Page 83 of Dance of Deception

I’mwet.

“But unlike you, little dancer,” he continues, his voice smooth and dangerous, “I don’t just observe. I push. I break. I like to see what happens when people come apart, and find out what’s left after they do.”

His lips pull to a dark, amused, taunting smile.

“And you,” he murmurs, his thumb pressing on my racing pulse, “are my newest obsession.”

His eyes drop between my legs.

“Can’t watch sex,” he muses, almost too himself. “And yet, merely talking about it, you’re alreadydrenchedfor me.”

Carmine’s fingers skim my thigh, teasing, lingering, a slow, deliberate glide that sets every nerve on fire.

Tearing down the walls I’ve spent years reinforcing.

His touch is light and taunting, but his gaze isn't. It burns with dark, deep, hunger.

“Why is it,” he murmurs, his fingers ghosting higher, closer, making me tremble, “that you can’t evenlookat something as natural as sex…”

His touch dips lower and my body betrays me, heat coiling, a sharp, aching pulse sparking through my limbs.

“…but you can handle this?”

I try to speak, to breathe, to think, but his fingers keep moving, each lazy, controlled motion dragging me deeper into something I can’t fight.

Don’t want to fight.

I suck in a sharp breath, my hands twisting and gripping the sheets, my nails digging into the fabric.

Carmine watches me struggle, his expression calm, detached—like he’s studying me, documenting every tiny reaction.

“Tell me,” he murmurs, his voice smooth and utterly in control, “whycan’t you even watch? What is it about it that makes you shut down?”

I shake my head helplessly.

I can’t say it. The memory is too sharp, too consuming. Too devastating.

Suddenly, I’m not able to sayanything at all. Because his fingers are on my pussy, gliding up my lips, spreading them open. He rolls a finger over my throbbing clit, making my entire body jolt. I clamp my mouth shut, but not quickly enough to prevent the choked, needy whimper from erupting out of my throat.

Carmine chuckles, low and mocking, his thumb stroking and rolling over my clit again as I shake under his touch.

“Can’t even look at other people touching,” he murmurs, his tone deceptively smooth, almost meditative. “But when it’s me? You fall apart.”

I swallow hard as his hand dips lower, spreading my lips open. He starts to sink one finger into me, making me melt, dragging a whine from my lips.

I allow my eyes to slide to his, and instantly, all the breath is sucked from my lungs.

It’s…haunting, the way he’s looking at me. It’s a mix of dark, possessive intimacy, and the objective way a scientist might study an experiment.

Like I’m a puzzle he’s trying to crack open and take apart, piece by piece.

He leans in, his lips hovering just against my ear.

“Or is it whenanyonetouches you?”

The words feel like a blade. My entire body tenses, my fingers curling into the sheets.

I don’t answer.

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