Page 20 of The Devil's Pawn

“Are you telling me you’d rather spend every day in my company?”

“Not if this”—I swing my hand between us—“is what your company looks like.”

His nostrils flare as he expels a heavy breath, and he sets down his glass with a thunk. “What are you doing here, Imogen?”

“Aren’t you going to sleep with me?”

The words slosh out before I’ve connected brain to mouth, and I’d give anything to stuff them back in and kill them with fire, but it’s too late. He sits up straighter in his chair, his amber eyes like two blazing suns. Then he lets out a single-note laugh, and there’s so much bitterness, so much angst in that short sound, a shiver runs through me.

“Is that what you came here for?”

“No. I came here to ask about my phone, but as you’re determined not to give me an answer to that question, I thought I’d ask another.”

He rises from his chair and prowls behind me. I freeze, oxygen settling in my lungs. His fingertips trail over my neck, and goosebumps spring to life. Gathering my hair into aponytail, he tugs, forcing my head back. I meet his gaze, and what I see there causes a shiver to run through me. For someone with eyes the color of warm amber, he’s mastered the icy glare.

“Do you want it, Little Pawn? Do you want me to take your innocence, to rip through your virginity? Fuck you until you bleed all over my dick, then force you to lap up every drop of blood?”

His bluntness renders me speechless. I can’t think of a single word to say in response.

What the hell have I done? I should have refused to marry him and screw the consequences. Forced my father to offer something else to settle whatever this debt was that he ran up all those years ago.

Alexander releases his hold on my hair and walks over to the decanter once more. My lungs release the breath I’d been holding, and I almost pitch forward. My legs are boneless as I force myself to my feet, and my knees knock together so hard, I’m convinced he must be able to hear them.

When he turns, his eyes aren’t cold anymore. They’re glacial and filled with animosity. It’s clear he hates me.

Well, good.Good.Because I hate him, too.

“Don’t worry, Little Pawn.” He runs his gaze over me, and there’s something about the way he does it that makes me shiver again. “Your virtue is safe. For now.”

With the refilled glass of brandy in his hand, he sweeps from the room, leaving me standing there, aghast. My knees give out, and I plop back into the chair. My heart pounds, clattering against my ribcage, and my breaths burst in and out as if I’ve sprinted up a flight of stairs too fast.

But when my mind replays his crudespeech, a pulse throbs between my legs. He degraded and humiliated me… and my body responded favorably.

What on earth is wrong with me? His coarse treatment can’t have turned me on. Itcan’t. What kind of person would that make me?

That’s a question I do not want to know the answer to. Not today, not tomorrow.

Not ever.

Chapter Eight

IMOGEN

“I’m going to miss you so much.”

I can’t seem to let Mom go. My arms are locked around her neck in a way they haven’t been since I was eight or nine years old. After last night’s altercation with Alexander, which I haven’t shared with her or Dad, I’m feeling raw, upset, and frightened. Not of him, but of my reaction to him.

I’d returned to my rooms and lain there in the dark, unable to sleep, that pulse still throbbing between my legs until I’d slid my hand inside my cotton panties and tried to relieve the ache. I’d failed, too wound up from our clash. Or maybe my inability to climax had more to do with wishing it were Alexander’s fingers playing with my clit rather than my own.

I swear, there’s something wrong with me. There has to be. Only someone with their self-esteem in the gutter would find what Alexander said last night arousing. But I’m not that girl. Despite my sheltered upbringing—brought about by the need to keep me ‘pure’—I’m a confident woman. I’veheld my own with Alexander during several spats, but last night was different. Last night, he made it sexual, and I froze.

“We’ll miss you, too, darling. But in a few months, once you’ve settled in, you can come and visit. We’re only a plane ride away.”

A few months? If that’s where her head’s at, then the next time I see my parents will be after Alexander demands a divorce. It’s a sobering thought. I’m still struggling with the idea that my mom looks relaxed and happy at leaving her only child in a foreign country with a man she doesn’t know. A man who rendered me speechless, and horny, with a few well-chosen crass words. The same man who, at this very moment, is checking his watch every five seconds and huffing at regular intervals, clearly impatient with my protracted goodbyes.

Well, too bad. I won’t rush this farewell with Mom and Dad.

If it was up to me, I’d be on that plane with them, but it isn’t. My parents have made my bed, and it’s me who now has to lie in it.

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