He lowered his head, his eyebrows shadowing the darkness of his stare. “A favor for a favor. Don’t get ahead of yourself.” His tone bordered a growl, thick with lust and frustration. Looking down at his cock, he snapped, “Deal with that, and you can have whatever clothes you want.”
Deal with that.
What does that mean?
He spoke of his body as if it was a traitor. As if the pleasure he was feeling and the anticipation of a release was torment instead of bliss.
“How...?” I swallowed, activating the fresh bruises around my neck. “Do you want to, eh—” I thought I’d come to terms with this. I had come to terms with this. I’d been prepared to offer my body in exchange for hope. Yet for some reason, verbalizing it took a strength I almost didn’t have.
Arching my chin and tapping into new courage, I asked clinically, “Do you wish to fuck me?”
He jolted.
His eyes snapped shut.
A guttural groan escaped his parted lips.
My belly coiled, and I was suddenly no longer cold from my shower. I was hot. I was steamy. But I didn’t want it. I couldn’t understand why my body reacted to his.
“Your hand,” he grunted. “I’ll fuck your hand.” His eyes opened, blazing coal and smoke. “Drop your towel and come here.”
Survival, Gem.
The only thing that matters.
Locking down my emotions for what was about to happen, I did as he requested.
I dropped the towel. I strode toward him bare. I stopped before him, suffering a full-body shiver at the heady heat rolling off him.
He didn’t touch me.
He looked as if he’d locked himself in place with shackles of invisible iron. “Free me.”
My heart somersaulted.
My inner battle for survival tangled with the ugly submission of giving in. Offering myself up verbally had been hard enough...willingly initiating sexual contact threatened to shove me back into the empty void from before.
“Do it,” he breathed, harsh and haggard. “Don’t and you’ll wish you obeyed.”
I looked up, fighting the urge to hide my body. “Do you...do you intend to touch me in return?”
I have to know.
Mentally, I had to prepare.
His jaw worked as his dark stare stroked my nakedness. “Make me come and you’re safe tonight.”
“And tomorrow?”
His lips thinned. “Tomorrow? Nothing is guaranteed.” Impatience etched his mouth. “Enough talking. You owe me. Do it.” His hips rocked, almost against his will. “Get it over with.”
Get it over with?
Another hint that sex for him wasn’t normal. “If you don’t want—”
“I want. I want the pain gone,” he muttered. “Now. Give me your goddamn hand.” Grabbing my wrist, he forced my trembling hand to press against his zipper.
The second my fingers made contact with his stiff arousal, he let me go. “Don’t stop.”
Just do it, Gem.
Freedom comes with a price.
Biting the inside of my cheek, I ordered my hand to obey, shaking and wary, dragging the zipper down.
He grunted as the fabric pressure on his cock vanished. The ruined slacks slipped down his legs to the floor. The muscles in his belly stood out in explicit detail, cords of strength and ridges of vitality.
No underwear.
I paused for a second, studying his erection just as he’d studied me. I’d tasted him, pleasured him. I knew his body before I knew his mind. The thicket of hair was as wild as the hair on his head. Untrimmed and unruly, hiding the balls drawn tight between his legs. And thanks to the lights gleaming above, I noticed something I hadn’t in my gloomy cell.
Scars existed on this part of his body, too.
Tiny snaking lines followed the thick arteries pumping blood into his cock. An awful tapestry of yet more pain he’d endured.
Was it self-inflicted?
Was it punishment?
Who is this man?
And why did he fill me with equal parts hate and the unfathomable need to nurture?
“Touch it,” he snarled, frustration thick in his throat.
I jumped from the spell I’d been put under, seeming to slip whenever I was too close to him. I cursed it. It shouldn’t happen. This was my enemy. My prison guard—
“Fuck, please—” He groaned as if his frustration had escalated to pitiful misery.
Once again, he scrambled me up.
Here was a man who didn’t hesitate to hurt me, who could kill me where I stood, yet...his beg was full of despair. It made me want to obey more than any threat he could utter.
He wanted to come via my hand.
He’d spared me the task of having him inside me. He said he wouldn’t touch me in return.
I was grateful for that.
I wouldn’t risk him deciding otherwise.
Taking a fortifying breath, I reached for his impressive length. The moment my fingers locked around his velvety girth, his head tipped back, and he collapsed against the wall behind him. “Fuck.”
Once again, he gave me everything. He put himself entirely into my hands as I stroked him from crown to stem.
He groaned long and low as I cupped his balls with my free hand, tugging down as I stroked up with my other.