according to his whim.
Somehow, though, while it made her smile to have him in such a position, she knew deep down she was short changing herself. Vaughan knew how to make her climax. He’d done so many times with his tongue. What he would rarely do was make love to her. If things were genuinely to be fair between them this night, then she ought to demand that of him.
“Enough.” Bella shimmied backwards down his body so that she straddled his hips instead.
Vaughan propped himself up on his elbows. His hair hung loose framing his face. Two sable ringlets lay against the pallor of his chest. He wiped a hand across his lips. “Letting me up for air?”
Bella shook her head. “Not exactly, no.”
“Then what?”
“Make love to me.”
His dark eyebrows arched into his hairline. “You’d have to tie me up to get me to comply with that, and we both know how things turned out the last attempt you made at that.”
Yes. Yes, they did. “You promised me satisfaction,” she snapped again.
Vaughan curved his hand around her cheek. A wan smile danced upon his lips. “I promised you nothing of the sort. All I promised was that I’d let you finish. The whys and wherefores were left entirely unspecified.”
“Pig,” Bella cursed, scooping up a pillow to batter him with. Always she trusted him, and always he betrayed that trust. She ought to know better. “Bastard.”
Vaughan raised his arms to fend her off, but Bella kept on hitting him until the pillow split, sending plumes of speckled feathers into the air. Only then did Vaughan wrestle her down and roll on top of her again.
Bella tore at his back with her nails. She used her knees to try and lever him off, all to no avail. He was bigger and stronger. He simple captured her wrists and locked them tight over her head.
“Lie still. Be still, Bella,” he hissed at her through gritted teeth. The feathers clung to his hair like a wreath of laurels.
“Why can’t you play fair?” Bella retaliated. Tears of frustration blurred her vision. “Is it so hard for you to give?” He crushed her with his weight. The feel of him above her like that only exacerbated her frustration. He’d grown hard again too, as he’d lavished attention on her quim, so that the brand of his erection lay pressed between them like a hideous taunt, warming her, but not filling her as she wished. “Why?” she cursed again, straining against his hold. Why did he always leave her wanting? Why could he never simply offer contentment?
Vaughan ran his tongue upwards along the crevice between her breasts. “Because you don’t want me to play fair. The reason you didn’t come while sitting on my face has nothing to do with whose wish it was, rather it’s to do with your own psyche. You like it rough.” He sucked hard upon one of her nipples, which crinkled and puckered into a tightly furled peak. “But what you like more is the loss of control, like now. It excites you, does it not?” He nipped the upper part of her breast, making her squeal, yet her cunny heated despite the throb of pain. “You don’t want me to make love to you. That would be altogether too soft. Save soft for whatever tedium you share with Lucerne, but be honest when you’re with me. You’re looking for passion, not love in my arms, and that’s what I always give you. Aren’t I good to never disappoint?” His teeth raked across her skin again.
Bella cried out, yet arched towards him. She wanted to deny everything he said. Claim it all to be lies, but she didn’t have to delve very far down into her thoughts to know the truth of the matter, and lying had never rolled easily from her tongue.
“Admit it.” He looked down into her face. “You love me because I’m such a bastard.”
“Love,” she spat, “is entirely too strong a word.” Love she reserved for Lucerne.
“Fine, you hate me for it, but either way you can’t help yourself.”
Vaughan forced her arms together above her head, so that he