me to show you, Princess Rose. It’s about time the baby of the family learns where her good fortune came from.”
Callan
Pride.
I had tons of it. Too much, most likely. The strength of it warming my skin and hardening my bones.
It was a constant pulse inside me, the knowledge that I had survived a tortured childhood, had lived through a slaughter that killed a hundred powerful men, and I’d come out on top.
But more than where I sat within a family that had enough money to rule the world, my pride ran deeper, its meandering path leading me into a ring of death night after night where I could show the true power of my body, the speed of my fist, the lethal potential of a soul forged in flames and ashes until it had hardened into a warrior’s sword.
There was no question: I was a vain man. But even with what I felt as I wandered the halls of a stately mansion and snapped the necks of my opponents in the ring, it still couldn’t touch the pride held within the woman who stared at me now.
Because, in truth, there was an empty space inside me carved in this woman’s shape, a blank space left over from when we were kids, the pride she’d sliced away from me so that she could claim it as her own.
A juxtaposition existed inside me: the need to devour every ounce of the vanity inside her so that I could use it to fill in my empty spaces, while at the same time, I wanted to leave her just as she was, untouched, resplendent, a beautiful Rose unlike no other.
Or maybe that was just the ghost of heartstrings broken over and over again when I’d been a weak and love-struck boy.
Still, I couldn’t help tasting the air of fear and refusal around her, couldn’t resist enjoying the tremor in her shoulders and the subtle widening of her navy blue eyes. My gaze dipped to her mouth, following the curve of it, my thumb twitching to remember how soft her lip had been when I’d pulled it down.
How wet.
How warm.
Would it feel the same against my mouth...or my cock?
I reached out while Lisbeth remained distracted at what I’d said, my fingers entwining in her hair, clutching the strands without worry of snapping them while I pulled her face close to mine.
Her eyes rounded with trepidation, her lips parting just barely on an exhalation of breath. Trapping her gaze with mine, I held her prisoner.
My voice was a seductive whisper.
“What would you do if I kissed you right now?”
Shoulders rising and falling with the air she struggled to breathe, Lisbeth narrowed her eyes, blue flames burning behind them.
“I’d bite,” she warned, that pride of hers a weapon that didn’t yet know defeat.
I pulled her forward, so damn close that our mouths were separated by only a tempting inch.
“I don’t think you would.”
She gasped, and I grinned, my stare falling to her lips that parted more.
Staring at them, I said, “I think you would dance your mouth across mine, would slide your tongue out to taste the man you hate so much.”
My eyes lifted to hers. “But if you did bite, that would be fine as well. A little pain would only serve to excite me. And while your body burned to be touched, while you watched me as intently as I’ve always watched you, my veins would be doused with ice because I would remember just how much of a petulant bitch you’ve always been to me.”
I tugged her hair, and she moved forward on her own. There was no doubt she thought it was me that continued dragging her closer, but that move had been all her, whether she realized it or not.
My lips brushed her mouth and cheek as I dragged them to her ear, my skin rippling with pleasure to feel her breath wafting against my neck. I slid my hand down until my thumb ran the center line of her throat.
A subtle threat.
A whispered promise.
“What would you do if I tied you down and fucked you, Lisbeth? Would you scream with pleasure? Or would you cry because the man whose cock is driving your body only looks down on you with stone cold hatred behind his eyes?”
And then I released her, the surprise in her face as she fell back in her seat causing me to laugh. I slammed a hand on the handle of the door and twisted in my seat