Total pages in book: 101
Estimated words: 94782 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 474(@200wpm)___ 379(@250wpm)___ 316(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 94782 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 474(@200wpm)___ 379(@250wpm)___ 316(@300wpm)
His fingers curl around mine, prying them away from my robe. Deftly, he unties the knot at my waist and peels the material off my shoulders. The robe pools on the floor, and a shiver moves through me as his eyes rake over me with an intensity that feels like a physical caress.
“Do you want to play, gudinne?” He cups my face in his large hand, and unconsciously, I lean into his warmth. For that one second, he is so gentle I could almost believe everything is going to be okay. And then he grabs me by the hair and wrenches my head back so I can’t look away from him.
“Tell me how much you hate me.”
I’m silent. Tense. Confused. I don’t know what he wants from me. It feels like a trick until his eyes betray him. He wants me to provoke him. He wants me to make him angry so he can use that emotion to do whatever he wants.
“Does it matter how I feel about you?” I ask softly. “I’m here so you can do what you like with me. This is what we agreed on.”
“Say it,” he commands, the vein in his neck throbbing. “Tell me how you really feel.”
“My emotions are mine.” I level my eyes at him. “You can have my body, but not my thoughts.”
“I’ll have what I want.” He wraps his fingers around my throat, squeezing in warning. “Your only purpose is to please me. Now get on your knees.”
When I fail to comply, he cages me in against the cabinet and uses his grip on my throat to arch me back until my legs give out, and I crumple before him. When his hand falls away, I drag in a deep breath, massaging the sting he left behind. There’s something so depraved in me to enjoy this. I don’t want to analyze it too closely, but his brutality is hardwired to produce a chemical reaction in me. I want more of this violence. This push and pull between us. I want him to exert his sovereign power over me every chance he gets.
“You’re learning.” He pets my hair with a tenderness I didn’t think he was capable of only a moment ago.
When he hauls my face toward his trousers, my cheek rubs against his erection. It’s harder than steel, pulsing against my skin, even through the material.
“Kiss it,” he murmurs.
My hands fall onto his leather Oxfords, clinging to his feet as I peek up at him. Is it the magnetic pull between us or our agreement that urges me to bring my lips to the caged beast throbbing in his trousers? I can’t be sure of anything right now, only that when I follow his command and kiss his royal endowment, he rumbles his approval, and that sound ricochets through me like a bullet.
Slowly, he unzips his trousers, his eyes searching for something inside me. Revulsion. Deceit. Mistrust. Whatever it is, he doesn’t find it. The muscles in his forearm flex, and he glares down at me with obvious disappointment.
“You aren’t fooling anyone.”
“I’m not trying to,” I whisper.
His eyes cloud over, and for a long moment, he just watches me as if he’s trying to figure me out. Maybe I’m paranoid, but I think I’m fighting a losing battle with Thorsen. Against my better judgment, I’m here. I’m giving him two months of my life to torment me, control me, own me. But still, he is doubtful.
When he reaches down and tugs the tie from the bathrobe out of the loops, a nervous tension blooms in my gut. He grabs my chin and wraps the fabric belt around my head several times, obscuring my eyes. And I have to wonder why. Why doesn’t he want me to see him?
The warmth of his fingers slips away once he’s finished, and I’m entombed in darkness. But I can still hear him moving around the room. Opening a drawer in the cabinet, and then another. When he returns, he fists a handful of my hair and tugs me upright again, walking me in a different direction until my knees bump against the bed, and I collapse forward. My face falls against the comforter as he pulls my hips back, spreading my legs apart. His hands feel huge on me, and I don’t doubt that he could easily break me. He’s the most powerful man I’ve ever seen, and I don’t know how my body will sustain him.
He grabs my wrists and secures them behind my back, binding them with what feels like another rope. And then his fingers trace over the scars on my arms, eliciting a trail of goose bumps down my spine.
“It’s a shame to see such beautiful skin destroyed,” he mutters.
My body tenses beneath him, but he doesn’t acknowledge my discomfort. His warmth disappears for a second, and then I hear a bottle opening. When he touches me again, he glides his palm over the curve of my ass, prying my cheeks apart and forcing me to open for him.