She wrenched at her trapped wrists. “Why the hell not?”
He made a frustrated sound. “I want it too much,” he burst out. “I need it too much. I do not want to…how did you put it? Project my gutter fantasies onto you?”
She shook with breathless, hysterical laughter, every inch of her tensed against his body. “Why this sudden insecurity?”
His face was tense, a mask of rigid self-control in the shadowy room. “I do not want to be like him,” he said starkly.
Tam gasped in astonishment. The idea was so incongruous, she almost couldn’t process it. “Him? Georg? Hah!” Her voice cracked. “You are nothing like him! As if!” She shoved him hard to punctuate her statement. “You are his polar opposite!”
His grin flashed. “Ah. Good, then. This heartens me.”
She made a frantic growling sound, lunged forward, and sank her teeth into his neck, hard enough to hurt. “Goddamn it, Val,” she hissed when she let go. “Don’t be sweet. Not right now. You’re ruining the barbarian conqueror vibe. Keep waffling like this, and I’m going to have to put you down.”
He laughed, a free, delighted sound. Plaster dust and flakes of paint pattered down on the antique tile floor as he pushed her back against the wall. He wrenched her jacket down over her shoulders and off, then attacked the buttons of her blouse.
She gave him a shove that rocked him back a bare couple of inches. “Hey. If you rip the only clothing I have to put on my body, I swear to God, I will kill you. Slowly and painfully.”
He slowly uncurled his fisted fingers and let go of the handful of silk, but he did not step back. “Take it off,” he commanded.
She unbuttoned the blouse, and that was as far as his patience would stretch. He wrenched the sleeves down, flung the blouse away.
He stared at her breasts, his gaze hot and intent as he slid his sensitive fingertips slowly around her nipples. Tender, lazy strokes that left glowing streaks of light and heat in their wake, every nerve wanting him back. Hungering for more. Her nipples tingled. He bent low, and she gasped at the faintest contact, the scratchy brush of his stubbled cheeks, the softness of his lips. His swirling tongue, the wet suckling pull of his hot mouth. He kept her like that, topless and trembling against the wall while he made love to her breasts, until her tension melted, softened.
He gathered her up into his arms and tossed her on the bed. His huge shoulders were silhouetted against the dim light filtering in the door as he loomed over her, his face in menacing shadow. He tugged off her boots, her pants. Flung them behind him. His own clothes followed.
He was naked. So strong and powerful and hot against her skin. The empty shackle of the handcuff dangled, a kinky fashion accessory swinging and glinting on his wrist.
Something to push against, that was what he’d offered her the night they met. That was exactly what she needed, to keep pushing and pushing, until she finally pushed through that wall into someplace where she could stand to be. Someplace where her nerves weren’t firing in crazy panic. Someplace where she could let herself relax and feel it.
Val could give her that. He was tough enough. Brave enough.
He climbed on top of her, folding her legs high, draping them over his shoulders. Stroking his hands down the fine, sensitive skin of her inner thigh. He covered her with his body, caressing her pussy, and found her slick and wet.
But not wet enough for his first deep, relentless thrust.
She cried out and scratched his chest, drawing blood. He just stared down, pinning her beneath him against the swaying bed.
“Do not ever do that to me again,” he said.
She swatted at him, hard. “Do not think your big dick gives you the right to give me orders, loverboy.” She spat the words at him.
He seized her hands, pinned them on either side of her head. “Never…again,” he repeated hoarsely, punctuating each word with a deep, jarring lunge of his body.
She writhed and wiggled, squeezing and clenching around his thick shaft. “You still don’t get it, do you? It was the only way!”
He went still on top of her, his fingers tightening painfully around hers. “I will never get it,” he said. “It is too much. Do not ask it of me.”
She wound her legs around his hips, squeezing the little muscles of her pussy around his cock with all her strength. Lifting herself against him, to feel that sweet, hot, gliding thickness caressing her deep inside. “I’m not asking anything of you but this,” she said fiercely. “So why don’t you just shut the fuck up and give it to me?”
He did. Deep and hard, every thrust jolted her wonderfully closer to the place she needed to be. With each thrust she grew slicker, hotter, more eager for the next, more desperate for the licking flames, the unbearable sweetness, brightening, sharpening. Piercing bliss.
The bed squeaked and groaned. Val’s breath was hard, panting. She gasped for breath. Small sounds against the vast, diffused backdrop of lashing rain outside the open door, distant thunder, wind whipping the foliage outside, the fragrant, rain-scented chill. Their twined bodies churned, clenched around a molten core of sensation.
It exploded into bloom. Melting sweetness throbbed through her, endlessly. She floated through that infinite realm. Filled with grace.
He took longer to finish, gathering handfuls of her hair and burying his face against his shoulder. His climax tore through him violently. His hips pounded hard against her body.
They lay together, limp and damp afterward. Their twined bodies generated sensual, enfolding heat, despite the cold of the room. Day had faded completely. They rested, formless as clouds in the blue half light, in an otherworld apart from all the pain and confusion and danger.
She wished they could stay there together forever. She never wanted to break this fragile bubble of calm—but she had to.
She turned his face, tilting his chin up so that he looked up into her eyes. There was something he had to know.
“I did not fuck him,” she said. “I would have, true, but I didn’t. You know that, don’t you?”
He nodded. “Yes,” he said. “I know that.”
“He couldn’t have performed, anyway. Not without an audience. It’s his thing.”
“I know. Hegel told me.” Val said.
“He got that from Kurt,” she said. “Kurt liked that. So, of course, Georg fixated on it. Kurt was God for him. I think what Georg truly wanted was just, well, Kurt. That was his way to get…closer.”
Val flinched, dragging himself out of her body. “Please. No more details. I cannot stand it.”
That infuriated her for some reason. She felt thrown back upon herself. “Why? Can’t you handle it, Val? Do I disgust you?”
His head swiveled around. “Shut up,” he said fiercely.
His harshness startled her. She curled up, wrapping her arms around her knees. “Fine,” she said distantly. “So we won’t talk.”
Val seized her by the shoulders and gave her a short, hard shake.
“I cannot stand the thought of anyone hurting you,” he said. “Not now, not in the past, and not in the future. Is that so fucking offensive to you, Tamar?” His eyes bored into hers, daring her to object.
She gaped at him, disarmed. “Um. I see.” She cleared her throat, and said the first thing that popped into her head. “Val? Could you get that handcuff off your wrist? It’s bugging me. Sort of like, ah, as if you were walking around with your fly open.”
He made a frustrated sound and got up,