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SHE SHOULD BE APPALLED. She woke naked with a man in her bed. Not any man...but Shawn. Her trainer. Her crush. The human she tried to avoid unless it was work-related.
“Good morning,” he said, his stormy gray eyes clear with recent sleep.
She got straight to business. “I don’t remember getting home.”
“Because I got you drunk and brought you home.”
She sat quickly, the sheet falling away. She checked her arms and legs, her torso—for any tears in the skin where her bones might have broken through. There should be tender spots, red with healing, but sore as hell.
“You didn’t stab anything or anyone.”
“How could I not?” she gasped. “I lost control.”
“You didn’t lose control, my pretty. Your trainer was there.”
“I can’t always rely on that. You’re human and therefore weak—”
Her words were cut off when his naked form rolled onto her. Holy mother. Shawn was as naked as she was.
“Get off,” she hissed. But his skin—bare against hers—felt incredible. She couldn’t let him know.
“Does it feel like I’m weak?”
“I don’t like to be pinned.” She struggled, but he was heavy.
“I know. And for that reason, I never pinned you. But now you’re going to learn the difference between strong and weak.”
“Are you saying I’m weak if I can’t shake you?”
His face softened. “No. I’m saying those without physical strength can resort to inner strength. It’s not a matter of being strong or weak. You have all the strength, cunning, and skill to beat countless fighters in the ring. And yet you feel weak right now.”
“I don’t feel weak.”
“You do. Or you would have knifed me already and flung me to the floor. Because me, pinning you naked? It reminds you of being in captivity.”
“Stop,” she snarled. It was too early to be reminded of that hell.
“And one day,” he continued. “One day, me being naked on top of you will remind you of how much you wanted me months ago. That’s the route we’re taking now. So no, I won’t get off you. Not until we make that switch.”
“I don’t like this, Shawn,” she warned.
“Don’t you, my pretty?” he said, his face buried in her neck. “Then how about this?” One large hand caressed her hip, trailed down her thigh, then swung her leg up over his hip, wrapping it around his muscular ass. And all thoughts fled her brain because her wanton, heated core was right there, skin to skin with his hard, jutting length of cock.
Fuck.
She held perfectly still concentrating on the hot rush of feelings running through her.
“You can break the hold, you know,” he said as he nibbled on her ear. “You can do what you do. Stab away and thrust my carcass to the floor.”
“I can’t do that,” she said. “You’re my trainer.”
“So do you feel weak?”
Exhilarated was what she felt. Horny. Trapped and weak was what she should have felt, but somehow he’d switched that.
“No.” She had to be honest.
“Me either,” he said. “I feel strong.” He ground his hips into her and her body responded by erupting in flame. Her pussy melted and swelled at the same time and she craved more of his touch.
Somehow her other leg came up around his other side and both of her legs locked around the globes of his ass. Right there. The pressure was good, so good. If he would just move faster.
This was her. And Shawn. It felt somehow right.
“Where does this leave us, my pretty?”
“Don’t talk,” she gasped. “Just rub. Harder.”
“You want me to make you come?” He gritted out the words, his voice harsh, like he could barely speak.
“I—ah—need, I don’t know.”
“No. I asked, ‘Did you want me to make you come?’” He emphasized the me. What did he mean? There was only two of them in this room. What exactly was he getting at?
“You may as well.”
He seemed to freeze. “And then what?”
“What do you mean?”
“What happens after your body—as delectable as it may be—is all flooded with sex-happy, feel-good hormones? Do you go back to resenting me for being human?”
“Resenting you? I don’t resent you for being human.” Yet his words made her squirm uncomfortably.
“Tempest,” he said, his voice throaty and rough. “If I thought you would ever actually give yourself to me, if I could have you, really and truly have you, I’d take you. Right now. Right here. Give me the words.”
She couldn’t stop staring at him, from the expression in his eyes to his mouth, his luscious lips. What would it be like to be taken by him? To sate this burning, constant need? She could feel the heat of his skin, smell the scent that wafted from his skin—the scent she’d smelled countless times and craved with a burning need. But at what cost did that come?
“But no one can ever have you,” he continued. “Because you’re in love with hating yourself.”
Is this how he felt? The truth a bucket of ice water to the fire in her veins. Grit in her voice, she flinched with pain, then retaliated without thinking. The way he always predicted she would. “Oh yeah? Well, you’re in love with hating me,” she spat.
“Hating you? You got it half right, my pretty.”
“AND THEN WHAT DID YOU say?” Lily asked. Yes, like an inexperienced maiden, she’d run to her girlfriends. But Sunny was with Beast, and Robyn and Amanda were both at work. So, pathetic creature that she was, she showed up on Lily’s doorstep.
“Say? I couldn’t say anything. He got right up, picked up his pants off the floor, and walked out. He left everything else there, right in my room. His shoes. Socks. Tie. Everything.”
“So what do you think he meant?”
“I have no idea. That is why I came to you. What does ‘half right’ even mean?”
“You’re in love with hating me. Half of that statement would mean he’s in love...or he hates you. And somehow, I doubt Shawn hates you.”
“He does not love me,” Tempest protested.
“Are you sure about that?”
“Of course I am sure! He does not treat me the way Jason treats you. He does not go all googly-eyed and silly the way Beastly does around Sunny.”
“No. But he’s focused all of his attention on you. Every shift? He’s your partner. Every sparring match? He’s your partner. Every function? He seeks out you. He makes sure you attend volleyball on the beach and lunch in the mess hall.”
“That’s all work-related,” Tempest said. “He’s my trainer. He assumes a certain responsibility. The responsibility that Jason gave him.”
“What about last night’s dance?”
“That was supposed to be work-related,” she said. “I signed up for overtime, remember?”
Lily shook her head, her green hair flitting delicately over her shoulders. “No, he took advantage of that. The chance to get you in evening wear and ply you with drink.”
“Yes, but the drinking was to teach me a lesson in control.”
“In how to loosen up! You were supposed to end up naked in your bed with him, all right. But you were supposed to do the dirty.”
Tempest’s mouth fell open. “Surely he can’t think—”
“Yes! Now you’re getting it. That’s exactly what he thinks,” Lily said.
“But what will I do?”
“Do? You fuck his brains out!”
“I...I cannot. What if he dies?”
Lily leaned in. “Then you deal with it then. Just like he’ll deal with it if you die. Just like we all dealt with it when we died in the labs. And were revived. Over and over, in a horrible life that wouldn’t end with the peace of death.” She shook her head to clear it.
“What if we’re wrong? What if Shawn doesn’t want me in that way?”
Lily rolled her eyes. “Trust me. He does. But if he doesn’t, what’s the worst that can happen? He’ll gently pluck your tentacle-like arms and legs from where they’ll be wrapped around his rock-hard body and tell you to control your raging hormones. So what?”
Well, put like that it didn’t seem like such a puzzle.
“Okay then.” Tempest took a deep breath. “How do I seduce him? Just once, you know. So I can get this,” she allowed the sneer to show across her face, “unwanted lust from my system.”
