Burn (4 page)

I’m beginning to think this guy is bipolar. He swings so wildly from one attitude to the next. I didn’t see it at first. He just seemed arrogant and pissed off all the time, but I’ve begun to realize something; those negative emotions are his anchors. They keep him from drifting off someplace he doesn’t want to go. Maybe the place he drifted to just now? And I wonder…does he know he’s developed this coping mechanism? I sincerely doubt it.

“Julio knew I wasn’t a call girl, Zeth. There was no point in lying to him about it.”

“So you lie to him about me instead. He
knows
me. He knows I would never…” He starts pacing, working on wearing a hole in the polished floorboards. His expression is stormy and tense.

“You would never what?”

“I would never submit to a woman. Not like that.”

“That’s bullshit. You told me to own you when we first…”

Zeth raises an amused eyebrow at me. “Fucked? See, you can’t even say it.
That’s
why I told you to own me. Because having you
try
was just too delicious. You’re so uncomfortable in your own skin. I just wanted you to break free from that. If I had to play a little game with you, so you could do that…” It’s his turn to shrug now. I glare at him, my temperature rising.

“I’m not uncomfortable in my own skin. Out of the two of us, you’re the one who’s not at home in his own body.”

A broad smile spreads across his handsome, incredibly annoying face. “Have you seen me, sweetheart? I look like a fucking Abercrombie and Fitch model.”

Oh, the smug, smug bastard. “No you don’t! You look like a fucking criminal. And you
are
a fucking criminal.”

“A criminal who models for Abercrombie and Fitch?”

“Urgh!” I contemplate throwing my phone at him, but then think better of it. I hurl a pillow at him instead, which is nowhere near as satisfying as the phone would have been when it hits his head. He’s too busy laughing at me to care, anyhow. I suddenly realize what he’s doing. He’s actually laughing. Laughing, like a normal person. My anger vanishes. I sit in silence, stunned over how surprising the moment is.

He picks up the pillow from the floor at his feet, still chuckling a little. He tosses it back on the bed, unaware of the reaction he’s caused in me. How he’s completely put me on the back foot. “Well, regardless of the why, you’ve landed us in a mighty fucking awkward situation now, Sloane Romera. You should have just blown me and been done with it.”

“
What?
”

He paces to the walk-in closet where he packed away his black duffel this morning, and surprise, surprise, pulls the damn thing out again. My palms start sweating at the very sight of it. “We have to figure out how to make Julio believe you’re as ballsy as you made out to be otherwise we’re both in a lot of fucking trouble, aren’t we? He’s already suspicious as fuck about me. Especially now he knows Michael isn’t here spying on me for Charlie.”

“Wait, what? Michael’s here? Your Michael?”

Zeth snorts, carrying his black bag to the bed and unzipping it beside me. “He’s checked into the room two doors down from us. Swanning around like he owns the place.”

“I don’t understand.”

“You don’t need to.” Zeth’s amusement levels seem to have evened out again. He turns to face me, apparently finished fiddling with his duffel of tricks. “All you need to do is take something out of this bag and use it on me. And make me believe it.”

“Uhh…”

“Do it. Right now.”

“I…I can’t. It’s not that simple, Zeth. I can’t just decide to—”

He lunges for me, placing a hand over my mouth. “Stop talking.” He climbs up onto the bed, hovering over me, his face only a short inch away from mine. “Stop. Talking. Start. Doing.”

Despite his words, I can see in his eyes that he doesn’t think I can do it. This is exactly the same thing as him telling me to own him—he thinks I’m too self-conscious to do it. It’s very true, but it’s also seriously annoying. He wants me to start doing? Fine. I’m gonna give him what he wants. I already know he is not going to like what I do next. His hand’s still over my mouth, so I tilt my head to the side and clamp my teeth over his index finger, biting down.

“
Sloane.
”

I bite down harder, staring him straight in the eye. His mouth twitches, but he doesn’t say anything else. I have to release him for the next part. There are small red wheels on his finger as he pulls his hand away; that makes me smile on the inside, overly happy that I’ve marked
him
for once.

“Get off me,” I command.

He narrows his eyes. “Why?”

“Don’t ask questions. Do as your told.”

He smiles at me, wolfish and dangerous. I take the smile straight off his face when I slap him with my open palm. Hard. He looks momentarily stunned.

“Do you need me to ask you again?” I ask him. My cheeks are burning so hot that I must look ridiculous, bright red and flustered, especially with my chest rising and falling so quickly. Zeth isn’t looking at my chest or my cheeks, though. He’s looking me straight in the eye, transfixed. I can see him warring with himself over what I’ve just done to him. He hates me slapping him. He hates me lashing out at him in any way; I already know that from past experience. And yet, this is his own doing. He can’t react. He’s told me to do this.

He straightens up slowly, still staring at me. Once he’s moved away, I sit up and slide off the bed, trying not to let my nerves get the better of me. I can do this. I can do it if I don’t let myself panic, even for a split second. If I do, I’ll never regain my resolve. A part of me is simply wondering how badly I’m going to be paying for this later.

The duffel’s already open. I draw it apart so I can get a better look inside, and I almost lose it right there and then. I’ve never seen anything like it before in all my life. It’s part sex shop, part hardware store in there. Knowing Zeth, I have no idea which one of those stores the coils of strapping or the sheathed knives come from, and frankly I’m scared to find out. There’s other stuff in there: ball gags, handcuffs, lengths of rope, a sleek silver bullet shaped vibrator that looks brand new. Along side all of that, there’s a knuckle-duster, a gun and what I suspect to be a Taser. The roll of duct tape really finishes the whole thing off for me.

I hesitate. Who the hell am I dealing with here? This is a stark reminder that Zeth is a whole lot darker than anyone else I’ve ever met. A whole lot more dangerous.
He’s never pretended to be anything else
, a small voice in my head reminds me. I glance up to find him watching me closely, hands clenched by his sides. It’s almost as if…almost as if he’s done this on purpose. He’s made me look in the bag. To see who he is. He must think I’m going to run. He must literally be waiting for it to happen. That’s not who I am, though. Not right now, at least. Maybe I’ll revert to reserved, timid Sloane as soon as I have Alexis back, but until then…

I pick up the gun.

“Stand up.”

Zeth couldn’t look more surprised if I’d actually shot him with the thing already. “Sloane…”

“I said stand up.” I check the clip, take the safety off, and then I aim the thing directly at his chest. I’m still panting like crazy, still red in the face, but I can feel something shifting inside me. I’m not nervous anymore. Not with this weapon in my hand. Zeth stands up slowly, never taking his eyes off me.

“When I told you to take something out of the bag—”

“Yeah, I get it. You didn’t expect me to pick this. Now take off your shirt.”

He does it, slipping the clothing over his head quickly, as though he doesn’t want to take his eyes off me for a second. I want to take a moment to appreciate the beauty of the half-naked man in front of me, but I can’t let him know what he does to me. Instead I gesture the gun at his pants, raising my eyebrows. He gets my meaning—
those, too.
He kicks off his shoes and loses the pants, all without looking away.

“Now what?” he asks.

“Shut up. Come here.” He makes his way around the bed and comes to stand before me in his boxers, looming over me. He’s trying to intimidate me with his size, but it’s not going to work. Not this time. It must come as a shock to him; I get the feeling he’s relied on his stature to scare the living shit out of a lot of people for a very long time. I’m gonna take that advantage away from him. “Get on your knees.” This command makes him pause. I don’t think he planned on things going this way at all. Not one bit. He doesn’t do it straight away. I shove the muzzle of the gun into his chest, pressing down hard enough to depress skin and muscle. He gets the picture.

He sinks to his knees.

“Now put your hands behind your back.”

He does that, too. I skirt around him, still pointing the gun at him, until I reach his duffel. The duct tape comes out next. My heart is hammering as I pull out a length, and my hands shake like crazy as I bind his wrists together. I keep expecting him to whip his own hands away and grab hold of me but he doesn’t. He lets me do it, although his breathing has kicked up a notch, coming faster and louder.

I remain behind him, taking a moment to regroup. I know what I’m going to do to him. I know exactly what I’m going to do, and the prospect is at once thrilling and terrifying. I reach out and I bury my fingers into the hair at the nape of his neck, grabbing hold of it and pushing his head forward. He grunts, but doesn’t react. Not until I press the gun against the back of his head. He stops breathing. I know his eyes are open because his long, dark eyelashes are visible in slanted angle I hold his head in, but he’s not blinking. He’s not moving. He’s just staring at the floor, holding his breath.

“Tell me what you’re feeling,” I demand.

Zeth blasts a full lungful of air out of his nose. “Oh, really? We’re sharing our feelings? Right now? Come on, Sloane.”

I cock the hammer on the gun.

“Fuck! Okay. Okay. Well, I guess you could probably say I’m wondering if you’re gonna blow my head off. Happy?”

“Great. That’s what you’re thinking. How does that make you
feel
?”

“What the fu—”

“You’re kneeling on the floor with a gun pressed against the back of your head, wondering if you’re about to die. Don’t fucking tell me you’re not feeling anything, Zeth.”

“Alright, I’m fucking shitting my pants. I’m losing my shit. Is that what you want to hear?”

“Yes.”

He lets out a scathing laugh. “Wonderful. I’m glad I’m not the only sadist in this relationship.”

“I’m not a sadist. And neither are you.”

“Then what the fuck are you doing, Sloane?” He sounds exasperated. Completely at his wit’s end. I put the gun back into the duffel, remembering to snick the safety first, and then I kneel down behind him. I carefully stroke my fingertips down the defined grove between his shoulder blades, taking great pleasure in the way he shivers at my touch. From there I lace my arms through his so that I can run my hands down over his chest and his abs. I’m so close to him, my chest pressed to his back. His skin still smells of outdoors and the faint tang of masculine sweat. He’s incredible. I can’t stop myself; I carefully press my lips to his back, closing my eyes.

“God, Sloane,” he whispers. Nothing else. He doesn’t ask anything of me. He just trembles as I trace my fingers across the planes of his stomach and downward, to the tops of his thighs. I kiss his shoulders, running my tongue over his heated skin, licking and biting at him, gently this time. Not hard like before. My knees hurt like hell, but it’s worth it if only for the way his body comes alive against me, twitching and reacting to each and every considered stroke.

The anger that I just utilized, living inside of me, eventually turns to something more heady, sexual and basic. The power that I have over him right now—it feels incredible. I could do anything I wanted to him and…and realistically he could probably stop me. He’s still kneeling where I told him to because he wants to, not because I’m forcing him. But still…

I slide my hands lower, and then lower still until I find what I’m looking for. His cock is rigid, pressing against his boxers, begging to be set free. He sucks in a sharp breath when I take him in my hand and squeeze, the way he did back in his apartment the second time I slept with him. No, not slept with him. He was right earlier. I fucked him.

“Do you want me?” I whisper into his ear, grazing my teeth against his ear lobe.

“Yes.”

“Are you going to behave if I let you come play with me on the bed?”

Zeth makes a low, guttural sound in the back of his throat. His breathing is fast now; he’s never actually been like this with me before. I’ve never felt like he’s completely lost in what was happening. Control is a big thing for Zeth. He’s always in charge, always handling what’s happening between us, but for the first time I realize that he’s not handling anything right now. I don’t think he’s even realized himself yet.

I stand and let him rise as well. His eyes are hooded by his half-lowered lids. I take the knife from his duffel and I cut the duct tape, freeing his hands—I want him to be able to participate in what I plan on doing next. He hooks his thumbs into his boxers and strips out of them without me asking him to. And then, not two seconds after thinking he’s actually giving himself over to me, I realize how wrong I was. I think I’ve tricked myself into a false sense of security, because I’m actually surprised when he rockets forward and grabs hold of me by the waist.

“Zeth!”

In less than a heartbeat, a hungry, angry look has replaced his lazy, sex-doped expression. He’s lit up, fizzing with fury. “You’re fucking crazy, you know that?” He has me off my feet, practically over his shoulder. Three long strides and then he throws me forcefully onto the bed. I hit the mattress with a very unladylike,
ufff!
as the oxygen leaves my lungs. I lash out with my feet, trying to push myself up the bed and away from him, but it’s no good. I’m all arms and legs, panicking, and Zeth is a dangerous predator. He has my arms pinned over my head before I can scramble my way off the bed. “Stop struggling.”

I can’t. I want to, but my natural instincts continually warn me about trusting a man who carries a Desert Eagle around in his sex kit, and I can’t help myself. He huffs impatiently and then lowers his body weight on top of me, effectively immobilizing me on the bed. “Sloane, stop fighting me.”