He traced the curve of her breast again and her skin felt like silk, like satin. Expensive, luxurious. Her nipple had gone even harder and he couldn't resist circling it with his thumb.
Violet made a soft sound in her throat and her back arched like a cat's.
He dragged his thumb lightly over her nipple and the little peak hardened further beneath his touch. So he did it again. And again. Dragging his thumb back and forth in a slow, easy motion.
Her skin flushed and he watched, mesmerized, as the flush crept down her neck and over that beautiful breast, and he wanted to fling back the blanket, watch it spread all over her body.
She made another one of those sounds, a sigh of pleasure, of approval. As if she liked what he was doing to her. And her hips shifted, her butt pressing harder against his rapidly stiffening cock.
Hunger pulsed through him, a dark, desperate kind of hunger. Unfamiliar. Wrong. And he found himself panting like a dog.
Jesus Christ. He had to stop this. Now. Get himself under control, make himself cold. Remember who he was supposed to be.
Without any ceremony at all, Elijah shoved her out of his lap, heading straight for the bathroom.
He didn't look back.
He needed a cold shower and he needed it now.
CHAPTER FIVE
Violet came to consciousness slowly, aware of a crashing sound coming from somewhere. Cautiously she opened her eyes. The living room area was empty; the sounds were coming from the kitchen area.
Her wrist ached and she felt dry-mouthed, like she had a hangover.
She was also distressingly naked.
Shit. What had happened? How long had she been out?
Moving slowly, she sat up, a wave of dizziness making her shut her eyes for a second. When it had passed, she opened her eyes again then reached for the glass of water on the coffee table in front of her and took a couple of swallows.
It made her feel marginally better.
Sitting back on the couch, she clutched the blue blanket around herself and extended her left wrist. There was a white bandage around it.
She pulled a face, wincing slightly at the ache.
Okay, so she'd screwed up majorly. The scissors had been too blunt to cut cleanly, the blood making her fingers slippery and unable to get a good grip, so she'd ended up dropping them on the floor. Then the pain had nearly knocked her out. She didn't remember how long she'd sat in that bath, slowly bleeding. She only knew she hadn't wanted to get out and grab the scissors to try and cut her other wrist.
She'd tried to force herself to finish the job despite her own reluctance, only to find that she hadn't moved, that she was still sitting there in rapidly cooling water, pain beating in her head like a drum.
Then the door had suddenly crashed open and Elijah had been there.
She'd never thought she'd be actually glad to see him, but right in that moment she had been. She wasn't even conscious of how badly she'd failed, only that now that he was here, everything would be okay.
He'd been so utterly expressionless, so utterly cold, and yet when he'd scooped her up out of the water and stripped off her wet, bloody clothes, his hands had been very gentle. And when he'd wrapped her in a towel and taken her out into the lounge, all she'd wanted to do was lie against the warmth of his big, muscular body and just rest.
Her mind had been hazy with shock and pain, and yeah, the stitches had hurt like a bitch. But the matter-of-fact way he'd cleaned up the mess she'd made of her wrist then stitched it up, had been oddly reassuring. The drugs had helped too.
Violet swallowed, more hazy memories crowding her brain. Of the heat of his body beneath her. The hard, muscular wall of his chest. His skin, smooth as oiled silk under her fingers. The lines of a tattoo. And a half-waking dream of him returning the favor, the gentle movement of his thumb on her breast … then his hands shoving her unceremoniously away.
A prickling wave of heat rushed over her skin, her nipples hardening right on cue.
Shit. That had definitely not been a dream.
She took a shaky breath, wrapping the blanket more tightly around her.
Had she really let him do that? Let him touch her? And why? What on earth had possessed her?
She could still feel the texture of his skin beneath her fingers, the flex and release of his muscles as she'd touched him. She'd asked him some questions-she didn't remember what they were-yet he hadn't answered. Only sat there and held her as his warmth seeped into her shaking body, making her relax and fly a little with the effects of the Vicodin.
And then he'd touched her. So gentle. And it had felt … so good. Oh, God, so very good.
Jesus Christ, she must be crazy. The last thing she needed right now was an inappropriate response to her captor. Did that make her kind of sick that she'd responded to it? Or was it just Stockholm Syndrome? Maybe it was.
She swallowed, her mouth dry all over again.
Her father had always been very strict when she'd been younger, vetting her boyfriends and making sure she knew that if she slept with anyone before marriage, there would be severe consequences. As she'd gotten older, she'd found his boundaries infuriating, kicking against them whenever she could, but the prohibitions on sex hadn't been one of them.
Because she knew her own hunger. The dark, deep yearning. There was a hole inside her. An emptiness that desperately wanted something to fill it, and it scared her, it always had.
The first time her high school boyfriend had kissed her, she'd felt it. The need to be touched, to be held. The need to feel wanted. It had been so strong, she'd pulled away, terrified that if she gave into it, he'd somehow see how desperate she was. How completely she wanted to lose herself.
She didn't know why she felt that way or why she was so hungry for touch. But she'd used the excuse of her father's wrath to avoid sex long after she was too old for it to be convincing. And after that, she'd cultivated the image of the sexually experienced free spirit, which intimidated some men and put off others. And for those who weren't either intimidated or put off, she acted the part of the clingy girl desperate for commitment, and that soon frightened off the rest.
God. Somehow with the drugs and the shock, she'd forgotten her own rules. She'd let Elijah hold her. Touch her. She'd let herself touch him and it had been …
She put her hands over her face, feeling the yearning inside her twist and shift, wanting something she was never going to let it have. Because out of all the men in all the world, Elijah Hunt was the very last one she'd give herself to.
Footsteps sounded, and she quickly dropped her hands. Elijah was coming toward her holding a plate of food, eggs and bacon and toast, and her starved body suddenly started clamoring for sustenance. And not just for the food either.
There was a pulse, right down low inside her, that made her take note of the white cotton of his T-shirt stretching over his muscular chest. And the way the worn pair of dark denim jeans he wore sat low on his hips. He was built like a gladiator, strong and hard all over. As she had good reason to know.
He stopped all of a sudden, and she dragged her gaze from his body up to his face. And met his black eyes, sharp and cold as obsidian. There was nothing warm in those eyes, nothing of the heat she'd felt in his touch. And yet still she could feel herself blush like a fool, a wave of it rushing over her skin, inexorable as the tide.
He must have seen it too because his gaze abruptly became darker, colder. Then he took another few steps over to the coffee table and dumped the plate of food down on it. "Eat," he said curtly. "You lost quite a bit of blood yesterday."
She thought about protesting just for the hell of it, but then that would be asking for trouble. Making sure the blue blanket was tucked firmly around her, she leaned forward and picked up the cutlery. "How long was I asleep?"
"Over twelve hours."
She blinked. "I was out for that long?"
He stared at her, eyes glittering. And it struck her that although his scarred face was completely expressionless, he was actually in a towering rage. It was there in his eyes, an icy black flame leaping high, radiating menace.
For some completely insane reason, a small, electric thrill went through her. Half excitement, half delicious fear.
Oh Jesus. Was she crazy? Sick? Perhaps this whole abstinence thing had been a huge mistake. Perhaps it was now coming back to bite her on the ass. Because attraction to Elijah was the very last thing she should be feeling. Especially after yesterday.
She'd completely screwed up her plan and now not only had she gone through all that pain for nothing, but she was possibly also looking at him being mad enough to make good his threats from the day before, of putting her down in the dark room.
Violet looked away, down at the plate of food, trying to calm her frantically beating heart. "So I guess this means I get the room in your basement then?"
"You could have killed yourself." His voice was hard. "Did you have any idea what you were doing?"