He tilted his eyebrow. “You may be amazed to hear it, but I have noticed this lack of trust,” he said wryly.
“And? So?” Her bright eyes challenged him.
“So? I must prove you wrong. I will do as you ask.” He pulled out, regretting every clinging, caressing millimeter of sweet connection he was losing. “You cannot imagine what this galanterie is costing me.”
“Poor baby.” She sat up, coiling herself into a siren’s pose.
He rummaged for the condom, whipped the thing on and advanced on her, his erection jutting urgently before him.
“Do not tell me I must start from zero once again,” he begged.
The smile she gave him was razor sharp. “What makes you think you’ve racked up any points at all?”
Savage frustration flared inside him. He breathed it down with great difficulty “You will not give in to me for one single instant, no? No matter how much you want to.”
Her taunting smile faded, and for a brief, naked instant, he saw something in her eyes, something frantic and lost, like a trapped animal. “I can’t,” she said starkly. “I just…can’t.”
He was taken aback. The confession moved him, though it maddened him, too. He sensed her need, her frustration. The aching tension. Steel cables strung so tight they hummed from the strain.
He’d never wanted so badly to be tender to a woman, and he had never met a woman so desperately in need of tenderness. But it was unbearable to her. She simply could not tolerate it. Yet.
Until she could, he would just close his eyes, take a deep breath, and follow his instincts.
“Then don’t,” he said. He lunged for the bed.
She spun, trying to scramble away. She let out a startled grunt as he landed on top of her. All his weight. There would be no escape from the pleasure he meant to inflict upon her.
His hand slid down, caressing her trembling ass cheeks, sliding lower. Playing with her tender folds. Silken smooth, hairless, perfect. He tongued and kissed the back of her neck, her trembling spine as he pinned her flat, immobile, and played with her clit, her juicy cunt.
When her first climax wrenched through her, he savored the powerful, clutching pulses, her hitching, gasping breath, and then waited for the insults, the verbal slaps.
They did not come. She buried her face in the bedclothes, and shook. Wordless.
He forced his cock inside while tremors still rippled through her. When she caught her breath and raised her head, he was seated deep within, rocking slowly in that tight, gliding sheath. Waiting for a cue.
“Someday, you will let me be gentle with you,” he said.
Her hair swung as she shook her head in negation. “Don’t hold your breath,” she said jerkily. “I can’t even be gentle with myself.”
“I am patient,” he told her. “I can wait.”
“Shut up. Get to work, Val,” she snapped. “You talk too much.”
There was his signal. She rocked back to take in more of him.
He meant to give her everything he had to give, all the power and control, the technique, but something snapped, and they spun out of control together, heaving and bucking against each other, dripping with sweat. He held her in a grip that would leave bruises. She clutched handfuls of sheets with white-knuckled fingers. She did not fight him.
The danger zone, terrifying and wild and wonderful.
She looked over her shoulder. “Turn me over,” she demanded, panting. “I want to see your face. I want to see if you’re for real.”
“Of course I am.” He didn’t even question the truth of those words before they burst out. He pulled out, flipped her over, folding her legs wide to stare at the perfect pink flower of her pussy. She was so flexible, elastic as a dancer. Her skin, soft as a fine new leaf unfurling. Every curve and hollow astonished his eyes.
He mounted her again before she could change her mind, and they found their rhythm face to face. She stared into his eyes, undulating frantically, nails digging as the energy of her climax began to crest.
She panicked then and started slapping him, in a disordered, haphazard way, her eyes bright with furious tears. “Damn you,” she hissed. “Damn you, you son of a bitch.”
He tried to catch her hands, but she wrenched them away with a snarl. He just let go, let her pummel at him while their bodies slammed frantically together. She needed that violent struggle for dominance, and he sensed that she needed him to win it for her sake. But nothing she could do to him could hurt him now. He was riding a thundering crest of colossal pleasure.
Some time later, who knew how long, he found himself on his side, facing her. They were bathed in sweat, their arms still around each other, clutching. Her legs wound around his hips.
He tried to loosen his grip, but his shaking muscles would not immediately obey him. Their hearts thudded against each other.
He willed his arms to relax. Their bodies unglued with a little wet sound. He pulled his gleaming, softening cock out of her. They fell back onto their backs, shivering in the cool room as their sweat dried.
Someone knocked on the other side of the wall. “Ehi. Auguri, amico,” their neighbor called in a dry, amused voice. Hey. Congratulations, pal.
Neither of them had the energy even to react.
When he dared to look at her, she flinched away from his gaze and dragged herself up to the edge of the bed. He laid his hand against the elegant curve of her shoulder blade. She started away as if his hand had burned her and got to her feet. She stumbled, her legs buckling beneath her, and caught herself against the wall.
He jerked up, alarmed. “Are you—”
“Fine.” She spat the words out. “I’m fine.”
He stetched out a pleading hand. “Tamar—”
“Don’t,” she said. “Just don’t. I’m going to take a shower. I’ll be a while. Don’t bug me.”
He stared at her retreating back, flinched at the slam of the door. The brass key clicked and ground in the antique lock. The shower began to hiss against the marble. His heart still drummed. And beneath it, his belly was cold and heavy with guilt for what came next.
Now, damn it. This was his only chance. Still, he sat on the bed like a lump of lead. Miserable.
Imre. Novak’s game would continue, and tomorrow a fresh piece of erotic footage was due, to keep Imre in one piece. Val couldn’t be queasy and hesitant about getting it. After all, he was not literally hurting or betraying her by doing this. God knows, he was putting his whole heart into fucking her. He had never been so honest and forthright with any woman in his life—except about this. This one little detail.
The rationalizations didn’t work. He had to do what he’d learned to do as a boy, when Kustler sent him to certain apartments, certain houses. Special clients. Or when he had no appointments, and was sent out to work the streets. The cars would stop for him, and he would put the mechanism to work. Break off a piece of himself. Let it get into the car and do the job while his mind floated somewhere apart and safe. Numb.
He had survived it. It had gotten easier with time. But this, for some reason, did not.
He unfastened the cellophane that covered the plant he’d ordered via the Internet from a local florist. A voluminous fern. He rigged the little camera in the shadow of two gracefully draped fronds. Adjusted the angle to make sure he got the bed. Adjusted the leafy fronds, to conceal the camera but not block the view. He would make it right with her somehow.