Page 61 of Diamond in the Rough (The Diamond Trilogy 1)
Large hands grasp my hips, and he thrusts into me. I’m wet but it still feels like a stretch to take him all the way to the root. My breath whooshes out of me, and I rise up on my tiptoes to escape the burn. He pulls out to the tip and then thrusts in again.
His lids are low across green and gold eyes. “This is how I want you.”
I meet his gaze through the mirror and shake my head. “You want me to submit to you, to give in, and I’m never going to do that, no matter how hard you fuck me.”
Despite my best efforts at being cold, I flinch on the word fuck.
He pulls back and thrusts in hard, as if he took my words as a challenge. I wobble on my tiptoes and grasp the dresser for support. The whole thing wobbles ominously, but it holds, even when Elijah thrusts into me again, when he fucks me harder and faster, even when the emotion threatens to overwhelm me and tears prick my eyes.
Friction. That’s what I tell myself. This is about science. Physics and biology conspiring to make me have an orgasm even though I don’t want one.
“Elijah,” I whisper.
And he stops. That’s the horror of this moment, how solicitous he can be even as he breaks my heart. A dull flush darkens his cheeks. His hair is in wild disarray. “Am I hurting you?” he asks.
I want to say yes, but the truth is that my body aches for completion.
Awareness comes over his face, and it makes him look smug. I hate him for this, but it makes him look hotter—the certainty that I want him, that I can’t hate him quite enough.
He pushes in again. Friction, friction, friction.
My sex doesn’t know this is wrong and messed up. The pressure builds, and then he reaches around and flicks my clit, and I climax, clamping down around his cock. He grunts. His fingertips dig into my hips, and he comes in three rapid-fire thrusts followed by a long hold.
He pulls himself out, and his come drips down the inside of my thigh.
My muscles feel shaky, unable to support me even as I remain bent over the dresser. I’m cold and sweaty at the same time, covered in cooling come. Elijah returns from the bathroom with a hand towel that he hands me, his gaze cold. I wipe between my legs, wondering what feels so different, so painful about this. He’s taken me roughly before. And he made me come. It’s after, I realize. He never held me after sex before now, so I shouldn’t expect it now.
This time he didn’t even undress fully. Now he zips up his jeans and stalks out of the bedroom. I hear him descend the stairs. Then I’m left alone with only my shame and my hurt.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
Elijah
Over the next three days I get exactly what I wanted. Holly gives her body without reserve, but she doesn’t hold me in her sleep. She doesn’t smile at me over coffee.
She doesn’t tell me stories about fairies or mermaids or dragons.
It’s basically hell.
I find myself longing for the days in the cell, when she would at least talk to me in the dark. If this is my punishment for involving her sister, for lying to her, it’s working. But I’m not sure how I can fix it. I can’t go back in time and take the diamonds back from London. I can’t go back and tell the truth to Holly, not that I would have. That’s the crux of the issue, really. She wants me to be some other man. An open book. That’s not me.
Jefferson leaves messages every hour on my burner phone. I ignore him, but it’s only a matter of time before he sends someone else in to fix this mess. Holly, though innocent in every way, is at the crux of the issue. She’s the one who has access to London, which means Adam needs her. Anyone would realize that using Holly as bait is the cleanest way to fix this mess.
I won’t let that happen.
Liam calls me on the fourth day. “I found something you might be interested in.”
“Don’t tell me someone was fencing a handful of rare diamonds on La Villette because I already heard about that. And questioned the owner of the pawnshop.”
“By questioned do you mean kicked his ass? Because he’s a son of a bitch.”
Yeah, Clef Augustin is a dirty bastard who makes his money selling crack in secondary schools. I made sure to knock him out before I left, but that won’t stop him. He’ll be back on the street corner tonight. “It shouldn’t be possible for a travel blogger to stay this invisible.”
My brother has been helping me look for her from Texas using his contacts. “That’s what I was thinking. So I started asking around about Adam Bisset instead.”
