Page 69 of Eden's Deliverance

I didn’t want to find enjoyment in any of it…but I did anyway.

Casanova shouldn’t be able to read me so well. He doesn’t know anything about me, and there’s no way he could have known how I would react. Yet somehow, he was right. Somehow, he knew I would love it.

He insisted I would take pleasure in the things they did to me, and even when I denied it until I was blue in the face, I ended up reveling in every second of disgusting debasement. I licked my own blood from their tongues, for christ’s sake.

Who does that?

I don’t want to find out. I’m not one to kink shame, but I don’t want to find out what’s on the other side of the Red Room’s door. I have too much going on in my life right now.

This journey was meant to help me discover what’s out there for me and to find sexual gratification in strangers who wanted the same thing. But I neverwanted this. If my big sexual revelation is the fact that I’m apparently into repulsive debauchery…I don’t want any part of it.

They can keep it to themselves.

Penelope hasn’t taken my rejection of Eden’s Deliverance well, but we’ve finally found a middle ground. Without going into detail, I explained that I’m only comfortable visiting the local watering hole for now.

Pennbriar has a dive bar on the corner of Main Street where we used to go out before she introduced me to Eden, so here we are, making a reappearance.

It’s been a month since the New Year’s party, and I haven’t been back since. My head has also never felt clearer. It’s like that place put some sort of spell on me every time I went, and without obsessing over my mask color or whether I’ll see those guys or not, I finally feel at peace.

Skylar was right, too.

I stuck to my guns and ignored Broody’s threats, and I haven’t heard another word from him since. They had to know what they did would scare me away, else they wouldn’t have waited so long that they felt the need to trick me into it. They knew I’d never come back.

“Hello! Earth to Scarlett,” Penelope calls to me, waving her hand in front of my eyes. I hadn’t realized I was spacing so badly.

I give a hearty chuckle, turning my attention to her. “Sorry, Pen. What were you saying?”

“Iwasn’t saying anything.” She points her nose at me, and for a second, I’m confused until I realize she’s gesturing to something over my shoulder.

Grabbing the bar counter, I spin my stool and come face to face with the most handsome man I’ve ever seen. If I thought Broody’s luscious hair or Casanova’s chiseled jaw were things to fawn over, I was mistaken.

They’ve got nothing on this man with his curly brown locks and trimmed beard. He has a prominent nose that stands out from his face, but the feature makes sense when he opens his mouth.

“Hello,bellezza. May I buy you a drink?” he asks. His thick Italian accent rings through my ears and straight to my clit, like a fucking aphrodisiac.

“You,” I start, swaying slightly when I poke him in the sternum, “can buy me anything you’d like.” I may have already had a drink or three, so I can’t be blamed for my behavior.

While the man gets the bartender’s attention, I turn to Penelope with my mouth agape, slapping her arm in exasperation.

Ding.

God, what a time to be cock blocked.

Pulling out my phone to check the messages, I roll my eyes to nobody in particular when I see that Skylar has texted me not only once, but five times in the past hour. I never answered his text from last night when he offered to come over if I needed him, so now he’s blowing my shit up.

Jesus, this guy. I put my phone face-down on the bar and tune out the incessant buzzing that ensues. I’ve got a date with a delicious foreigner.

The man returns with two bay breezes for us girls, and I accept it graciously, even though it’s not my drink of choice. Neither is the beer he’s sipping on, butI’ll let it slide on account of the fact he’s well on his way to making it into my bed tonight.

“So, stranger,” I say before wrapping my lips suggestively around the straw in my drink, “what’s your name, and what are you doinghere?”

“Dario.” He flashes me a shiny smile, his eyes lingering on my mouth for a second too long before meeting my gaze. “You can call me Dario.And you?”

Fuck me. Penelope is going to need earplugs tonight if he doesn’t stop talking to me like that. To make things worse, he reaches for me to curl his fingers around mine, then kisses the back of my hand like I’m a goddamn queen.

“Scarlett. You can call me Scarlett.”

“Scarlett,” he repeats. “Like the color red?” he asks, eyes lit up with fascination as they scan over me from head to toe—from my crimson hair to my ruby-red heels.

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