Chapters (17)
“No.” She yanked, but he held her firm. “I did nothing to attract you. Then again, perhaps a woman only has to exist for you to be attracted.” She saw the fury bloom but ignored it. “Perhaps by refusing to sleep with you, I became more of a challenge. There are a lot of women who would gladly sleep with royalty.”
“Do you believe if all I had wanted was you in bed that you wouldn’t have been there a half-a-dozen times already?”
“I go nowhere I don’t take myself.” She tossed her head back. His voice had been too low, too precise, but she was past caring. “If you’re angry because I’m not what you thought I was, it’s because your ego’s been bruised.”
The rest of her words and her breath were knocked away as she fell under him on the bed. Before she could counter the move, her arms were pinned at her sides. She’d been warned about his temper. There had even been some documentation of it in his dossier. But none of that was nearly as awesome as seeing it firsthand.
“Ego?” He gritted out with his face only inches from hers. “So to you I’m still only what you’ve read, only what you’ve been told.” It hurt, how it hurt. He could feel it shimmer inside of him until the only recourse was to turn it into anger. “I won’t disappoint you then.”
She scissored her legs and nearly succeeded in rocking him off. He shifted until her body was pressed flat against his. One hand rested dangerously on her throat. It gave him grim pleasure to feel her pulse flutter rapidly beneath his fingers.
“This won’t prove anything.” She managed to free one arm, but he caught it at the wrist. Her pulse beat there as well, fast, uneven. “You’ll only demean both of us.”
It didn’t matter. He’d gone beyond right and wrong, truth and lies. “There was a time when I believed you to be shy and precious. That was a woman I only wanted to show tenderness to. For her I had such patience, such sweet feelings. But for you, we can dispense with such things, can’t we?”
“Bennett, don’t do this.” She said it quietly, knowing it was already too late.
“Why not?” The recklessness was back, in full force, driven by betrayal. “It’s a night for lies and passions.”
She prepared to do battle, for herself and for him. “You won’t rape me.”
“No, I won’t. But I will have you.”