Page 69 of Shark’s Edge

He jerked back around. Our glares directly clashed again. “Well, that was swinging low.”

I lurched off the desk, letting my arms spread wide. “It’s not like you’re unfamiliar with the equipment involved. Maybe if you just practice some patience while warming it up—”

With a burst of a roar, he shut down my rant.

With a couple of wide stomps, he was back in front of the desk.

And with a swoop of strength, he had me splayed on my back across the top of it.

Two of the three monitors crashed to the floor. His keyboard and pen cup followed.

“Oh!” I cried, but not in distress. In welcome. Yes, of all of it. His unbridled anger. His ruthless power. His fierce retaliation. His blatant frustration.

He pressed his full weight atop me, and the folds at my core ached to the point of torture.

Yesss.

“Obviously, you need me to be clearer about this, Little Red.” He clutched my wrists in tighter increments. “I am a very patient man, Abbigail—especially when it comes to warming up the . . . ‘equipment.’”

He used the heels of his hands to maintain the pressure of his hold while shifting his thumbs up until he was driving them into the center of my palms.

“But let’s be clear. Once I get a woman warm, I don’t stop until she’s hot. Until she’s wailing. And begging. And screaming for me to use her body.” He lowered until our breaths tangled and our noses nearly touched. “Do you understand, Abbi? I tear women up. I break them apart.”

“I . . . I understand. I . . . I w-want that.”

A ferocious rumble broke from his chest. A visible change in his gaze, the cobalt shadows hardening into a thousand shards of glass. The swollen rod fitted between my legs thickening into a hot hammer of lust.

And my answering breaths, doubling in their tempo of need as his lips parted. His stare sharpened.

Oh, God. I got it now. I really understood.

My helplessness turned him on. Worse, it turned me on.

“You don’t want this, Abbigail. Not from me, you don’t.”

“Why?” I spewed. “Because you’re that convinced you’ll break me? Is that it? Or is that now a convenient way to skew this?”

He clenched his jaw and ripped his glare through more of my defenses. “You think it’s my easy out?” He slowly shook his head. “Christ.”

I wanted to echo the word—with joyous thanks. It was the moment I’d prayed for but didn’t think would come. His own vulnerability. And yes, it was only a tiny chink in his armor, but I’d take it. Would work the angle whatever way I could.

With gentle focus, I lifted my fingertips to his jaw. In a purposeful rasp, I pleaded, “Sebastian.”

But I barely got the whole word out before he whipped his head back and out of my reach. His whole body followed.

“Do you think I’m enjoying a second of this, Abbigail?” He crunched through the electronic wreckage, turning his computer keys into plastic shrapnel. “Do you think I haven’t tried to be the guy worthy of your pretty whispers? To be a normal bastard who can screw in time to slow jazz and ocean waves instead of a deviant who can’t get off until I’ve pounded the whites from a woman’s eyes?”

I sat up, my fresh circulation bringing a new throb to my wrists and palms. I couldn’t ignore the matching rhythm in my sex. “Eye whites are overrated.” My bloodstream was pure fire now. Raw hunger. Consuming need. Even now, with raging tears coursing down my overheated cheeks, every drop of my blood was ablaze for him. My whole body clamored and cried for his.

“You don’t know what you’re saying.”

“Because now you’re the expert on me?” I spat back.

He chuffed. “Well, that’s clearly not the case.”

“Meaning what?” I demanded.

Sebastian turned back around with rough steps. He kneaded his neck and looked me in the eyes. “You’re really still a virgin?”