Page 8 of The Knight (Endgame 2)
Shock courses through me, singeing every angry intention. “No.”
“And as for your virginity, there are a hundred ways you haven’t been taken. A thousand ways you haven’t been fucked. A million dollars left to earn.”
“That money’s mine. You sent me away.”
“And yet,” he says, echoing his earlier words, “here you fucking are. This is what you wanted. This is what you came for. Did you really think you’d see me and walk away without my come inside you?”
My gasp sounds virginal even to myself. “Of course I did.”
He uses the hold on my wrist to drag me closer, off balance, almost falling into him. His warmth surrounds me, along with a musk my body remembers. Alarm bells ring more than they did this morning. A strange man could hurt me, but Gabriel—he’s worse. My own kryptonite.
“Here’s the thing about fucking a virgin,” he whispers, breath a caress on my temple. “You gave me your pretty little hymen, the small spill of blood. The first feel of those walls squeezing my cock. And there’s no way to get it back, not ever. No matter who else you fuck. Even if you settle down with some prep-school fucker and let him climb on top of you every single night, I’ll always be your first. You will always be my little virgin.”
The show of possession does something strange to me. It should be offensive. It’s meant to be offensive, but the humiliation turns liquid and hot inside my body. And the worst part is, I can’t even deny the truth. He left an imprint inside me. I can still remember the stretch of him, the burn. The very shape of that heavy thickness I can feel against my stomach now. And anyone who comes after him, they’ll never quite fill the space he carved inside of me.
“That’s right,” he murmurs, soothing now that I’ve acquiesced. “I’ve got you.”
“No, we can’t—”
He releases my wrist only to run a finger along my cheek. “So young. You look so young like this.”
“It’s the makeup,” I say with difficulty. And the hair. And the clothes. In a thousand ways I was different before, the society princess. What am I now? Almost homeless. Definitely scared.
His eyes gentle, more brown than they’ve been before. “You didn’t think you were getting fucked today. You got dressed and took the bus and came up the elevator having no idea.”
“Don’t feel sorry for me.”
A slight smile. “Not enough to stop. Take off those clothes. Let’s see what you look like when you’re just a sweet, innocent college girl and not the toy I bought at auction.”
And I find myself undoing my jeans, pushing them down my hips. I could fight him, but what’s the point? He holds my future in his large, capable hands—the escrow account, my family’s home. And impossibly he holds my sexual desire, a sudden fire that he lit with his words.
The sound of denim crumbling to the floor is loud in the wide-open room. Then I take off my shirt, dropping the soft fabric from my fingertips.
The Den is the old city building converted into a kind of meeting place for the rich, dangerous men of the city. Men like Gabriel Miller. That was where I went to ask for a loan. And it was where I auctioned myself instead. A woman named Candy prepared me that night, with waxing strips and lotions and powders. She dressed me in lingerie.
Now I’m standing in my plain white bra and plain white panties.
And underneath, the flaxen hair has started to grow back in my most private place.
Young, he called me. He meant to dismiss me, to demean me with those words, but that’s not how he looks at me. His golden eyes give him away. Desire burns there, molten and pure. And the flames that burn between us feel hotter without powder and wax, without lace lingerie. They race over my skin, leaving goose bumps, tightening my nipples beneath the cotton fabric.
“The desk,” he says, voice guttural. “Sit.”
“Should I—” My finger hooks into the elastic waist of my panties, a nervous gesture. A question. And then, inexplicably, I blush. Red heat sweeps up my chest and scalds my cheeks. Should I take this off? A simple question considering what we’ve done together, what we’ll do in the future. Somehow everything hinges on this one question.
His groan is pure agony. “I’m one breath away from bending you over the desk and fucking you raw. But I want to taste you first, so sit on the fucking desk. Fast. Now. Before I give in.”
Taste me. He doesn’t mean my mouth or anywhere else. He means down there. The private place that already has springy hair growing in, short but present.
The blush burns hotter. “I haven’t… I mean, I’m not…”
His expression turns darker. “Let me see.”
