despite my very real anger, she’d simply put up her small hand and those delicate fingers had run along my jaw, lightly, gently. And she’d looked at me as if she’d never seen anything like me before in all her life. As if I was fascinating to her.

People were afraid of me. They were never fascinated by me.

For some women my reputation was a turn-on and I was a trophy. Bedding the most dangerous man in Sydney had a certain status factor.

Yet there was no fear in Imogen, either of me or my anger, and it got me hard. The way she’d begged me to kiss her, because her first kiss should be with someone she wanted...

Hell, how could I deny her?

You wanted to kiss her. Two days and she still affects you as badly as she did the night you kidnapped her.

She did. That was a fact. And fuck, I did want to kiss her. So why shouldn’t I?

It was only a kiss...

Except now I was hard as a rock and the scent of her was driving me crazy. And there was a part of me that had forgotten about the goddamn big picture. That wanted nothing more than to lift her against the closet door and fuck us both into the middle of next week.

Except her virginity was the leverage I needed against her father and if I took it, that leverage would be gone.

There are other methods you can use to get rid of him.

Sure there were. But those were Dad’s methods and I didn’t use them. I was better than that.

So what? You can fake a doctor’s certificate if need be.

Yeah, but I’d given my word as a King that I wouldn’t touch her and that still meant something.

You know White doesn’t give a shit about your word.

He might not, but I did. The King name was mud in this town and my brothers and I wanted that to change. And that meant standing by our promises, keeping to the agreements we’d made.

And going back on my word would make me no better than Dad.

‘No? Okay then.’ The disappointment in her voice caught at me. ‘I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have asked for a kiss. I just...’

The skin of her jaw beneath my fingertips was very warm and her hair brushing the back of my hand where I held her was very soft. It felt silky, and I caught a faint suggestion of what it would feel like spread over my chest.

I couldn’t lie, couldn’t tell myself I didn’t want her. But those big picture goals were more important than what I wanted for myself and always would be.

I couldn’t sacrifice them for a couple of hours in bed with a woman, no matter how lovely she was.

‘You just what?’ I prompted, trying not to let myself become mesmerised by her pink mouth and the little mole just above it. She’d tasted sweet when I’d kissed her, and yet tart at the same time, the flavour lingering on my tongue. What would the rest of her taste like?

There was a worried look in her eyes, as if she couldn’t decide on what to say. Then her mouth firmed. ‘Okay, the truth is that I was hoping for some revenge on Dad. You know what he’s been using me for, a trophy for his friends to build alliances. And he doesn’t care how I feel about it. And I’m pissed off, Ajax. When I lose my virginity, I want it to be with someone who’s my choice, not his. Someone I’m attracted to.’ She kept her gaze on mine as she turned her cheek into my palm, nuzzling into it like a little cat. ‘Someone like you.’

There was determination in those green eyes of hers. A hint of the strength that I’d seen when I’d first come up behind her in the bathroom at the ball. This woman wasn’t only wide-eyed questions and restless energy. She was more complex than that, which was both fascinating and intensely sexy at the same time.

‘I’m your father’s enemy, though,’ I murmured. ‘He’s not going to like it.’

‘I know. That’s kind of the whole point. That’s what makes it perfect.’

Revenge. Hell, that was a concept I could relate to.

I kept my hand where it was, against her cheek. ‘But your virginity is vital to my plan working, remember?’

Disappointment flashed across her expressive face. ‘In that case, you’d better let me go.’

I didn’t want to. She could have her revenge, couldn’t she? And maybe I could get a little something for myself too. Such as her, all silky and strokeable beneath me.

It’s a slippery slope. You know this.

Fuck, I did know. It was the tiny slips that led to greater ones. Small actions that didn’t seem like massive deals, that eventually brought you down. That’s how I’d finally managed to bring my father down, after all.

And if I took Imogen, if I got rid of the only thing I could use against White, what would I have left?

The only other language he understood was violence and I could not go down that road again.

The disappointment in Imogen’s eyes was loud and clear. But there was also something else under that, something that hooked into my chest and twisted hard.

‘What?’ I asked roughly, my hand still against her cheek, even though I knew better than to keep it there. ‘Don’t look at me like that.’

‘You’re the only one.’ Her voice was hoarse. ‘You’re the only one who’s ever made me feel like this.’

Ah, Christ. What was she doing saying shit like that to me? ‘I’m not special, Imogen. How many men have you even met?’

‘Enough.’ She lifted her hand and put it over mine, holding my palm to her warm skin. ‘Enough to know it’s you, Ajax. It’s all you.’

The sensation in my chest twisted even tighter. ‘I can’t.’

‘Then let me go.’ Her hand dropped away.

Yes, I should let her go. I should.

And yet there was a part of me that refused. A part that was sick of having to sacrifice everything I wanted all the damn time. After everything I’d done so far for my brothers and my city, wasn’t I fucking owed something for myself?

You can’t have it and you know that.

‘I’m not any girl’s first time.’ My voice had roughened further, turning dark and gritty, and I didn’t even know why I was saying it when I wasn’t going to be doing anything with her. ‘Not if you’re after sweet and nice.’