Page 85 of A Heart of Bluestone

“I’m sure your father will disagree.” He pushes from the wall and takes one, single step.

Right into my path.

I arch my neck to look up at him, study the reddened hue of his eyes, the low droop of his lashes—and I get a whiff of whisky from the warm breath that brushes too close to my face.

Drunk. Not terribly, but enough that—I pray—will subdue him into his content drinking mood, lull him enough that he will leave me the fuck alone.

Of course I am a raging moron, and Dray stands in my way, so I doubt I have a good shot at making it out of here unscathed.

His gaze drops to my shoulder, watching the collar of my sweater slip over my skin, dragging under the slipping weight of the caddy strap.

“Ok, fine.” I sigh out the words. “We are allies, our families are connected, you are right, I am wrong.” I raise a brow. “Happy? Can I pass now?”

Dray only considers me for a moment, a thick heartbeat that pulses between us, then he steps aside. A slight side-step.

No time wasted, I move to pass him. my slippers slap on the rug.

My shoulder brushes his, barely, a mere whisper of touch, not like I’m barging into him—

And that’s as far as I make it before I’m thrown from my feet and my back smacks, hard, into the wall.

The breath is knocked out of me, a wheeze lured from my parted lips, and—distantly—I’m aware of the toiletries hitting the floor, spilling out of the caddy, phials rolling and knocking off the wainscotting.

None hit my feet.

My feet don’t touch the floor.

Slippers have fallen off and—I dangle.

I dangle from his hold.

In a flurried heartbeat, Dray has shoved his knee between my legs and hoisted me up the wall, rough.

I grunt, but not before his hand firms around my throat, pinning me between him and the sharp bite of wainscotting that digs into my spine.

I slowly lift my gaze to his.

My chin raises, too, until my face is aligned with Dray’s—and the darkness of the shadows lashing at him is enough to curl my toes.

“Let me go,” I whisper—because I can’t manage more than that, because my heart is thumping in my chest and icicles aretrickling down my body all the way to my toes. “Dray, please—please, let me go.”

There are no words given in answer.

Instead, he jerks his knee under me. The movement bounces my weight, hoists me up the wall a bit higher, before he’s pushing his solid body against mine—

And a hot flush burns my face, because all my weight is perched on his upper thigh wedged between my legs.

I squirm, as though I can wiggle my way out of it.

But instantly, a sensation zaps me, the brush of my core against his leg, and I still.

The ghost of a smirk whispers over his pink mouth. Like he can read my mind, the messages zapping through my body.

Or maybe, it’s just that I’m fucking stuck, as though two walls press into me, front and back, and he knows it—and he loves it, loves all the ways to make me suffer.

I swallow, thick.

The gesture lures his gaze to my mouth.

---