Page 22 of Forbidden Cravings

“Didn’t do anything? They were touching you! If I’d been any later, they would have had you in a corner raping you.” Even though I knew my men would have stopped them, the thought still burned through me.

“Don’t exaggerate?—”

“Exaggerate?” I towered over her. “He had your skirt up, your ass showing, and his dick would have been out if I hadn’t beaten the shit out of the fucker. And don’t get me started on the one who was making a move toward your tits.”

She stepped into me and poked at my chest. “You didn’t want me and you’re angry because someone else took what was yours.”

I couldn’t deny it, although the way they were going about it had me hot. The fact that she was too drunk to know better, too trashed to realize what they were doing and to fight back had me hostile.

“You had your chance, Mason. I wanted you…fuck, I still do, but you turned me away.”

“I had to turn you away.”

“But you want me.” Her eyes were large and inviting, her chest pushing into mine so that her breasts swelled above her dress.

“Of course I want you.”

“Well, here I am,” she said, throwing her arms out. “Take me then. You took away my other options, forced me home. Now fuck me.”

The invitation was a bold one, an opening that few men could resist, that I may not have resisted if she hadn’t had one too many drinks, if the alcohol wasn’t impairing her thinking, if there wasn’t a risk that she’d wake in the morning and regret it. Or that I would.

“No. You’re trashed, Casey. Go to bed.”

“Go to bed,” she mocked. “That’s all you ever tell me to do.”

“And that’s what I’m telling you now. Go to bed and sleep the alcohol off.”

“Why? So you can turn me down again?”

She turned away, but I grasped her arm, pulling her back to me. “Yes, but I can promise you, Casey, if I ever give in, I want you sober when I fuck you. I want your cries to be pure, to be raw, and when you come for me, I want it to be me who breaks you and not the alcohol.”

I let her go, wondering if she was teetering from the alcohol or from my words.

“Now get your drunk ass into bed and sleep it off.”

I left her there, not wanting to look at her anymore because all I could see were the hands of those men on her tan skin, the skin I wanted to keep for myself. The skin she’d offered me repeatedly and yet, I’d denied myself over and over. My resolve was wearing thin, and I didn’t know if I could make it another day without giving in. And if I resisted, I wasn’t sure I wouldn’t follow her to Armina and take her there.

Chapter Eight

CASEY

My head was pounding, my mouth dry and nasty. When I stretched, it only exacerbated the situation. Hangovers were my nemesis, and I avoided them, knowing my tolerance level and where surpassing it would leave me obliterated. And last night I sped right past it and plunged my way into a drunken stupor.

“Idiot,” I muttered, trying to sit up.

I flopped back down, throwing my arm over my eyes to stop the room from spinning. The urge to vomit was climbing in my throat, increasing as the events of the night returned to my memory.

“Oh, fuck.”

Mason had found me and beaten the shit out of the guys who’d been hitting on me. The same guys who kept buying me drinks, handing me a strong one when Riley’s early exit had distracted Mason’s thugs.

My stomach churned, and I stumbled out of bed, making it to the toilet just as the burn of all my drinks surged forward. I laid my head on the toilet, hating that I was so sick.

“That’s a sexy look.”

I peered up, seeing Mason’s outline in the moonlight that lit the room. The same light I’d thought was dawn waking me to slap me in the face for my stupidity.

I didn’t have the energy to say anything back, my stomach knotting as the bile burned its way up my throat. I lost my hold on it, closing my eyes. It spilled into the toilet, splatters repelling back into my face. I felt the cool touch of Mason’s hands as he pulled my hair back and waited for me to stop. When I could function again, I leaned back, hitting his legs and resting against them. My eyes closed to the sensation of his fingers pushing a strand of hair from my mouth.

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