The Billionaire Beast(32)

“You have cameras in the whole house?”

There was no accusation in the question and yet he felt an unfamiliar emotion crawl through him all the same. Shame. “Yes.” He grabbed hold of the saving grace of anger and held onto it. “I like to know what’s happening in my own fucking home. And what’s going on with my employees. Last year James had a goddamned heart attack, and if I hadn’t had the cameras on him, he would have died.” Why was he trying to justify himself? He didn’t need to justify himself to anyone.

Another silence.

“You were watching me?”

The question was soft and yet for some reason it hurt like she’d thrown a sharp stone at him. What could he say? She’d seen the screens with their view into her sitting room and her bedroom. She knew exactly what he’d been doing.

“‘Yes.” He made the word flat. Hard. “I’ve been watching you since you got here.”

“Why?”

He opened his eyes again, his jaw so tight it ached. “I don’t know. I just . . . had to see you.” The words wouldn’t come, he didn’t know how to say them, how to explain. “I . . . couldn’t read you. I didn’t understand you. And I wanted to. I thought that by watching you I could somehow . . .” He stopped, the hot burn of frustration making the tension inside him wind even tighter. Jesus, how could he explain his fascination to her? The need he had inside him? He couldn’t. He didn’t have the words.

Behind him was again silence.

“You wanted to understand me,” she repeated softly. “Why?”

“I don’t fucking know!” He raised his hands and brought them down hard on the desk in a sudden burst of anger, the sound echoing around the room. Then he turned around sharply. “Stop asking me these fucking questions!”

She was watching him, that terrible, soft look in her eyes. The look that made his soul feel like it was slowly being peeled open. “And all of these . . .” She gestured to the screens behind him. “They’re for you to get news?”

He could hear the disbelief in her tone. It was obvious.

She knows the truth. Even if you refuse to acknowledge it.

Anger and frustration sat like acid in his gut, threads of some other, colder emotion lacing through them. They made him want to smash something.

“Everything I need is here,” he said through clenched teeth. “I don’t fucking need to go out.” Which, of course, wasn’t what she’d asked, but he knew what she was trying to get at all the same.

You can get to the dining room and her bedroom. But when was the last time you stepped outside your front door?

Nero refused the thought. Utterly refused.

The expression on Phoebe’s face had softened further as she looked at him, and he could see it now, the pity there. And something else, yes, but definitely pity.

“Don’t,” he warned furiously, reaching behind himself to grip the edges of the desk, feeling the bite of the hard wood against his skin. “I don’t want your fucking pity.”

Another person would have recognized his tone and known it was time to get the fuck out of his way. But not Phoebe. Instead, she came toward him—because apparently she had no sense of self-preservation at all—that terrible look in her eyes. Making him feel stripped to the bone, flayed alive.

“Nero,” she said softly, her hands reaching for his face, the way she said his name like acid in a gaping wound.

Christ, he didn’t want gentleness. He didn’t want softness. He didn’t want her to look at him like that. Her anger was easier and far more bearable.

As her cool palms came to cup his face, he grabbed her hips, jerking her hard against him, the way the breath went out of her satisfying him on some raw, primitive level.

She opened her mouth to say something, but he covered it with his, taking it in a savage kiss. Because the time for talking was over. He didn’t want this slow, painful pulling apart of his very self. It felt like an attack, and his first instinct was to defend himself and to the fucking death if need be.

He wouldn’t hurt her—there was no way he could do that—but there were other things he could do that would deflect her, distract her. And this was one of them.

His tongue pushed into her mouth, hot, demanding, carnal. Expecting resistance and half hoping for it, because then it would give him something to fight against. But there was no resistance from her. Her mouth opened, letting him in, returning the kiss with the same hunger, her body melting against his as if she’d been waiting for this moment all this time.

Yet, far from making him feel better, it only made him feel worse. Because her soft, cool fingers were tangling in his hair and stroking down his back, as if she was trying to soothe him. But it was as if she was touching him with a naked flame, burning him. It hurt. And at the same time, it wasn’t enough. He wanted more.

Tearing his mouth from hers, he thrust one hand in her hair and jerked her head back, exposing her neck. Then he bent and kissed her throat, licking the sweet saltiness of her skin, then sucking hard enough to leave a mark. She shuddered but didn’t pull away. In fact, there was no resistance in her at all as he angled his head and bit her, making her gasp and shiver in his arms. Another thing that should have soothed him and didn’t. It only made him more desperate.

He slid his hands from her hips and down over the soft curves of her ass, filling his palms with her soft flesh and squeezing, fitting her more firmly against him so the heat between her thighs was pressed to his aching groin. Then he bit her again, inhaling her scent, jasmine and musk.

Fuck, it wasn’t enough. It would never be enough. She was fire and she burned him alive and yet it was like he craved the pain. It was like he needed it.

“You’re mine,” he growled against her throat. “You’re fucking mine. I’m not letting you go, not ever.”

“It’s okay,” she murmured, breathless and soft, yet with that same calm thread running through the words. “I’m right here. I’m not going anywhere.” Her hands were stroking down his back again, trying to calm him.

But the last thing he felt was calm. Everything she did only made the desperation inside him even worse.

He growled again and turned with her in his arms, lifting her up onto the great black desk. Then he shoved everything on top of it off with one sweeping motion of his hand, sending keyboards and mouse pads and everything else tumbling down onto the floor with a crash.

“Nero.” Her hands were on his shoulders and stroking down his arms, her voice gentle. “It’s okay. Everything’s okay.”

But it wasn’t okay. He didn’t understand this desperation, this need. Or the anger that was a bonfire inside him. Why everything hurt and why he felt as if her discovery of his control room meant the world was coming to an end.

There was only one thing that made sense to him and that was the hardness of his cock and the heat of Phoebe’s body against his. The desire to bury himself inside her, take her right here and now, make her his in every way there was. It was primitive and brutal and savage, but shit, that’s what he was. That’s what he’d always be. It was what he knew.

Jerking her skirt up, he then shoved his hips between her thighs, spreading them wide apart. Her head had tipped back, and she was looking up at him, the expression in her eyes soft, despite the rough way he was handling her.

“Don’t look at me like that,” he ordered, keeping one arm locked around her waist while he pushed his free hand between her legs.

Her breath caught audibly as he trailed his fingers over the front of her panties, letting his index finger press against her clit. “Like w-what?”

“The way you’re doing now.” He circled with his finger, exerting more pressure, watching her pupils dilate, feeling wetness against his skin. “All pity. The way you probably look at your fiancé.” It was a deliberate dig and he knew he shouldn’t say it, but he couldn’t help himself. “I’m not the one in a fucking coma.”

Her lashes had fallen, her mouth opening slightly. A deep flush had crept up her neck and into her cheeks. She looked so fucking beautiful he almost couldn’t breathe.

“I know you’re not.” Her voice was husky, her hips pressing subtly against his hand. She was as greedy for his touch as he was to give it. “And I don’t pity you.”

“Bullshit.” Abruptly, he slid his fingers beneath the cotton, tangling in the soft, wet curls of her pussy, brushing through her hot, slick flesh. “What is it if it’s not that?”

She shivered, breathing fast, her lashes lifting all of a sudden. Her eyes were dark, but in the depths, gold glinted. “It’s sympathy, Nero. It’s pain. I hurt for you.”

She hurt for him? She hurt for him?

He stared down into her sharp, mesmerizing little face, into her beautiful eyes. “Why? Why the fuck would you do that?” Because it didn’t make it better. It only added to the tangled, confused mess of emotion that sat in his chest.

She didn’t look away, just held his gaze as if what she was about to tell him was important. “Because I care about you.”

Something kicked hard inside him, an echo of a voice he still sometimes heard in his dreams. Telling him to be quiet, to not say a word, to not draw attention.