Page 106 of 10 Rings I Hate About You
I blinked. My higher reasoning had gone somewhere warm and unhelpful. “What?”
“Tell me what you want.” Quieter this time. Patient. His thumb traced a small circle against my hip that made it very difficult to think.
“I—how can you not tell?” I managed. “My body is on fire. I want you so bad.”
The corner of his mouth curved. Not smug. Something more than that.Satisfaction.“I can tell,” he said. “But I need to hear it, too.”
I understood what he was doing. The part of me that had read approximately one thousand romance novels understood it perfectly.
The rest of me was trying to figure out how sentences worked.
I thought wildly of every historical novel I’d ever consumed—the rake, the drawing room, the heroine who threw propriety out the window entirely. I’d always found those scenes dramatic. I now had significantly more sympathy for the heroine.
Butfuckdid I love a consent king too.
“I want you,” I said. The words came out steadier than I felt. “I want to feel your hands everywhere. I want your stubble to leave marks on my skin so I can find them tomorrow.” I held his gaze. “I want your cock inside me so I don’t feel so empty. I’ve been aching for it.”
His eyes flashed with hunger and a fraying control. All that carefully coiled tension gave way to something darker and more immediate.
His hands slid under me, and then—before I’d fully processed what was happening—he lifted me. Simply picked me up like the logistics of it required no particular effort. My legs wrapped around his waist on instinct, and as he walked, the friction of each step rubbed my clit in the most delicious of ways and did nothing to help me think clearly.
He stopped at one point to press me to the wall, and I lost a few seconds to that—to the solid weight of him, the way his mouth found mine again without slowing down, how his tongue dueled with mine, and how my fingers dug into the back of his head and held on. The scratch of his stubble against my chin was going to be visible tomorrow, but I’d already decided I loved the idea of it.
One moment, we were in the hallway with me wrapped around him like a spider monkey, and the next, I was bouncing softly on the edge of his mattress, his hands releasing me as he stepped back.
I frowned. “What are you doing way over there?”
His chest rose and fell with effort that he wasn’t bothering to hide. His shirt was rumpled where I’d gripped the fabric. The evidence of wanting me was as obvious as the impressive length that was tenting his pants.
It was such a heady feeling knowing he wanted me just as much as I wanted him. Knowing I’d done that to him. That controlled, precise, quietly devastating Marc had come undone because of me.
My pussy clenched on nothing, and I needed to convince him to come closer. “You’re too far away,” I said
One eyebrow lifted. “I am.”
“Come here,” I held out a hand.
“I will.” His voice had dropped into something low, unhurried. “As soon as you take off those clothes for me.”
I opened my mouth. Closed it. Then a slow smile took over. “You know,” I said thoughtfully, “it would be more exciting if you did it. The drag of your fingers across my skin.” I let the last few words land with intention.
His jaw shifted. “Is that what you think?”
“I have a very compelling argument for it, yes.” I nodded.
He held my gaze for a long moment—long enough that I could see the effort it was taking him not to close the distance. “If you want me to come to you, I need you first to be a good girl and strip.” A pause. “Slowly.”
Two words. That’s all it took.Good girl.The phrase landed somewhere low and immediate—my breasts grew heavy, my clit pulsed, and my knees trembled—before my brain had time to catch up.
“Does my little vixen like praise?” His voice was curious.
“From you?” I said honestly. “Apparently, yes.” I’d never experienced anything like it—the way those words settled directly between my thighs and took up residence, making my clit throb. My previous partners had a lot to answer for.
“Then stand up.” He didn’t bark out orders. His voice had this combination of sexy authority. One that made me want to do everything he said because I understood, at its core, he’d never misuse it.
I stood.
I unzipped my boots slowly and set them aside.
