Immortal Rider_ Lords of Deliverance Series_ - Larissa Ione [80]
He was hard, and his cock sprang free, but before she could go any further, he tackled her, taking her to the ground, half-on, half-off the towel.
“Let me!” she shouted, once again reaching low for him, but he seized her by the wrists and pinned them to her belly.
“Stop.” He used his weight to control her, though he knew that if she wanted to, she could throw him like a two-thousand pound rodeo bull. “Sweetheart, stop. You don’t want this.”
“I do.” She snarled up at him, and for a long moment, they locked gazes and simply concentrated on breathing. In the distance, thunder rolled, as if the heavens were echoing her mood.
Gradually, he eased up and loosened his grip, hoping the fight had gone out of her. But when she pulled her wrists free and wrapped her arms around his neck and locked her legs around his waist, he knew she’d merely changed tactics. Angry sex: scratched. Tender sex: at the starting gate.
Arik: fucked.
Limos stared up at Arik, unable to believe he was trying to stop her. After all the pain she’d put him through, she was offering to make him feel good. Offering to let him use her to take back some of what she’d done to him.
Offering to let him punish her.
Did he not understand that she was on the verge of losing everything? That it wouldn’t be long before her secrets were unearthed and her brothers tossed her to her fiancé themselves. Or her fiancé would come for her, but either way, it was only a matter of time. She had to give Arik what she could now, before it was too late. And if she was hurt in the process, so be it. It was what she deserved.
“Arik, please.”
He reared back, and she let him untangle himself from her. “Why?” He went up on his knees and gently took her hand to pull her up too. “Tell me why.”
The urge to lie was so great it made her tremble, but he deserved better than that. Okay, so… honesty. The very thought of such deep-down sincerity made her stomach cramp and the scales on her shoulder blade wobble wildly. “I owe you.”
His lips formed a grim, hard line. “And you think giving me an orgasm is how you pay that debt?”
“Why not?”
“You know what? Fuck you.” He shoved to his feet. “You don’t get to work off your guilt on my dick. guilt odichei
She leaped up and seized his forearm. “Then hit me.”
“Excuse me?”
Frustration and unspent lust turned to sudden poison in her veins and on her tongue. “Hit me,” she spat. “Do to me what the demons did to you. Take your revenge on me. Now.” He stared at her like she’d sprouted horns, which was fitting. All the demonic vileness in her was surfacing as the weight of centuries of lies and pain bore down on her and the tattooed scales dipped in favor of evil. “Are you deaf? Break my bones, Arik. Make me bleed.” She shoved him hard enough to make him stumble backward. “Or is it only your sister you like to beat?”
It was a low blow that slammed the scales into such a deep imbalance that she felt like she might tip over from the amount of malevolence growing like a cancer in her evil half. Somewhere inside, her angel half was crying out in anguish.
“Stop it.” Arik paled, his skin taking on a waxy sheen. “What is wrong with you?”
“It’s what I deserve.” It was what she craved. Need oozed through her, a need to go crazy with fun and danger and pain. “Dammit, Arik, you are so stubborn.” She cast a Harrowgate, but before she could step into it, he snagged her arm.
“Where are you going?”
His hand on her skin was like a balm, smoothing out her raw edges, and some of the oily anger inside eased. Her scales even shifted a little. “Sheoul. I… need to.”
“You need to—” He sucked in a harsh breath. “Jesus. You punish yourself. That’s what this is all about, isn’t it?”
Yeah, it was. When she was afraid, stressed, or when people suffered from famine, she wanted to hurt herself with recklessness and risks. She got utterly stupid and self-destructive,