She's Too Young(14)

As soon as the door shuts behind me, I grip her beneath the knees and yank her off the leather seat, pinning her down hard on the floor.

“Get off me,” Veda screams. “I hate you.”

“You must.” When she takes a swing at me, I pin both of her wrists in one hand, high above her head. “I can’t imagine another reason you would bring me down here to watch another man fawn over you.” The sound that comes from my mouth is sheer misery and it echoes deep in the pit of my stomach. “Has he touched you? Has he?”

My vehemence has startled her a little, but she raises her chin defiantly. “Yes. He has.”

“Explain,” I order through clenched teeth. “Now.”

She’s fabricating a falsehood. It’s there in the feverish fluttering of her lashes, the way she looks off to the side. So I ram my hips up between her legs, forcing her to feel my erection and she cries out, arching her back, nipples puckering beneath the material of her white blouse.

“Don’t lie to me,” I say, my voice hoarse. “I’ll know if you do.”

Her swallow is audible, but her clear gaze tells me she’s planning on giving the truth now. “Once, I…didn’t do well on a calculus test and he offered to tutor me.” Beneath me, her body is tense, just like mine, but I’m aroused as hell—I can’t help it when we’re pressed so tightly together—and that’s contributing, too, now. Not only our mutual ire. “When I showed up, he said we could save time and he’d give me a better grade if I just…”

“Say it.”

“If I just let him unbutton my shirt all the way, unhook my bra. And look.” Pink climbs up her neck and manifests in her cheeks, eyes glittering with renewed energy. “What makes you any better than him? Nothing! You’re worse. I thought when we met there was something so sweet about you, but it was a lie. You’re a lie. I needed to show you that.”

Over the course of her speech, she has wound her legs around my hips, writhing her body enticingly beneath mine, so by the time she’s finished, I’m a devastating mixture of shame and lust and murder. Shame, because I fear she’s right and I’m a corrupt son-of-a-bitch. Lust, because I’m still aching to fuck her, my cock so hard I’m lightheaded. Murder, because I want to go back into the building and strangle that motherfucker for putting his hands and eyes on her. Mine.

“Tell me why I’m a lie,” I command her. “Why can’t I be the man you thought was sweet? You haven’t let me try yet.”

“Because I know you’ve done something awful,” she whispers.

A tear rolls down her cheek and it ruins me. She’s crying because of me and I’m wrecked for life. My lungs cease their function. “I’m sorry, angel,” I manage gruffly, leaning down and dragging my lips up the trail left by her tear. “You’re right. I am a lie. Everything about me is a lie, except the way you make me feel.” I press my mouth against the corner of her mouth. “I deserve the torture, I deserve to have you hate me. I even deserve to lose you.”

It wasn’t easy for me to say, especially the final part, and the acknowledgment of that difficulty is there in her raised eyebrows, her parted lips. “I could have left you by now,” she breathes, sliding the arches of her feet up and down the backs of my thighs. “I should have.”

Need is twisting in my abdomen, the need to thrust, the need to hear her cry out, but I want an explanation. “Why haven’t you?”

“You would have found me,” she whispers, letting her thighs fall wide. So wide. An open invitation to my total damnation. “But there’s more. I…you’re the first man I’ve wanted back. I might hate you, but you give me this—” She breaks off on a moan, eyelids falling to half mast. “This crazy, ticklish feeling in my stomach and every time I think of running away, I wonder if I’ll ever feel it again, anywhere else.” She tugs her hands free of my grip above her head and begins unbuttoning her shirt. “And I lied. You aren’t just like the other men. The way you were so…in charge…back there with Talvert—”

“Never say his name again.”

Her breath hitches and she nods, thoughts racing behind blue eyes. “You have so much…power. I hate you and want you for the same reason.” She levers up and slides her lips against mine. “You could kill him, couldn’t you?”

“Yes.” More than that, I will, if he ever attempts contact with her again.

When she seems to savor my answer, I see a new side to Veda. One that’s dangerous and explosive, one that kindles in response to my aggression. She might be angelic on the outside, but it would be a serious misstep to underestimate her. And I don’t. She’s a time bomb in the most appealing package ever created.