Page 52 of Dragonfly

Maybe show Damien what he’s never gonna have.

Clutching the dress to my chest, I’m careful to avoid brushing it along the top of Orion’s furry butt so that I don’t get more cat fur on it than I already have. I get to my feet, meeting the dare written in every line of his face.

“Two hours?” I think of what’s in the bathroom. He has a blow dryer and, not surprisingly, my meager make-up bag also made it to Damien’s house after the Dragonflies visited my apartment. It’s not much, but it’ll do. “I’ll be ready in an hour and a half.”

I just make my self-imposed deadline. After shimmying the dress on, I blew out my hair, forming tousled waves using my brush and my fingers. A little mascara, eye liner, some blush, and my favorite lip finish the job, and I’m looking the best I have in a long, long time as I leave the bathroom.

Damien’s sitting on the bed, looking at his phone when the door opens. His head snaps up, and I have to swallow my grin when he sucks in a breath.

“Savannah…”

I run my hands down the sides of my hip, smoothing the dress. “You like?”

“Very much.” He tosses his phone to the bed, then gets to his feet. “Let me look at you.”

I turn so he can get the full effect, but that’s not what he means. Taking me by the hand, I stumble in my bare feet until he has me right in front of the floor-length mirror in his room.

“Bellissima, ragna mia. My black widow, you are beautiful.”

Damien moves so that he’s behind me, gazing at my reflection in the mirror with me. Swooping up my loose hair, he sets it over my shoulder before bending down to press a kiss to the bare back of the other one.

I can’t stop myself from reacting. Closing my eyes so that I don’t have to see the lust in them reflecting back at me, I angle my head so that I’m giving him better access to my throat.

Damien’s hot mouth as he suckles my skin burns me up from the inside out. I keen a little, and he chuckles against my neck.

Then, as suddenly as the moment began, it’s over. He’s lifting his head up, though with my eyes still closed, I sense movement as he reaches around me.

My heart stutters in my chest. Is this it? Did he finally decide he was tired of me and was getting into position to… what? Stab me? Choke me? Strangle me?

Something settles on my chest. My eyes spring open in time to see that he’s looped a silver chain around my throat. In my panic, I think garotte, but it isn’t. It’s a gleaming silver chain with a pair of charms hanging off the center.

Wearing a pleased smirk, Damien fastens it, then runs his thumb along the top of my shoulder.

I’m still staring at the necklace he just put on me.

“What’s this?”

“I had it personally made for you, ragna mia. A dress like this calls for accessories, don’t you agree?”

And because he did have it made for me, the pair of charms are quite fitting.

The larger one is a silver dragonfly. And the other? Is a knife.

My breath catches in my throat. In his way, Damien’s marked me as his just as much as the scar on his side from his knife is proof that he decided to make me mine.

“Well?” he murmurs, nuzzling my temple as I do absolutely shit-all to stop him. “What do you think?”

I think that, if I honestly believed that I might win this war against Damien Libellula, I was fucking fooling myself.

It’s not a tattoo that marks me as his property like every other woman who gets suckered into joining his Family. Oh, no. I haven’t earned that yet… but he’s marked me all the same, and any hope that I might be able to annul this fake marriage and start my life over with Orion flittered away the moment the silver dragonfly touched my chest.

And the worst part is, I’m not so sure how I feel about that at all…

The high from Damien’s reaction to my appearance lasts through the second course of dinner.

I’m surprised it lasted as long as it did. From the moment I follow at Damien’s heels, walking into the elaborate private room at La Vita Vino, I already know I’m way out of my element. The dress, shoes he also bought for me, and the necklace help so that I fit in; most women in this room are wearing a variation of my evening wear, except for maybe Genevieve, who’s gorgeous in a flowing, pale pink dress that looks striking with her blonde updo.

It’s Damien’s party, but she’s the belle of the ball. Her outspoken, vivacious personality has her talking to everyone, and if I was anything like that, she’d be dragging me by the hand, showing me off to all of the guests.

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