Free Blackwater by Tara Brown Page B

stomach. I shiver from the heat of his palms traveling up my ribs and eventually cupping my breasts. His fingers roll my nipples, making me moan into his mouth and buck against his erection.
    I sit up sharply and shake my head, "No. No. No."
    He grins and I melt, licking my lips and thinking of the thousand reasons that I shouldn’t do this. They don’t stack up against the one reason why I should, because I damn well want to. I want him inside of me. I want my breast in his mouth, like in the dirty pictures Angie and me found in her dad's desk.
    "I want you. All of you. Your virginity, your heart, your soul." He says it all too loudly.
    I put a finger to his lips, "Shhhh. My daddy will shoot you if he finds you here."
    His eyes sparkle with madness, "I'll kill him if he tries to separate us."
    He ain't kidding. I see that now. He scares me, finally. Finally, my body and mind have a sane reaction to him. I jerk away. "You have to stop threatening to kill people. You're scaring me."
    He shakes his head, "I love you, Lorelei. Tomorrow I am asking your father for your hand. I have more money than the entire Ryan family put together. I will buy you if I have to."
    I laugh. "You're insane. You can't love me already; you hardly know me." I watch his face. He's struggling with something.
    "I know you. I have watched you for so long. I know you better than any man may claim to know a woman." He's intense. I think he's telling the truth. I think he's been watching me. It's creepy - well it damn well should be creepy and not sexy and weird in a way that makes my tummy twirl like a twister is going through it.
    I stammer, "W-w-what if I don’t want to marry you? I'm just getting used with the idea I may never marry. My whole life's been planned out for me and now I feel free to choose. Maybe I'll be a schoolteacher like my sister. Or a journalist like Angie." I swallow hard, "Besides you shouldn’t be here. I think I have to ask you to leave." Before I do something I can't even imagine regretting.”
    He pulls me back down to him, "Are you afraid me?"
    I shake my head again, "I'm afraid of me, alone in this dark room with you. Where my daddy could come in any minute and shoot you."
    He laughs and kisses my throat, licking from my collarbone to my ear. "You should fear me."
    I shiver and try not to moan, as his mouth plants soft kisses where his tongue has just licked.
    "Please stop. It's indecent." I moan.
    He pulls me back and looks at me, "I love you."
    I frown, "How? How, when you barely know me?"
    He looks lost when he speaks, "When you're as old I am, you just know. You appreciate love more once you've lost it. Finding it again is better than any feeling in the world." His words confuse me.
    "You're not old enough to speak that way. Who have you loved before?" He loves too easily. It's obvious. I am no doubt the tenth girl on the list.
    He kisses the tip of my nose, "A long time ago there was a girl. I loved her and she loved me. But it wasn’t enough. My love couldn’t save her. She died of a sickness a lot of people in my country had at the time." He kisses the tip of my nose, "You're a mood killer."
    I feel my lips stick out in a pout, "What?"
    He shakes his head and sighs, "Nothing." Licking his lips, he rolls me over onto the cool sheets again. He holds me to him, "I love you and that's what matters."
    I look up at him, "Don't say that. I can't say it back to you."
    He smiles softly, "You will."
    I narrow my eyes, "You don’t know that." With the blood distributing throughout my body again, my common sense seems to be resurfacing.
    Our lips meet softly, "I do." He whispers into my mouth, "But for now, sleep. Go to sleep and I will ask your dad to marry you tomorrow."
    I feel my eyes closing. I can't sleep with him there, but I'm exhausted.
    He kisses my eyelids, "Sleep and feel safe."
    I try to fight the urge to sleep but it's useless. The blackness behind my eyes takes me before the struggle even begins.
    When I wake