Chapter 64 The Confession of Hunger
Then, with his free hand, Rhys reached behind his own back and ripped open the silk-lined lining of his tuxedo jacket. The sudden, violent sound—the tearing of the delicate fabric—was the loudest noise in the room, a dramatic exclamation point. The jacket fell to the carpet beside the velvet dress, the dark, heavy material forming another discarded layer of formality.
He was left in the immaculate white of his dress shirt, the thin cotton stretched tight across the powerful muscles of his chest. This was worse. The stark white was a beacon in the dim room, and the clean, starched barrier was infinitely more intimate than the rough wool.
He pulled me closer still, the friction of the shirt against my skin increasing the electrical burn. "You wanted to see me exposed," he breathed, his mouth inches from mine. "You wanted to see the consequence of that kiss. You confessed your surrender to me in a place where I could never refuse the offer. Now, I am collecting the debt."
He kept my head immobilized, the fingers in my hair tight enough to cause a dull ache, forcing me to remain locked on his eyes.
"Tell me the truth, Elowen," he demanded, his voice dropping to a near-whisper that resonated with command. "When my hand settled on your spine in that elevator, when you felt the press of my body against the bare skin of your back, what was the primary emotion?"
I tried to lie, to say fear, to say rage, but the words choked on the lie.
He shook my head gently, once, a silent, damning dismissal. "No more professional lies. No more corporate scripts. This is only us, and the contract you wrote with your own surrender. What did you feel?"
He didn't wait. His right hand slid from my lower back and curved up, cupping the side of my face, his thumb tracing the swollen line of my lower lip—the lip still tender from the violence of his kiss.
"Did you feel the electric high of knowing the power in your hands was the man who holds your life?"
He moved his thumb to the corner of my mouth, pressing gently.
"Did you feel the ownership of my touch, and did you want it to bruise? Did you feel the terrifying thrill of knowing this was the point of no return?"
He lifted his hand, and his gaze was relentless. "Say it. Tell me the truth that you engineered this whole scenario to uncover. Tell me what you wanted."
My entire body was trembling, a desperate, silent plea for release, yet every muscle was bound by his proximity and his gaze. The truth felt like a betrayal of everything I had ever stood for, but the lie felt like the death of my soul. I was caught in the terrifying, magnetic field of his love, mistaking it for pure, devastating possession.
Tears, hot and frustrating, finally spilled over my lower lashes and tracked paths down my cheeks. The confession was a barely audible, broken whisper.
"I wanted you to see me," I choked out, the words tasting like ash and victory. "I felt the crush. I... I felt the high. I wanted you to claim it. All of it. I wanted you to take what I offered."
The moment the final word of my surrender left my lips, the atmosphere fractured. The predatory control Rhys had maintained shattered, replaced by a sudden, consuming violence of need.
He gave a low, visceral groan—a sound stripped of all pretense, all corporate polish, all decorum. It was the sound of a man who had been holding his breath for ten agonizing minutes, finally giving in to the air, finally allowing the protective rage he felt for the wounded girl to merge with the possessive hunger for the woman.
His hands instantly shifted. The fingers that held my hair twisted, pulling my head back further, creating a sharp, painful angle that forced my mouth open in surprise. His other hand slammed into my lower back again, crushing me against his body, eliminating every last barrier of air.
His mouth descended, hard, searching, and absolutely unforgiving. This kiss was not the public declaration; it was a private absorption, a claiming that tasted of my desperate confession and his cold, possessive victory. The force of it drove me backward, and the back of my legs hit the sharp edge of the marble coffee table.
I cried out, not in pain, but in surprise, and Rhys used the brief disruption to move us. He pushed me down onto the thick, expensive rug, landing heavily, his entire, solid weight pressing me into the plush carpet, pinning me completely.
The air rushed out of my lungs in a breathless whoosh. My discarded velvet dress and his torn tuxedo jacket cushioned the fall, but the raw, coarse weave of the rug still scraped the bare skin of my arms. The heat of his body, furnace-hot, was an overwhelming blanket, crushing my ribs and making breathing difficult, exhilarating. It was a possession so absolute, it felt less like a lover's seizure and more like a territorial anchor, embedding itself into the broken foundation of my will.
His groan deepened, no longer just a sound of lust, but a shudder of controlled violence and released fury. The pressure of his hips settled against me, heavy and demanding, sealing the connection. I was incapable of movement, my body accepting the weight of his claim—the cold, diamond edge of the engagement ring digging sharply into the flesh of his neck as his arm came around my back, holding me immobile while his mouth worked relentlessly, consuming my own desperation. I could smell the faintest trace of the expensive scotch on his breath, a dark, heady mix with the mint and woodsmoke of his own scent.
In the moment of total immersion—the shock of the rough fabric, the intense, specific male scent, the crushing, inescapable weight—a final, devastating thought pierced the sensory overload.
I didn't lose. I simply chose the only way I could ever truly win against him.
The choice was made. The compliance was absolute. And now, it was irreversible.