“Oh, God.”
“It’s Vin, actually. But I believe in freedom of religion.”
His fingers push in and out of me, so deep on the upstroke that his knuckles grind against me. I take deep breaths through my nose in sharp gasps, wondering if I’ll pass out. Then his thumb shifts higher to rub the thin strip of fabric covering my clit.
Stars burst across my closed eyelids.
“And now for that kiss.”
His fingers are gone. Before I can mourn the lack of contact, he leans forward. My gaze shifts down, but I see only a mess of dark hair. He presses his mouth against me, flicking his tongue with the same rhythm as the sharp edge of a thumbnail that scratches against my clit.
The small bit of pain has me thrusting my hips forward. Vin’s free hand grips my waist, pushing his thumb into the hollow bone of my hip and forcing me to be still. His tongue pushes deeper, but his thumb continues the same maddeningly slow rhythm, easing the pressure when I shift my hips to entice him into pressing harder. He just barely grazes me through the fabric, enough to keep me spiraling higher, but not send me over the edge.
He presses a closemouthed kiss against my clit through the soaked fabric of my panties.
Vin shifts away, and his fingers thrust inside me again, the movement almost leisurely. I look down the line of my body to find him staring at me, eyes narrowed and fierce as they land on my face.
“What do you want?” he asks.
I glare down at him, my expression enough of an answer. What the fuck do you think?
“Beg me to let you come.”
The words come out in a hiss as he thrusts his fingers deeper. “Not on your life.”
“What’s the magic word?”
“Asshole.”
“Maybe later.” He places another gentle kiss on my clit through my panties, leaning away when my hips jerk toward him. I’m seconds from orgasm. Then he pulls his fingers out of me and cool air rushes over the wetness on my skin. “Only good girls who do what they’re told get what they want. Remember that for next time.”
Vin laughs at the expression of shock on my face as he rises smoothly to his feet.
My body is on fire. The inferno burns so hot it doesn’t matter that the manor’s thermostat is set to negative fifty degrees. His satisfied smile makes it clear that he has every intention of leaving me like this. That realization is like being doused with a bucket of cold water.
Passion isn’t the only emotion that burns hot.
“There won’t be a next time,” I spit at him, shoving my dress back down to cover myself. My underwear is still pulled to the side, but I won’t give him the satisfaction of watching me fix it. Let him think I don’t care. “We’re done.”
He smirks. “We will never be done.”
Pleasure is always pain, at least where Vin Cortland is concerned. Pleasure that curls my toes and pain that stabs as sharply as a knife in my belly.
Things were never supposed to be this way.
We were never supposed to be this way.
He won’t stop, even when it hurts us both.
But that’s what secrets do, infect everything until only sickness is left.
A look of surprise briefly crosses Vin’s face when I shove him away.
“You can’t seduce me, and you can’t buy me. I don’t care how much you think I owe you, no debt in the world is worth this. You don’t own me.”
“That’s where you’re wrong.” His heated gaze burns through mine for a moment so charged it is indistinguishable from eternity. “We’ve tried carrot, let’s see what you think of stick.”
Vin has swept out of the room before I can think of a suitable response.
No one has ever been able to make me feel what Vin seems to arouse so easily. I hate him, even when I know he is a parasite burrowing underneath my skin.
I’ll never be free of him.
Vin wasn’t wrong about Jake, who is nowhere to be seen when I scurry into the darkened hallway. He must have returned to the party. Being abandoned by my date is about what I deserve at this point. I can’t explain to Jake the hold that Vin Cortland has over me, that he has always had, because I struggle to understand it to myself.
The past keeps a stranglehold on the present, like creeping vines that never stop growing until everything else dies in darkness.
I take my time returning to the ballroom, because I recognized that look on Vin’s face. Rejecting him is the same as throwing down a gauntlet at his feet.
And he has never backed down from a challenge.
It surprises me when I see Jake standing in the entryway, waiting for me.
He turns a concerned face toward me as I approach. “Are you okay? I saw Cortland come stomping down here a minute ago looking like a psycho. But when you weren’t with him, I thought maybe he’d done something to you. You had me worried.”
I just shake my head and smile, even though it feels more like a grimace.
But Jake wasn’t worried enough to come back for me or refuse to leave me with Vin in the first place. I suddenly find his concern inexplicably annoying, though I know I shouldn’t blame him for what Vin does.
That is precisely what Vin wants me to do, see Jake as cowardly and weak. When really, I shouldn’t expect the world from someone I barely know.
This is exactly what Vin does. He twists things, until up is down and lies are truth. Until the sweet guy isn’t good enough because he didn’t throw himself in front of a bullet.
Jake takes my arm as if nothing has changed. For him, maybe nothing has. We enter the ballroom just as the music crescendos with breathtaking drama that resonates through my body.
My gaze is drawn to the center of the room, as Vin obviously intended it to be. The crowd
