Page 52 of We Are the Match
I am without the grace and dignity and mask I have worn my whole life. I am snarling and desperate and still slick between my legs.
“Oh, Princess.” Paris is beside me suddenly, her footsteps silent when she wants them to be. Then her fingernails trail down my spine, my ass, one finger reigniting the sensitive place between my thighs.“Have you been good for me while I was away?” she asks, her wandering fingers stilling at my entrance.
The words make me twist against her, shoving myself backward to grind against the firm pressure of her hand.
“Fuck you,” I gasp, but my writhing belies my words. “I’ll kill you, Paris.”
Her fingers disappear, leaving me aching at the sudden absence.
Then she slaps my ass, hard.
I gasp. “Paris.”
“Shall I update you on what I’ve learned?” Paris asks, a laugh in her voice.
She is vicious. Cruel.
And I want her to beworse.
Disappointment overshadows relief, and all of it mixed with embarrassment, when the ropes around my wrists loosen.
“Get up, then,” Paris says. She settles into a chair at the end of the bed, leaning back, both arms lazily resting on the armrests on either side. She sits with her knees spread, head tipped back slightly as she watches me with cool disinterest, as if none of this meant anything to her. As if she felt nothing while she was taking me apart.
I stagger to my feet, knees wobbling so hard I have to steady myself with the bedpost. “Paris.”
“Stop your whimpering, Princess,” she says. “Do you want to hear what I learned?”
“That wasmymeeting,” I snap at her. “What about the gift I was going to bring to her? How will I get an invite backnow?”
“Oh, I told her you were otherwise occupied.” Paris smirks. She nudges the gift basket toward her with her foot. It is a beautiful assortment I brought—imported cheeses from France, expensive chocolate from Switzerland and Germany, among other things. “Here,” she says with a slight sneer. “Aftercare.”
She unwraps one of the chocolates and tosses it to me, taking another for herself.
I sit on her bed, for lack of a better place to sit, and eat the chocolate despite myself.
“I hired her,” Paris tells me.
“You—what?”
“Well, I asked her for help with a delicate matter,” Paris says. “Which, in Hana terms, is the same fucking thing. I asked her to find dirt on Marcus.”
Oh, no.
No, no,no.
This game requires a subtler hand than this, but Paris is burning her way through with all the tact of a grenade. Which, I suppose, should not surprise me for a woman who insulted my father enough to lose a finger only days into working for the Family.
“Why Marcus?” I manage. “And why would you not consult my father to see what he already knows about Marcus?”
Paris waggles her injured hand at me, one sharp brown eyebrow arched in my direction. “What do you think, Princess?”
“I could at least have gotten you the dossier my father compiled,” I tell her wearily.
“But Hana needed to trust me,” Paris says. “Or at least trust that she knows what I want. And we already know Marcus is obsessed with you.”
My head snaps up.
Obsessed with me?
