Read Love with the Proper Stranger Online
Authors: Suzanne Brockmann
“You’ll do that anyway,” he replied dismissively.
True. She never could say no to him. “Bad enough to cry?”
His thoughtful silence was encouraging. Although on second thought, she wasn’t sure she wanted to find out how he would make her cry. He’d warned her before that his sexual tastes could run pretty dark at times. And he’d just come off a year of pretty dark, violent training, if she had to guess.
Before he could act on her ill-considered offer, she added, “Bad enough to say ‘please’?”
He rose up over her on powerfully muscled arms. “Say it.”
“Please, Alex.” When he didn’t move, she continued. “Please give us both an orgasm. Or ten. I want you so much I can’t stand it. Now. Take me now.
Please
.”
In typical Alex fashion, he continued to stare down at her, letting her frustration and desperation build until she thought she might die.
“Will you beg me to stop, too?” he growled.
“Never.”
He made a skeptical sound. Cynical mood he was in tonight.
He waited until she all but sobbed with need. The pleasure she knew he could give her hovered just out of reach like a tantalizing piece of candy dangling on a string. Why did he insist on playing these wicked games with her? He knew how he made her feel. He knew how deeply she lusted after him. And still, he made her wait. And suffer. As if he was punishing her for making him feel the same way she did.
She knew why he did it, of course. He hated love. But it didn’t make this cruel game of his any easier to bear.
Her entire body throbbed with unfulfilled desire for the sex that was right there. So close, and yet so totally out of her control. If she could only get him to actually make love to her, his emotional barriers would crumble the way they always did. But for now, he fought it. So hard, he struggled to hold himself apart from her. From everyone.
Tonight his fight was worse than ever. His features pulled into a macabre rictus of suffering half-lost in shadows. It was hard for her to look at. What had they done to him?
She put her hands on either side of his face and tried silently to reach past the suffering to the man beneath. But he was lost. His eyes were black hollows. All she saw in them was pain, and more pain.
“Come back to me, Alex,” she whispered.
His hands went around her neck. They were big and capable and strong. He could snap her neck quickly or choke her to death slowly if he so chose. Soul-chilling terror flashed through her, along with instinctive
knowing
.
They’d turned him into a killer
.
She spoke slowly and clearly into the hush while he debated ending her life. “Do it, Alex. If it will heal your soul, do it.”
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eISBN-13: 978-1-4603-4305-0
Love With the Proper Stranger
Copyright © 1998 by Suzanne Brockmann
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