“And?” Even though fighting for the upper hand seemed vaguely insincere at this point, Riley could at least make him work for it. “What do you plan to do with me?”
Clark reached between her legs and pressed the rough ridge of his knuckles against the thin inseam of his sweats. “Take you apart.”
Riley’s back arched. She brought her hands to his shoulders, biting her lip to silence a moan.
It wasn’t her fault. How dare he turn hair braiding into foreplay?
Clark let her rock back and forth against his fist, working her hips in tiny circles, seeking friction.
Riley wanted to come so bad she couldn’t see straight. She recognized every terrible instinct inside herself—to whimper, to mewl, to beg.
But she wouldn’t. She pressed herself harder against his hand, working her hips. If she had to get herself off, just like this, even, she would.
Clark watched her face. “I can’t believe you’re gonna make it this easy on me.”
Heat flooded her cheeks.
And, okay. No. Riley refused to be the only one unraveling. She yanked his sweater over her head with one hand, using the other to force him to sit back.
For a long moment he just looked at her, breathing hard through his nose.
Her nipples tightened under his gaze, so fast it almost hurt.
Clark swore as he moved to cup her breast, testing the weight in his palm. His thumb grazed her nipple, back and forth, maddeningly soft.
“I told you what I like,” Riley said, shivery and impatient. She wanted that spike of pain to clear her head, to give her back some sense of herself. Here, in his bed, where she felt so dangerously adrift.
He closed his thumb and index finger against the tip of each breast but didn’t apply any pressure, just held. “You did, didn’t you.”
Without changing his previous grip, he managed to pinch the bottom of her breast between his middle and index finger, hard enough to bruise.
Her head tipped back, her mouth falling open. The sensation was good, but not enough.
“Christ, you’re responsive,” he said, practically to himself.
Eyes closed, Riley panted, “Is that the best you’ve got?”
She opened her eyes to find his burning as he shifted his hold, applied pressure from a different angle. Sharper. More intense.
He kissed her neck softly as the pain bloomed. “You wish.”
She did make a noise then, something hysterical, caught between a laugh and a whine.
He thought she was a joke. Riley could picture him saying, You know, if you’d just give up this silly little curse business, I might take you out on a second date.
Her throat ached, her voice gone hoarse from holding back. “This doesn’t mean I like you.”
“You don’t have to like me.” Clark released her breast to smack between her spread legs. “You’re about to soak through the pants I just gave you.”
He tutted between his teeth.
Riley gasped. It could have been outrage. Wasn’t.
“Aren’t you?”
He did it again. Harder.
The sting was so good and not enough.
As always, Riley hated when he was right. “If you care so much—”
She moved to push the pants off, but Clark caught her wrists.
“Oh, no, sweetheart.” He guided Riley onto her back and crawled on top of her, his knees on the outside of her hips.
She looked up at him. At his wide-set eyes and slightly-too-big ears, features that rather than detracting from his beauty only served to enhance his allure—made him distinctly, humanly lovely. Why did a false endearment prick at her like nothing else? Because she’d never had a true one, probably never would.
“I’m not your sweetheart.” Holding Clark’s gaze felt like staring at the sun, risking permanent damage for the chance to know something brilliant.
“No.” His mouth was a harsh line as he brought his knee between hers, pushing the damp fabric of the sweats tighter against her. “But you’ll let me wreck you anyway, won’t you?”
Riley shuddered. She shouldn’t allow him this much, but he was giving her what she’d craved for so long. Since she knew what sex was, what it could be. He was right; having this, from him, was ruinous.
Clark pulled the lobe of her ear into the wet heat of his mouth, sucking, before nuzzling at her pulse point. “Let’s see exactly how much of a mess I can make of you.”
When he moved to kiss her lips, she turned at the last second, deciding he couldn’t have everything.
“You’re still mad?” He laughed helplessly against her neck. “Oh, that makes it even better.”
Riley’s blood boiled as she squirmed beneath him. A part of her she’d never indulge craved violence, wanted to shove her elbow up into his stupid smug face.
You could fuck someone and still loathe them. People did that all the time.
He smiled as he brought his teeth down against her nipple. “I’m gonna suck bruises across your sweet tits until you’re panting, writhing—begging me to hurt you just a little bit longer.”
“Do it, then,” Riley grunted, thighs clenching from the image alone.
He could have her body. It wasn’t like it was her heart.
Clark pushed her breasts up and together, kissing across the tops of the soft swells almost reverently. His nose was cold where it brushed against the seam of her cleavage.
“Can still smell the rain on you,” he said, surprisingly tender.
And oh no. None of that.
Riley arched her hips up, trying to grind against his knee again, but he dropped his hands to her waist, keeping her back flat to the bed as he rubbed his stubbled cheek against the underside of her breast, over her ribs. Watching as she pinked up from abrasion.
“Hurry up,” she made herself complain. And it was true at least that for all his dark promises he’d barely even bitten her yet.
Until, oh.
His teeth closed against the thin skin behind her ear. Then high on her breast. Then over the hollow of her throat.
Unsurprisingly, Clark was methodical in his approach, mapping his marks across her chest, down her belly, removing her pants to canvas each of her thighs until the pleasure and pain blended in her nerve endings. Until he’d left a blistering trail across her body. Until he had her trembling below him.
She’d never been edged like this. To the brink. Over and over. Tears leaked from the corners of her eyelids.
Clark rubbed at them gently with his sleeve, placing featherlight kisses over their tracks down her cheeks and chin.
He sat back on his heels, giving her space. A moment to breathe.
“Is it too much?” he said, soft, serious. “Do you want to stop?”
Riley shook her head, panting against his pillow. “I’ll fucking kill you.”
Clark smiled, brushing a tendril from his half-undone braid away from her sweaty temple. “You’ve really got a perfect face, huh?”
Riley held her breath. She could handle herself, barely, when he was being crass or cruel. But he shouldn’t be allowed to pretend to care about her when he didn’t, not really.
It was fucked up that back in the castle earlier, while she’d been up on a ladder plotting to destroy him, Clark had been making sure she didn’t fall.
“Well.” He pulled his hand back, looking at the comforter for a moment like maybe he’d thought of something fucked up too.