Pure Destiny (PureDark Ones #12) - Aja James Page 0,22
a deep, frayed growl.
Her eyes glinted with something like regret.
“I can’t do that, Dalair.”
Why did she keep saying that name?
It meant something when she said it. He was someone when she said it.
He didn’t know why, but it bothered him. Every time she said his name, it was as if she was invoking some sort of power over him.
He studied her closely, trying to find her weaknesses. If only he understood emotions, he could manipulate her better.
But he was not at full capacity. His brain, though functioning, wasn’t completely in control. That tension that was building within him…it destabilized his program, making him divert energy he didn’t have to suppress it. Neutralize it.
Even so, he knew enough to bargain, “You care for me. You want to fuck me. Free me. I will give you what you want.”
She recoiled as if he’d struck her, even as an acidic pain bloomed in the region of his chest as he said the words.
He didn’t want her to fuck him.
He didn’t want her to use him.
He wanted…
No. He didn’t want anything. He wasn’t programmed to want.
He needed her close to get stronger.
But she was backing away from him, her expression between wounded and horrified.
“Sophia,” he said, knowing that, somehow, his use of her name held power over her too.
She stopped retreating just as he intended, gazing at him with something like helplessness.
“Don’t go.”
He’d said it because his body needed her to get stronger, but some forgotten part of him, a ghost that wasn’t really there, whispered that he wanted her to stay for a different reason.
He needed her. But he also wanted her.
While his program struggled with this confusing anomaly, she walked slowly back to him and sat down on the bed again.
Tentatively, she reached out a hand to cup the side of his face.
He flinched slightly at the contact. His body needed contact from hers so badly his skin practically sizzled with awareness.
“I’m not leaving you, Dalair,” she murmured. “I can’t release you yet, I’m sorry. I’ll do everything else for you that I can.”
He considered her, staring deeply into her warm brown eyes.
“Fuck me,” he demanded.
She almost flinched, but resolutely schooled her features.
“No.”
He analyzed her some more.
She obviously wanted to. Her body was primed for it. He could smell her wet, female musk permeating the air around them.
His cock jerked and leaked a stream of pre-cum, responding to the call of her body. He was primed for it as well.
“Need you,” he grunted, flexing his hands again, straining to touch her.
She held his gaze with determination as she said, “I need you too. I want you desperately. But, Dalair, it’s never just fucking between us. Do you understand? Can you understand?”
He didn’t. He couldn’t. It was beyond the scope of his program.
But…something inside him stirred.
“I want to make love to you,” she said in that soft, husky voice, sending goosebumps across his naked skin.
“With you. I want to love you. I do love you. I always have and I always will.”
Blinding pain split through him like an earth-rending fissure at her words, taking away his breath, his sight. His very heart seemed to stop beating.
And the last thought he had before he sank into black oblivion once more was:
I don’t believe you.
*** *** *** ***
Sophia lay naked and spread across Dalair’s body like a second skin. Just like before.
Though the surveillance cameras were deactivated, and they had absolute privacy, she still covered both of them with a light sheet.
It helped to pretend that they were simply lovers lying entwined in bed. That he wasn’t shackled and bound to the padded metal table. That she wasn’t taking him into her body for any other purpose but to consummate the love they felt for each other.
Right.
Sophia might have expected a tad too much from bed linen.
Though he blacked out earlier, Dalair’s body remained hard for her, all but pulsing to join with hers. As she was quickly learning, the separation between his soul and physical shell seemed absolute. One could be fully functional—a thinking, talking, active machine—while the other remained dormant. If it still existed at all.
As if impatient with her delay, his erect cock jerked against his drum-tight stomach beside her hip.
Fuck me, it practically demanded. In the same brutal way Dalair had spoken the words.
His body needed hers to heal. Was it simply their chemistry? Would any female have sufficed?
But even as a cacophony of doubts clanged in Sophia’s mind, she knew instinctively that Dalair needed her. Only her.