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It was all going to burn to the ground. She might as well go up in flames with it.
She could see his pulse throbbing at the base of his throat. If only she had a pen in her hand. It would be so easy from this position to stab him clean through with it. But she didn’t.
So instead, she reached up and grabbed hold of the knot in his tie, and wrenched it free.
CHAPTER TWO (#ulink_c1fe3a1c-d1c9-520e-a6d5-f1152145322b)
APOLLO SAVAS DIDN’T entertain daydreams. He was a man of practicality and action. When he wanted something, he didn’t sit around fantasizing about it, he took it.
That was the only reason he knew that it was no hallucination that Elle St. James, his stepsister and mortal enemy, was currently stripping his clothes off, her eyes bright, glittering with rage and desire.
He had resisted her, this, for years. Resisted her. Out of deference to the man he considered a father. Out of respect for all he’d been given.
But all of it had proven to be false, had proven to be a lie. And still he had roped Elle off. Had kept her separate—in many ways—from his plans for revenge.
And David St. James had known he would. Because whether she knew it or not, he had always protected Elle. She had always mattered.
But things had changed. And now she was tugging at his tie. And he was tired of restraint.
He reached out and wrapped his fingers around her wrist, holding her hands still. “What the hell are you doing?” he asked, his voice a growl.
She looked up at him, her green eyes round, those soft, sassy pink lips shaped into a perfect O. “I...” Color flooded her face.
“If you were thinking you were going to take my shirt off, either stop now and walk out that door, or keep going and understand that I will have you flat on your back and screaming my name in a very different way before you can protest.”
Her color deepened, her eyes growing even wider. He thought she would run. Because Elle was a good girl, by the standards of her father. Though, she was stone-cold, aloof and fancied herself far above him.
It had made him want to destroy that facade from the first. He hadn’t. Because he knew that she was innocent. Knew that she was nothing more than a cosseted rich girl who would be completely out of her depth with a man like him. A man who had grown up on the streets in Athens, who had learned the hard truths about life early on. About loss. About the true nature of people.
He had known that if he ever touched her it would violate the trust he had built with her father.
But if she was going to touch him now, if she was going to remove that barrier that had always loomed between them, then he wasn’t going to put a stop to it.
Apollo Savas was a man who took what he wanted.
With one exception.
Elle.
He had wanted her from the moment she’d transformed from a girl to a woman. A haughty, rude woman who walked by him with her nose in the air half the time. Perversely, it had always made him want to have her even more.
She thought his hands were dirty. Thought he was beneath her. It made him want to put his filthy hands all over her. Made him want to pull her right down with him.
His biggest betrayal had never been buying St. James Corp’s most valuable assets and breaking them off piece by piece.
No, his biggest betrayal had started long before he’d discovered David St. James’s true nature. It had begun long before he’d discovered the dark secrets surrounding just why he and his mother had been brought into the St. James home.
His first betrayal had been in the way he’d looked at Elle.
But everything was shot to hell now anyway. Every allegiance broken with his “family.” Why not this, too? Why not slaughter the last sacred cow?
He had destroyed everything else. He might as well destroy this, too. And he would relish it.
Her hand was still frozen, holding on to his tie. Then, her eyes took on a determined glitter, her lips curling into a snarl as she yanked hard on the silken fabric, pulling it free from its knot.
He growled, grabbing ahold of that sleek high ponytail that had been taunting him from the moment he had walked into the boardroom today. He wrapped his fingers around her coppery hair and pulled hard, tilting her head backward. Her nostrils flared slightly, her lips parting.
They held their positions for a moment, staring at each other, clearly waiting to see what the next move was.
He had waited too long. He was not waiting another moment.
He would have her now. Strip away every prim and proper layer. Punish her with his kiss as he should have done that day she’d dared him at the pool. The only time the anger between them had given way and revealed the layer beneath.
Of course, she had acted as though nothing had happened after. And so had he.
But he would make sure this time she would not be able to act unscathed after he was through with her.
He wrapped his arm around her slender waist, drawing her up against his body as he backed them both toward the wall. It stopped their progress ruthlessly, her shoulder blades pressed firmly against the hard surface. He bent his head, kissing her neck, his teeth scraping her skin.
The sound that escaped her lips was raw and desperate, her hands clutching his shoulders, her fingernails digging into his skin through the fabric of his suit jacket. Then she slid her palms down flat, grabbing hold of the front of his shirt and tugging hard, sending buttons flying as she wrenched it open. She pushed his jacket from his shoulders, grabbing hold of his shirt and shoving it down, too. He unbuttoned the cuffs, helping her and her progress, and untucking it from his pants and throwing it down onto the floor.
She looked completely shocked, and wholly satisfied by her actions as she regarded his body. Then she pressed her palms to his chest and slid her fingers down to his stomach, her fingernails scraping him lightly as she did. She grabbed hold of his belt, making quick work of that, as well.
“Greedy,” he said, taking hold of her wrists and drawing her arms up over her head, holding her there with one hand as he set to work on the buttons of her silk blouse with the other.
She fought against him, the color in her cheeks deepening, her breasts rising and falling with the shallow gasps of her breath. He chuckled when her shirt fell open, revealing an insubstantial red lace bra and he imagined she thought it made her seem daring.
She arched her back, thrusting her breasts into greater prominence. He tightened his hold on her, pressing her hands more firmly against the wall. “You don’t get to set the terms,” he said. “Not in the boardroom, not in the bedroom. I am in charge in all things.”
“Always a competition with you, isn’t it?” she asked.
“Oh, agape, it has never been a competition. How can it be when I always win?”
For the first time, he saw a slight flicker of doubt in her eyes. But it was quickly replaced by a challenge. “So insecure that you have to exert your dominance in such a cliché fashion? You are exactly the same here as you are in the office.”
He leaned in, his lips a whisper away from hers. “You’re going to pay for that.”
“I hope this isn’t an empty threat, Apollo,” she said, the words throaty, enticing. “You seem to be full of those.”
He closed the distance between them, closing his teeth around her bottom lip and biting her. She gasped and he pulled away. The flush in her cheeks had spread to her neck, had down to the full swell of her breasts. She might be angry, but she was aroused, too.
“One thing you need to learn, agape, is that my threats are never empty. It’s simply that the consequences might be delayed in coming.”
She looked down, then back up. “I do hope the coming isn’t terribly delayed today.”
Those words, coming from Elle’s lips, seemed shocking. From any other woman it might have been commonplace dirty talk. Not even all that dirty when it came down to it. But from Elle? It had the desired effect.
He was so hard he thought he was going to burst through the zipper on his pants. His heart was raging, his hand shaking as he undid the last button on her blouse and pulled it from her shoulders.
He couldn’t remember the last time a woman had affected him in such a way. If one ever had. But then, he had never been in a situation quite like this. His partner had never looked at him with lust and rage burning from her eyes all at the same time. She’d never looked quite like she wanted to strangle him and have her way with him in the same moment.
And, he had never been with Elle.
“I didn’t realize you were a dirty talker, Elle.” He scraped the edge of her ear with his teeth. “If you had been negotiating this way all along you might have been a lot more successful.”
“You’re a bastard,” she bit out, turning her head and tracing the line of his jaw with the edge of her tongue. “A complete and utter—”
“And you want me,” he said, releasing his hold on her and drawing his face back, pressing the tip of his nose against hers and meeting her fierce gaze. “So what does that say about you?”
“Oh, I know that all of this is the final nail in the coffin of my decency.” She grabbed the end of his belt buckle and yanked it through the loops, then set about working on the closure of his slacks.
“Go out with style, I say.” He slid his hands down her slender waist, to the full curve of her hip, and down farther, gripping the hem of her skirt and shoving it up roughly over her hips. No surprise, her panties were the same red lace as the bra.
Not that he was complaining.
“I took you for a white cotton kind of girl,” he said. “Who knew that you had so many secrets?”
“You’re never going to know my secrets, Apollo,” she said.
“So venomous,” he said, his lips touching hers now as he spoke the words. “And yet, you’re dying to have me.”
She put her hand between them, pressing her palm against his hardened arousal. “Same goes.”
“I’m tired of talking.”
And then, he crushed his mouth to hers, claiming the kiss he should have taken years ago.
* * *
Elle had no idea what she was thinking. She wasn’t thinking. She was feeling. Feeling everything. Rage, need, arousal like she had never known existed.
She would like to be confused about this. About how this could happen. About how she could be doing this with a man she hated so very much. But lust and anger had always been twisted up together where Apollo was concerned. Well, maybe not always. But in the past few years. And that was when her desire for him had turned from a girlish crush into a woman’s need.
She wasn’t sixteen anymore. She knew what men and women did in the dark. She didn’t need her own hands-on experience to be aware.
But somewhere, during all of that, Apollo had gone from being someone she trusted and admired—a member of the St. James family—to their bitterest enemy. And somewhere, as that change had taken place, her desire for him had changed, as well.
And now it was this strange, twisted thing that she couldn’t begin to untangle. And there was no other man who made her feel anything near what he made her feel.
It didn’t matter that it was sick. It didn’t matter that it was wrong. What Apollo made her feel was pure adrenaline. Pure excitement. Even if it wasn’t all good.
He made every other man she had ever gone out with seem like a bland, beige substitute.
That was why this was happening. Really, it was why it needed to happen. When this was over, she would finally be cleansed.
Her need for him would go down in one fiery ball of pleasure and rage. And when she looked at him she would feel...nothing.
Oh, she wanted that more than anything.
She kissed him back with all of that. All of the anger, all of the lust. His tongue swept against hers, his hold on her hips firm, blunt fingertips digging into her skin. Then he shifted his position, putting his hands between her thighs, stroking his fingers over the thin lace that concealed her desire for him.
She gasped, everything inside of her shaking. She had never been this intimate with a man before, and yet she wasn’t afraid. She wasn’t experiencing any virginal nerves. She was more than ready for this. It was the combination of years of fantasies. An explosion of... Well, of everything.
His fingers slipped beneath the fabric, gliding through her slick flesh. If he’d had any doubt about how much she wanted him, he couldn’t doubt it now.
“Yes,” he said, the word a growl.
The way he said that, the absolute, incontrovertible evidence of how much he wanted her in return radiated through her. Spurred her on. She grabbed hold of the waistband of his pants and underwear, tugging them down his lean hips. There was no place for tenderness here, no place for hesitation.
She reached between their bodies, wrapping her hand around his hardened length. It was her turn to shudder, her turn to growl. She had never touched a man like this. She had no idea he would be so very big. She was nearly weak with wanting him. This was why she felt hollow. This was what she needed to be filled.
He slipped one finger inside of her and her breath hissed through her teeth, the unfamiliar invasion shocking and immensely pleasurable.
She took hold of his arms, clinging onto his rock hard biceps as he continued to tease her with a preview of what she really wanted.
She looked up at him, her heart hammering in her chest. He was beautiful. There was no question. And she wanted him. She wanted him more than she’d ever wanted anything in her entire life. It was important that she know it was him. As if it could be anyone else. As if anyone else could ever make her feel this way. This exhilarating mixture of destructive anger and impossible need.
She kissed the corner of his mouth, tracing his lower lip with the tip of her tongue. He moved his hand from between her thighs, lifting it, grabbed hold of her bra and pulled it down, revealing her breasts to his gaze. He lowered his head, drawing one tightened nipple deep into his mouth.
Sensation shot through her like an arrow, hitting her low and deep. A low, harsh sound escaped her lips and she let her head fall back as she laced her fingers through his hair, tugging hard as he continued to pleasure her.
“Please,” she whimpered, “please.”
He moved away from her, then bent down grabbing ahold of his pants, pulling his wallet out of the pocket before producing a condom.
Her breath gathered up in her chest like a ball and held there, a heavy weight she couldn’t move. She could only watch him. Look her fill at his beautiful, masculine form. He was even more beautiful than she had imagined.
He returned to her, his bare chest pressing against hers as he flattened her against the wall. She looked at his face, his gorgeous, thoroughly despised, utterly beloved face.
She grabbed hold of him, bracketing his face with her hands and tugging him forward, kissing him hard and deep. He put his hand back between her thighs, this time pushing two fingers into her, stretching her gently. She was so ready for him. Beyond ready.
“Do it,” she said against his lips.
He moved his hand, gripping hold of her hips, sliding one hand down her thigh and lifting her leg, opening her to him. He tested her slick entrance with the blunt head of his arousal. Then he thrust deep inside.
The pain was sharp, swift. Tears stung her eyes, and she shut them quickly because she didn’t want him to see. She didn’t want him to know. She had felt powerful a few moments ago, but this made her feel a lot more vulnerable. Vulnerable was not what she wanted. She wanted pleasure, she wanted her desire satisfied. She wanted to rid herself of this toxic, intense feeling she had for him once and for all.
But, she hadn’t anticipated this. Not just the pain, but the feeling that she was breaking apart. The feeling that they were connected, closer than she had ever been with anyone.
Somehow, she had imagined the fact that she hated him might buffer against any other emotions.
But it didn’t.
So she kept her eyes closed.
If Apollo noticed, he didn’t comment. Instead, he fused his mouth to hers and flexed his hips, a flash of pleasure slowly overtaking the pain.
Slowly, all the discomfort began to recede. And she just wanted him. There was nothing else. There was no ugly history between them, there was no anger, no hatred. Nothing but an intense, burning need to be satisfied. She clung to him, to his shoulders, her lips pressed to his as he established a steady rhythm, pushing them both toward the brink.
