“What the hell is this supposed to be?” I bite out, flinching from all the light the diamond is throwing into my face.
“Handcuffs,” Dutch says, and in an instant, the battling fury and lust that I have for Dutch Cross comes roaring to the forefront.
Sex is a big deal to me since I’ve managed to go this long without it but, somehow, compared to marriage…
My eyes zero in on him, narrowing sharply.
Dutch doesn’t look flustered at all. “Take off your clothes, Cadey.”
My nostrils flare. “You want to be legally bound to me? At eighteen? Are you insane?”
“Start with your panties.”
He’s still sitting so far away from me. Not a hand lifted. Not a finger on my skin. Yet my entire body is burning up. The sensation keeps building, like the sizzle before a fireworks explosion lights up the night sky.
Destructive, wild, but so freaking stunning.
My eyes drop to his lips and I’m not sure if he’s drunk or high or maybe he’s been body-swapped.
“Did I finally tame that sharp mouth of yours, Brahms?” He leans back. “You don’t have any irritating comebacks?”
I make a frustrated sound under my breath. Not because he’s insane for proposing marriage. Not because I’m angry that he broke in. Not even because of the injustice of Dutch barreling his way into my life and trying to control me again.
It’s because I want it. I want him. And it’s getting really freaking hard to deny that I have wanted him since the moment our eyes met backstage.
He was beautiful then, when I didn’t know just how much he would screw up my life. After he put a target on my back and things got even worse, he was still beautiful.
But now…
Now he’s twisted into the very fiber of me.
My body starts trembling. I think about the note I found and what that means for me, for Vi. How it’s going to change my life.
A storm is coming.
And maybe this is my last chance to make bad decisions, to do what I want, no matter the consequences, before every action I take starts to become a matter of life and death.
I stare at Dutch, my breath hitting hard and fast in the silence.
Two truths hit me with unforgiving clarity.
I was relieved it was him in the kitchen tonight.
And I don’t want him to go.
With a quiet breath, I dig my fingers into the band of my tights, making sure to catch my underwear too. Eyes locked on him, I shove them both down my legs.
“Step out of them,” Dutch says. His smile is gone and a frown turns down the corner of his lips.
My willpower rises. I feel the swell of anger, the driving bite to argue with him, but I want his hands on me a little more than I want to be right.
Fingers shaking, I kick off the clothes and they tumble next to the legs of his chair. Dutch doesn’t bat an eye.
“Get on the table.”
A fire rips through me, starting in my belly and blazing a path between my legs. I close my eyes, wondering if I’ve gone insane.
But in the darkness behind my eyelids are the words from that note.
Why did you change the locks?
Damn.
My heart pounds.
I need out of my own head, but I don’t know if I’m strong enough to go all the way.
Dutch gets up and moves over to me. Putting his huge, skilled hands on my waist, he lifts me up and deposits me roughly on the table. Weathered wood bites my thighs. The table wobbles.
Silence reigns in the kitchen. It goes on for so long that I have to open my eyes. When I do, I find Dutch leaning over me. He’s scanning my face like I’m a complicated riff on his music sheet.
“Do you know what enthralled means?” Dutch asks, skating his fingers over the side of my face and down to my neck.
“What is this? A vocabulary lesson?” I choke out. I have to show that I’m not rattled, even if he’s weaving a spell over me.
Dutch chuckles and brings his finger down to my lips. “It means to capture someone’s attention so they can’t ever look away.”
His amber eyes have a wicked gleam in them, but his voice is almost monotonous. I wonder how much effort he’s putting in to pretend to be so damn unaffected by this.
I’m burning up.
And the fact that he seems so unmoved is bothering me.
“Shut up and get on with it, Dutch.” Sweat is rolling down my neck and back, sticking to my T-shirt. There’s an ache between my legs that’s getting worse the more he touches my face. I can’t quite catch my breath.
And yet he’s talking about vocabulary words?
His finger grazes my shoulder and I shiver. “Enthralled,” he whispers, his breath teasing my lips. “It’s what I’ve felt since the moment I saw you behind your piano.”
Dutch drops his mouth to my shoulder, a burning coal flickering out of the fire. His lips singe me even more, making me tremble with desperate, throbbing need.
It’s agony, how much I want him.
I’m going to make you beg for it.
His promise snaps through my memory.
Punishment.
This is a punishment.
A hot zing of fire courses through me when he slides his fingers over my neck and I wonder if I should just give in and beg now.
“You asked me why it had to be you,” Dutch says quietly. “That’s my answer.”
I gasp out loud, all warmed-up and desperate. Am I as much of a monster as Dutch is? I’m half-naked, on my kitchen table, electricity skittering up my skin, melting for the prince who tormented me for weeks.
The room is getting so hot that it’s stifling. And he hasn’t done anything more than stroke my face with his fingers and whisper how he finds me enthralling.
My chest rises and falls on a sharp breath. My eyes lift back to meet his.
I must be crazy.
Or maybe growing up too fast made something short-circuit in my brain. Maybe I’ve held myself back for so long that I’m breaking down in bigger and more dangerous ways than a normal teenager would.
“Am I supposed to take your word for it?” I snap.
One corner of his lips hitches up. “Do you know that I bought flowers the morning of the fire?”
“Why?” I bite out.
“I wanted to give them to you.” His fingers slide down my waist and grip my thighs. He jerks me so my legs are hanging off the table and then steps between them. “I’ve never bought flowers for a girl. Ever.”
I stare into his eyes and see that he’s telling the truth.
“You want me to think I’m special? That this is more than you trying to tear me down?” I whisper harshly.
“I don’t care what you believe. It won’t change what you are.”
“And what is that? A scholarship kid? A servant? An enemy?”
His eyes darken and he breathes out, “Mine.”
He kisses me then. A firm, sealing kind of kiss as if he’s putting his stamp on a marriage certificate. Then he pulls away from me, just enough to make our breaths mingle.
“Is your sister coming home?” he asks, his slightly breathy tone the only indication that he’s losing control.
I shake my head, unable to speak.
Dutch responds by shoving me back so I’m flat on the table. He grips my T-shirt. The flap of the hem rolling back is the only sound in the room.
I feel the fabric skittering against my stomach and then the cold rush of wind is replaced by the warmth of his lips on my chest.
Every flicker of his tongue taunts me. Leaves me vulnerable to the mouth scalding red, angry marks on my flesh, teasing me to fullness.
My body’s throbbing, the air is musky with my desire, and my legs are wide open, feeling the brush of his jeans in a torturous friction.
I’m keyed up, the pressure mounted to the ceiling, by the time he drags his attention to the rest of my body.
My eyes are closed, but I can hear him, feel him, when he sucks in a sharp breath and drops his kisses lower.
Lower.
Lower…
I’m too taut, too hyper-aware of everything around me. The hum of the fridge. The little crack in the back of the table that digs into my spine. The scent of ketchup and lunch meat from Dutch’s sandwich.
My body is a bundle of nerves and tension and I can’t stay still when he puts his mouth on me, so soft and yet so firm. My back arches off the table. My fingers claw at his shoulders and hair. I’m panting, obsessed, torn apart from the inside.
This is what it means to be devoured.
This is what it means to die.
My nails rake into the solid muscle of his shoulder. I twist my hips to get away from him. He holds me down and quickens his pace.
I squirm and writhe.
It feels so good that it hurts.
But sweet Brahms, I don’t want it to stop.
Dutch flicks his tongue one last time and it obliterates me. Sparks blow up from my head to my toe. White-hot pleasure tears through me, splitting me in half.
The insatiable beast wrenches his mouth away. Pinning my arms above my head, he presses himself into me and kisses me again. The kiss sends a violent heat skittering through me and I moan, feeling exposed and whole and powerful.
He massages both of my hands until they’re flat and then he curls them under the edge of the table.
His amber eyes sharpen on me. “Hold on. Don’t move.”
“I—”
His dark, warning glare makes me clamp my mouth.
With my back flat on the table, all I can do is stare up. There’s a stain on the ceiling. A leakage that we never got around to—
I tighten like a guitar string when Dutch uses his fingers to do what his mouth once did.
Harder.
Faster.
I groan so loud I’m sure the neighbors can hear. I buck until I’m afraid the table will crumble and then I wrap my thighs around his hips, dig my heels into his legs, and try not to pass out.
Hot lashes of pleasure tear through me like a hurricane. It’s even more aggressive than the time in the pool because I’m keenly aware of him, his ragged groans, his hot breath against my thighs, the scalding press of his fingers.
My body melts into the table, my hair sticks to my neck.
He’s diving everywhere, deeper, further, until there isn’t an inch of me he hasn’t tasted, touched and branded with his name.
I’ll never be the same after tonight.
My bones, to my very DNA will bear the mark of Dutch’s touch.
I try to scrape my fingers down his shoulder, try to tug his hair, try to leave any marks on him that I can, just to give back what he’s giving to me.
But my punishment feels way less severe as he ravages me, torments me, makes me want more even as I grapple with the fact that I might be incapable of handling this much.
“Du-tch!” I scream. I don’t have a single fight left. Crying out his name, I surrender at the most primal level.
And this time, the explosion that wracks me makes my body snap, hard.
I’m detonating like illegal fireworks as Dutch keeps working me through the unravelling, hurtling me to the edge of another blast before I’ve managed to survive the first one.
My eyes are filled with tears. His are filled with glorious amber greed. To own me. To have me completely.
Breath caught in my chest, I moan. “I need to feel you.”
Dutch straightens and licks his lips. His eyes are bright, almost feverish when he looks down at me.
“Not yet.” He grabs my chest in his mouth again, leaving another hot, bruising mark on my skin. I’m already vibrating with heat and the mere flick of his tongue sends my head snapping up.
I’m left wanting more and he knows it. His glowing amber eyes tell me I only have to do one thing.
Silence falls. Stretches. Pulls taut.
I both hate and crave him as he waits for me to say it.
I swallow hard, my heart pounding. Nothing makes sense anymore.
Nothing except that I’m ready.
“Now,” I whisper.
His chuckle is dark and makes me want to smack him in the face. “Are you sure you’re ready, Brahms?”
A rogue whimper escapes me when he teases me with his fingers again. I feel a sharpening ache in my body, a tightness that winds me to the brink.
“Are you sure?” Dutch asks me. His face is flushed, his hair sticking up from where I grabbed it.
My first time.
My V-card.
The person offering to pop my cherry is a damaged beast who wants to own me.
He’s Dutch freaking Cross.
And I hate him.
I hate that he’s so smug.
I hate how my body responds to him.
I hate that he’s consistently been there for me, saving me, rescuing me when I needed someone but couldn’t ask.
And I can’t hold back anymore.
I want more.
I want everything.
Reaching out, I caress Dutch’s face and watch the coldness fade away until there’s nothing left but raw emotion. The cruel prince of Redwood is something more than numb. Isn’t that a surprise?
His gaze falls on mine, stealing my breath away. With the moonlight caressing the lines of his face and chiseled jaw, he doesn’t look real.
I pant as I hold up my white flag. “This is me begging, Dutch.”
Dutch’s hand tightens on my hip. “Bedroom.”
“No,” I demand. “I can’t wait.”
I’m shaking. Now that I’ve already exposed my need, I have no problem pleading with him.
Relax his gaze says, so hot and sharp that I do the opposite. Honestly, I could sob with how wound up I am.
“You should at least be on a bed, Brahms. It’s your first time, dammit.”
“Stop talking and take me now.”
His lips brush mine and, when I glance up, I see eyes like the sky on fire. “Tell me if it hurts.”
“I will.”
He leans back, shoving his jeans down and then his boxers.
I gasp at the sight of him, thick heat crawling over my flesh. I’m so frightened that I barely notice the crinkle of a wrapper.
“Breathe with me, Brahms,” he says after putting on protection. “Relax.”
“I’m relaxed,” I snap, my teeth chattering.
He chuckles and kisses my forehead. His fingers slide into mine, interlocking our hands.
“Look at me, Cadey. Look at me.”
I fall into his amber eyes.
His knees pry my thighs apart.
And then he’s there. So much of him. Enough to split me wide open.
Oh sh—
It hurts.
Pain rips through me and Dutch eases away, kissing me and working me up again before he tries a second time.
“Baby, hold on,” Dutch growls, totally confident. “You’re ready now.”
I still remember the pain and I’m a wreck of nerves when he sinks in like a sword. Merciless. Hypnotic.
“Dutch.”
His name is a prayer.
His response is a grunt of pure concentration.
He goes still, letting me adjust. Letting the burn and the pleasure find their place in my body.
Then he buries himself deeper.
More.
More.
And, when I’m sure there’s no room left in me, he pushes even further.
Something inside me breaks.
My brain short-circuits.
Dutch drops damp kisses to my jaw, my throat, whispering in my ear.
So beautiful.
So damn tight.
I got you, Cadey.
I’m sure I’m going to die from the inferno flaying me open. Sure I’m going insane.
But I bare myself to him, widen my thighs, invite him further. I press up on my elbows, lapping at his mouth with sweet, nervous kisses to show I’m not afraid. I’m not as fragile as he thinks I am.
“Cadey,” he groans.
A vein pops out on his neck.
My heart thrums when I see what I’m doing to him.
Power.
My need to have him, to watch that expression of pure anguish and animalistic desire spread across his face makes me weak.
Every breath pries me open.
It’s like I’ve been rubbed raw. The pain is still there, but the pleasure is just as sharp.
And when his weapon of a body moves against me, requesting and then ordering me to feel every brutal inch of him, I’m certain that this rough invasion will kill me.
Angry heat.
Unbearable energy.
I hold him like the world is ending.
And maybe it is.
Maybe the sky falls tonight.
Oh…
But what a way to go.
