Page 5 of Wicked Games

“This was a mistake.” I can’t get away from him fast enough. Really—what on earth was I thinking?

I try to step around him, but he blocks me. I step around him again, and he follows me down a hallway, into the kitchen. It’s big and cold. There’s a sliding door that leads out onto the porch. I got drunk in this house. It was here that Unknown got that damn video of me.

“Kiss me and you can stay, rent-free, for a month. If you aren’t discovered before that.”

He’s standing right behind me, while I’m frozen with my hand on the glass.

“And I’ll tell you who took that video,” he adds.

“Tempting,” I say.

“He kissed Savannah in front of you.”

“How kind of you to bring that back up.”

“Multiple times, if sources are correct.” He sneers. “I’m not kind, Margo. I hope you didn’t come here expectingthat, of all things.”

My gaze wanders over his backyard. If there was somewhere else I could go, I wouldn’t be here. But I am. I haven’t even begun to process what I overheard Caleb say. I shove those thoughts away as soon as they rise.

“I don’t understand why you’d want to kiss me,” I finally say.

I turn around, and he’sright there.

He’s not Caleb. He’s intimidating, sure, and the fear that spikes through me is real. But he doesn’t give me butterflies along with the fear. He crowds me, and all my body remembers is the pain.

He’s close enough to touch me, but he doesn’t. He stares into my eyes, a slight frown on his lips.

He leans into me. I put my hands on his chest and shove.

He catches my wrists, keeping my palms flat against him. His body heat seeps into my fingers.

“Let. Go.”

He switches his grasp on my wrists, taking both in one of his hands. With his other, he yanks my shirt up. Not far—just to the lower edge of my bra.

My stomach is still a kaleidoscope of bruises. It was a vicious move on his part.

“Got what you wanted?” I yank again, but he holds fast.

He runs a finger over my abdomen.

I shut my eyes. “Stop.”

“He calls you a lamb,” he says. “But I think you’re proving to be far from that.”

I open my eyes.

His attention is fixated on the bruises. He has an odd expression—a split second of remorse maybe, and his damn finger on my skin.

“Stop touching me, Ian.” My voice doesn’t tremble like I thought it might.

He releases me like coming out of a trance.

“Payment accepted.” He clears his throat. “Take the room, Wolfe. Upstairs, first one on the left. Don’t ask me for anything else. I’ll hide you until I figure out how to make Caleb burst with jealousy.”

I don’t push it, and I don’t ask what that means. I said he could use me—but I didn’t mean… I don’t know what I meant.

How far would I go?

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