Page 19 of His for Christmas
“I’m not afraid of you,” I whispered.
“Then you’re an even bigger fool than you thought.”
I winced. He’d said it to hurt me, and it had worked. For a moment, I turned away, facing the corner as I blinked back tears. But I knew how badly he wanted me, and that was enough to lend me courage. The courage to help him. Nothing I said would convince him. So I would have to show him instead.
With trembling fingers, I began unbuttoning my dress shirt, just like he’d done two weeks ago.
Despite the darkness, he noticed immediately. “What the hell are you doing?”
“Making a point,” I said, repeating what he’d told me in the office that day with Noah Waters. I pulled my shirt from the waistband and faced him.
His breath caught. “Stop that right now.”
I dropped the shirt on the floor and toed off my shoes. He backed up—but there was nowhere for him to go. His back hit the elevator wall, and he leaned back, pressing his head against the wall and staring at me through slitted eyes. His jaw must have been clamped shut the way the words came out. “I. Said. Stop.”
“I heard you. But I’m not going to listen.” I gave him an apologetic smile. “I stopped working at noon. It’s Christmas Eve, you know.”
“Not funny.”
I reached behind me and unclasped my bra. I held it to my breasts as the straps fell down around my arms. “This isn’t a joke.”
“It’s not going to be a joke when you’re lying there, broken, hurt, because you didn’t fucking take me seriously.”
I didn’t want my fingers to tremble as they worked at my skirt and my stockings, but I couldn’t help it. Not with his threat hanging in the air.
“Angel,” he said sharply.
I stilled, looking down. “What is it you like to do to girls?”
“Not girls, Angel. What I did before—that was scratching a fucking itch. What I want to do to you… is take you. Without a care for whether you like it or want it. Without making sure you can even move after that.” He laughed shortly. “No, that’s not true. The truth is I don’t want you to be able to move. I want you fucking shattered underneath me. Understand?”
Oh, I understood. I understood that he thought he would hurt me, just like his father had hurt his mother. That he saw those impulses inside himself, the ones that wanted to pin me down and fuck me, and saw the pain and shame and hatred from his own conception. I understood that he saw the past repeating itself, and he cared enough about me to warn me away.
I couldn’t bear the thought of him in pain, believing the worst of himself. Because he wasn’t his father. He wasn’t a rapist. And he wouldn’t harm me, not really. I believed that—and I was about to stake my life on it.
I released my hold on the bra and let it fall to the ground.
He turned his head away as if the sight of my bare breasts—even in the shadows—was painful. Then he slid to the ground. “I don’t want to hurt you,” he muttered hoarsely.
“You won’t,” I promised him.
But he didn’t believe me. Of course he didn’t believe me; that was why I needed to prove it.
I sank to my knees in front of him. He started to reach for me… and then pulled his hands back. He reached up and grabbed the shiny metal bar that wrapped around the elevator walls. “I’m not going to touch you. You may be fucking suicidal, but I’m not going to help you do this.”
A rough edge of fear marked his voice, and it hurt me to hear. But it also strengthened my resolve.
I put my hands on the bar beside his and leaned forward, my breasts right in front of his face.
“Oh God,” he muttered and leaned forward, rubbing his face over my breasts, feeling them with his cheeks, his nose, his eyelids. Running the five o’clock shadow of his jaw over my tender flesh, abrading me. “So fucking beautiful.”
He was lost in me, learning the shape of my breasts, breathing me in. And I was lost in him, gripping the bar tight through the pain, moaning softly when he caught one nipple in his mouth. He sucked, making it wet, just like he’d promised that first day, and my legs clenched together in response.
“Feels so good,” I whispered. “Want more.”
I knew my words were slurring as if I were drugged, and I was, high on the pleasure coursing through me, but he needed to know I was okay. It must have worked, because he did just what I asked. He licked and sucked and bit his way to my other nipple and sucked me there until I cried out.
He never released his grip on the bar.
