Sparrow

And I was desperate not to give Brennan what was mine, in case he decided to have me on our wedding night.

Troy inspected the blood on my finger, raised his eyes to meet mine and licked his lips, top to bottom. He looked like he was going to pounce and rip me open at any moment. Whether it was with lust or hate, I wasn’t completely sure. Either way, he was raw, untamed. Trouble.

“Do you really think a man like me will be put off by blood, Red?” he asked.

“Quite the opposite,” I said, using every ounce of confidence I still had in me. “But rape is beneath you. I know that.”

I hoped that.

Troy stopped stroking himself and leaned forward. I barely managed to control my quavering thighs when he parted his lips and took my bloody finger in his mouth while his eyes zeroed in on mine. He sucked my finger clean for a whole minute before releasing it with a pop and snaking his hands behind me, cupping my ass cheeks and jerking me toward him. I collapsed on the bed, straddling him. He smiled that mischievous smirk that seemed to highlight his startlingly handsome features, his eyes wild with abandon. My thighs clenched on either side of his waist.

Damn thighs.

Hell, this was bad. I needed to stop, this much I knew. My body, however, had very different plans.

“I won’t do anything that you don’t want me to do,” Brennan said finally. “But so far you haven’t stopped me. Now why is that?”

I shut my eyes, taking a deep breath.

“I haven’t stopped you because I don’t want you to hurt me.” I put my hands on his bare chest to balance myself. His muscles were flexed, hard. Something about what he said annoyed me. He made it sound like I enjoyed his attention, the way he sucked on my blood. I didn’t. True, I didn’t feel violated—for some screwed up reason I wasn’t eager to explore—but I certainly didn’t ask for it.

A moment of silence passed between us as we looked at each other, my eyes imploring and his, contemplating. The only noise was the sound of faraway cars honking in the downtown Boston night and the lash of rain washing against his floor-to-ceiling windows.

“I don’t find you attractive.” My voice was hoarse.

A lie.

“Say that to your *.” He wasn’t offended one bit. “My briefs are soaked, Mrs. Brennan.”

A truth.

I blushed furiously, scrambling off his lap and almost kneeing his junk in the process. I darted to the end of the bed, desperate to avoid him. Resting on his elbows, he turned his head, his eyes narrowed on mine, challenging again.

“You’re wasting your time.” I covered my lower body with my hands, feeling my ears pinking before I even whispered the words. “I’m a virgin.”

“I had a feeling you would be.” Amusement danced in his eyes as he rolled closer and reached out to draw circles on my pubic bone. “That can be rectified.”

“I don’t want it to be,” I fired back, feeling all kinds of ashamed, annoyed and…Hell, who was I kidding? Troy Brennan really wasn’t that bad to look at. If you were willing to ignore the monstrousness lurking behind those ice-blue eyes, he might not be the worst candidate as a lover.

Of course, that was the last thing I was going to admit to him or anyone else in this lifetime.

“This period of yours…” He licked his lips, keeping his voice businesslike and ignoring my last comment altogether. “When is it going to end?”

“Four, five…years,” I answered, my lips twitching, but I thought about how it’d feel to have him, even five years from now. “What can I say, Mother Nature can be a bitch.”

“And she’s not the only one.” He flattened his hand on my stomach, and I let his heat seep through the fabric of my cotton shirt.

His master bedroom was magnificent, with marble flooring, a huge black-leather headboard, gray and white satin throws, rich beige rugs and custom lighting. It looked like something out of a catalogue. Breathtakingly impersonal and too sterile to feel at home in.

Just like its owner. But just like its owner, it was unbelievably striking.

It was different.

It was insane.

It was…something I didn’t hate, even though I desperately wanted to.

“Something tells me that if Mother Nature was in charge right now, you’d be riding me like a jockey.” He sat up and hauled me back toward his body, his breath caressing my skin.

I let out a soft moan and fought the urge to lean into him.

His lips traveled oh-so-briefly over my wrist, his words sharp as a razor but his voice surprisingly sweet. “Why don’t you show me this spine of yours, Sparrow? Why don’t you take a look at what you did?” he urged, looking down at his underwear.

My pulse hitched, my eyes slowly traveling down to his groin. A faint trail of pink blood stained his white boxers, watered down by my wetness against his bulge.

I hated him for showing this to me. I hated myself for doing this to him.

“I’m nowhere near ready to have sex with you, Brennan. Not now. Probably not ever.” But even as I said the words, I knew they were a lie. Hell, he probably knew that, too.

At the same time, I hated him so much it burned through my skin, made my bones ache with rage.

“Sparrow Brennan…” He tasted the name on his tongue, clucking it in approval. “One day I’m going to f*ck your brains out, until you won’t be able to walk the next day.”