His eyes narrowed. “You hide behind the child.” His voice took on a tone of discovery. “You need the child. What other reason do you have to keep living? Why else wake up in the morning, put food in your mouth? You need her to claw your way from one day to the next. No?”
“Leave her out of this.” Tam squeezed her eyes shut. With her hands confined, she couldn’t cover even her shaking mouth, her leaking eyes.
Nor could she reach the panic button strapped to her thigh, the one that would summon Nick and Davy, guns drawn. They had begged and urged and lectured her to mike the room so they could monitor the conversation, but know-it-all bitch that she was, she hadn’t wanted their noses that deep in her business.
“Poor little girl,” he murmured. “Too innocent to understand how she is being used. And still, in the middle of the night, you are terrified at what you have done to yourself. The vulnerability, the work, the time, the noise. The awful responsibility. Do you wonder if survival is even worth it? If death would be less frightening? Less effort?”
Her body shook in his hard grasp. “Fuck you,” she whispered.
“I would,” he said. “Right here, on the floor, until you whimper with delight. You like strength. You crave it, as much as you fear it. And I am strong enough for you. I would put it all at your service. Everything you fear, everything you hate, everything you fight so hard against dedicated to your pleasure.”
Her eyes popped open at that absurdity. “Oh, please. What a pile of melodramatic shit.”
“I could force you,” he said. “Part of me wants to. But you are so fragile. You would close up completely, and I would find myself fucking a beautiful doll.”
She laughed. “That’s enough for most men,” she muttered. “They never know the difference.”
He stared into her eyes. “I know the difference.”
She felt too weak to lift her ribcage beneath the weight of his body. But that was all right. She didn’t really want to breathe. Her chest felt too unstable. Pulling air in could ignite it like dry tinder, make it burst into flames. Her brain kept trying to form responses to what he said, but they didn’t make it as far as her shaking mouth. She could make no sound without air anyway. She was muddled, flushed with a strange, hot power that pumped up from some mysterious hidden spring inside her. Speeding her heart. Her skin felt weirdly sensitive. Hairs prickling up.
Almost as if she was…oh, dear God. Why, that sneaky bastard. How dare he. As if she had no clue, no defenses. He’d gotten so deep in her mind, fucking with her head, making her…
Hot. She shifted. He anticipated the movement, canting his hips so the whole hard, hot length of his cock was cradled in the cleft between her legs. His hips swiveled, a slow, rocking, grinding push.
She gasped. She was turned on. Out of nowhere, and like never before. She’d thought it was all burned out of her, after Novak.
But no. She was on fire. Hot and soft and shivering. He’d made her…wet. He was a sorcerer, a shaman.
His face was a mask of concentration. “You feel it,” he said.
She did. There was no point in lying. It took her a moment to reply. “And? So?” Her tone was ragged, wobbly. “What of it, Janos? Happy with yourself now? Get off me. Go carve another notch on your gigolo belt. What the fuck do I care?”
“Not yet,” he said. “I aim higher. I want a bigger prize before I carve my notch. Feel how good it would be.” He stretched her trapped arms higher. Swiveled his hips, and pleasure throbbed through her, from groin to nipples, flushing her face, making her thighs clench, her knees contract, her toes curl.
This had to stop. “Good for you, maybe,” she shot back.
“I know,” he murmured. “You would never let me please you the way I know that I could. You would never open yourself so wide, let down your guard so much. You have not been fortunate in your lovers?”
Hah. What a joke. Novak flashed through her mind, Georg, Stengl. “You think you could please me?” Her voice shook. “Men always think they have the answer to women’s prayers bouncing between their legs. It makes them pathetically easy to control.”
His smile faded. “You’re afraid. You have been abused? By who?”
“Fuck off, Janos.” She renewed her struggles, but with a deft shift of his weight, he immobilized her again.
“It is a terrible crime to hurt a woman in this way,” he said.
The gentleness of his voice both infuriated and embarrassed her. Condescending son of a bitch. How dare he feel sorry for her. “Do not presume to understand me, you prick,” she hissed.
His face was somber. “Ah, yes. I see. Compassion. The biggest insult of all.”
“Compassion, my ass. You’re a cold fish, Janos. You’re just jerking me around at random until you find out what strings and buttons make me jump. I’m bored with the game.”
“I don’t believe you’re bored.” His low voice rumbled, caressing her. “Your body is hot and soft. It vibrates under me. Your face is pink, your lips are red. Your eyes are lit up, shining. You’re having fun.”
Laughter jerked out of her, the words were so incongruous. “Fun?” she squeaked. “You call this fun? Having a muscle-bound lout throw me on the floor, sit on me, and fuck with my mind?”
“Since you have not invited me to fuck with any other part,” he said philosophically. “And yes. It is fun, for a complicated woman like you. How long has it been since anyone challenged you? Since someone gave you anything real to push against? You have to play hard to find your pleasure, no? How long since someone brought you to orgasm?”
Years. She shut her eyes, as he rocked against her. She shuddered with the hunger, and the snarled, painful memories and shame that came with it. “Stop,” she said. “I don’t want it.”
“You are lying,” he said. “You are so close. Fight me. Throw me off. You’re strong. The strongest woman I have ever known. Try harder.”
“Arrogant dickhead.” She writhed desperately, and before she knew it, he was kissing her, his lips dragging over hers. He tasted good, so smooth and hot and fragrant. So strong and sensual, his muscular body hard and unyielding. She wanted to flip him over onto his back and devour him. But he was too big, too heavy. She couldn’t control him. It was driving her mad, the helplessness, the heat.
She struggled. Every desperate jerk, he answered with his hips, his tongue. He murmured low, sexy words of encouragement, nudging her closer to…no, her shattered nerves weren’t up for this kind of voltage, she was going to explode, disappear, die…no…yes.
Yes. The wave broke, crashing through her. The fear, the fury, all blended with a pulsing pleasure so sweet and hot and deliciously endless, widening out to a shimmering glow…
The crash of a door being slapped open broke through her floating languor. Janos went tense with readiness on top of her.
“Holy freaking shit. What the—Jesus, Tam!”
Tam turned her head. Davy and Nick stared down at her, mouths agape, guns pointed at Janos. Janos looked at her, and silently raised his eyebrow. He did not let go of her hands.
Tam licked her lips. “Ah…um,” she said, inanely.
Davy slowly lifted his gun. “Help me out here, Tam,” he said carefully. “You hit the panic button, right? So what’s the deal?”
Panic button? Oh. Yes. The button. Tam’s gaze dropped to her thigh where the band with the panic button was strapped. In the throes of heaving on the floor with her legs clamped around Janos’s thighs, the button had tripped itself. Against the floor most likely. Very funny.
It