“It’s because I care about you, Nero,” his mother whispered through the crack in the door. “That’s why you have to stay here. I have to protect you.”
His heartbeat was speeding up, another emotion he didn’t understand welling up inside him.
Phoebe touched his face, running light, cool fingers along his jaw. “What’s going on?” Her forehead creased. She looked . . . worried. “Nero?”
He couldn’t breathe. Jesus, fuck, what was wrong with him.
Abruptly he pulled his hand away from her and, bringing her down off the desk, he gripped her hips and turned her around, so her spine was to his front. Then he put his hand on the back of her neck and forced her head down onto the desk.
She made no sound, went without resistance. And when he pulled her skirt up and roughly tugged her panties down her thighs, she didn’t move.
He said nothing, trying to breathe, trying not to think about what she’d told him. About what it meant.
He didn’t want her to care about him. Because he knew what that meant, he goddamn knew. It meant being kept in a room for ten years in order to “stay safe.” In order to not draw attention.
In order to stay forgotten . . .
Nero ran his hand over the soft pale flesh of her ass, the warm, silky feel of her skin chasing away the insidious thought. Grounding him in the here and now, reminding him of what was important.
Words meant nothing. Emotions were bewildering. People lied. But physical pleasure? That was real, that was simple. That, he understood.
Nothing else mattered.
His breathing was wild, his heartbeat out of control, his hands shaking as he jerked down his zipper. Phoebe was motionless under his palm where it rested heavy on the back of her neck, and even when he slid his free hand down and parted the soft folds of her pussy, she didn’t move. But he could hear her, the sound of her breathing as wild as his.
Does she want this? It isn’t the first time you’ve done this to her.
He growled at the thought, at the insistence of it, at the way it made the pain in the very marrow of his bones even worse.
“If you don’t want this,” he said in a voice that didn’t sound like his, “fight me.” Part of him, that bestial part, was still craving a fight.
But she gave a short, sharp shake of her head. “No.”
He bared his teeth at the sight of her bent over in front of him, at the vulnerability of her, with her ass bare and his hand pressing down on the nape of her neck. So pale, so soft. Fragile. It made him feel like he wanted to gather her up in his arms and hold her the way he had down in the dining room that day. Her sitting in his lap and sipping on his wine, telling him about her life, making him feel more contented than he had ever felt in his life. Making him want to hold her tight and protect her, keep her safe.
Like you were kept safe?
“Fight me,” he ordered savagely, shoving the thought out of his head. “Do as you’re told.”
“No.” She reached behind her, those delicate fingers finding his cock, stopping the breath in his chest as they circled the base of his dick, guiding him to the slick heat of her pussy. “Fuck me instead, Nero,” she said thickly. “Do it.”
Maybe it was the raw demand in her voice, saying the words she almost never said, but it hit him all of a sudden that this time it was going to be different. That mere physical pleasure wasn’t going to sate the hunger, wasn’t going to kill the thirst. It was only going to make it worse. It was a fire that wasn’t ever going to go out and taking her here, now, would only make it burn higher, hotter.
And only keeping her here forever would ease it.
He should have stopped in that moment. He should have let her go and walked away.
But it was too late. She had him by the cock and he’d never learned how to resist.
Nero knocked her hand away, and, a savage growl ripping from his throat, he thrust hard and deep inside her.
Chapter 12
Phoebe shut her eyes, a sharp gasp escaping her as Nero’s hips flexed and his cock pushed deep into her. Then she gasped again as he jerked back, almost pulling himself all the way out, before thrusting hard back inside her again. His hand was heavy on her nape, holding her down, her cheek pressed to the wood, the edge of the desk biting into the tops of her thighs. It was painful and he was rough, the harsh sound of his breathing in her ear as he drove himself into her, shoving her hard against the desk with each desperate thrust. Fucking her like she’d told him to. Yet despite all of that, pleasure was uncurling inside her, a wild exhilaration that made her want to arch her spine.
She’d only wanted to comfort him, give him something to ease the pain he was so obviously in. Pain he didn’t seem able to talk about or have the words to explain. And when he’d grabbed her and kissed her, she hadn’t resisted, because if sex was all he would accept from her, then that’s what she’d give him. She had to. She could never stand it when someone she cared about was hurting.
It meant something that she cared, but she couldn’t think about that, because the wildness inside her was igniting, burning through nerves and muscle and bone, making her dig her fingernails into the wood beneath her. Making her want to push herself back onto his hot, hard cock. Fuck him the way he was fucking her.
A moan escaped her as he drove inside her again, her nails leaving scratch marks on the surface of the desk as his thrust propelled her forward. And this time she obeyed the craving, shoving herself back onto him, his harsh intake of breath her reward.
Yes, God, if he wanted it rough, she’d give him rough.
“Come on,” she heard herself say, her voice husky, “fuck me like you mean it.”
Nero’s hand on her neck firmed, pressing her face down against the wood. “You want it like this?” Abruptly his arm snaked around her waist and he jerked up her hips, her feet just off the ground. Then, not waiting for a reply, he thrust harder, driving his cock deeper, holding her tight so she couldn’t move.
Phoebe gasped, squirming in his grip because his cock was like iron inside her, stretching her wide, making her shudder and shake. She sucked in a ragged breath, wriggling to try and put her feet on the ground so she could use them to shove back on him, but he didn’t let her go.
“Keep still,” he ordered, low and guttural, shoving inside her again, the impact of the thrust rubbing the wood of the desk against her cheek.
Oh . . . God. So insanely good.
She groaned, flexing her spine, the pleasure getting hotter, wilder.
“Answer me.” A command, full of dark sensuality and rough heat. “Is this how you like it?”
She arched again, another deep thrust dragging a moan from her throat. “H-harder,” she managed to force out. “I need more.”
His arm beneath her tightened, lifting her hips even higher, and he drove into her again, the sound of his flesh hitting hers making everything feel that much hotter, dirtier. “You want it like this, don’t you?” He shifted, the angle of his thrusts pushing him so deep inside her, she almost couldn’t breathe. “Me, fucking you over my desk.”
“Yes . . . God . . .” Her fingers dug into the wood beneath her, no longer trying to shove herself back, but in a futile attempt to hold on, because he was a hurricane and he was going to shatter her if she didn’t.
Then again maybe that was good. Maybe she wanted to be shattered. Maybe she wanted to be broken into so many pieces she couldn’t be put back together again, because there was a certain freedom in that.
Then Nero stopped unexpectedly, his cock buried deep inside her, and she shivered all over, so close to coming she could almost taste it. She shifted, trying to get him to move, but then the weight of him intensified and his breath was hot in her ear. “I meant what I said, Phoebe.” he whispered fiercely. “You’re mine. You’re mine forever now.”
Something deep inside her shuddered, and it wasn’t with fear or apprehension at his claim. It was with acknowledgment.
Phoebe kept her eyes shut tight, her breathing hoarse and ragged, awareness flooding through her. Of Nero’s weight pressing her down, of the possessive grasp of his hand on the back of her neck, of the stretch of him deep inside her, of the delicious musky, spicy scent of him all around her . . .
Yes, God, yes.
She couldn’t deny it. She couldn’t escape it. She wanted to be his. Despite the fact that he was broken, damaged in ways she didn’t know if she could heal, and despite the fact that she already had a fiancé lying in a coma in a hospital bed, she wanted to be Nero’s. He’d released something inside her, a passion she’d kept trapped for a long time, allowing her a freedom she hadn’t known was possible. And even more than that, even simpler, he saw her and accepted her as she was, not what he wanted her to be. Something that no one else did.
The wood beneath her cheek had rubbed her skin raw, and she knew she was going to have marks at the tops of her thighs from the edge of the desk, but she didn’t care. She didn’t care about any of it.
“Yes,” she said simply, and her voice didn’t shake, not this time. “I’m yours.”
He made a guttural, satisfied sound, his fingers gripping her wrist, dragging it down and beneath her, guiding it between her thighs.
“Touch yourself,” he ordered. “Make yourself come for me, Phoebe.”