Page 97 of Promise of Destruction
“I’m coming.” She says, crossing her arms. “I’m not staying here while you guys run off. Ican’tstay here alone.”
My head feels like it’s spinning. “I… we already have a suite.”
“You can’t come.” Dimitri scoffs. “You’ll slow us down.”
“I can stay on the plane, then, but you’re not leaving me here. When you find them, they’re going to need me.”
Declan looks between them, and then his eyes slide over me.
“We’ll stay. It will help to have access to Boudreaux’s computer so that I can be sure the proxy I set up is in place from an outside source.”
Their feud abandoned, neither Dimitri or the housekeeper look back to tell me goodbye. They disappear into the house, and Declan shrugs. “I’m tired, and don’t feel like driving to the hotel.”
I blink at him. “So, we’re just going to stay in a stranger’s house?”
“Think of it as a B&B.” His mouth tips into a grin. “I’ll make you breakfast.”
“No thanks.” I say immediately, standing to go… anywhere. I don’t exactly want to go out to the guest house alone, but I also don’t want to be near Declan.
Now that the intensity of the last ten minutes has mellowed, the hurt and sickness is rushing back, happy to pull me into its dark embrace.
“No wasn’t an option, kitten.”
“Kitten?” I laugh coldly, using my anger to block the incessant fluttering of my heartbeat as he steps nearer to me.
“Kitten,” he confirms.
With one powerful stride, he eliminates all of the space between us, driving me against the concrete wall. His fingers drum against my neck, coming to a rest in the hollow space between my collarbones. His other hand grips my hip, which burns hot under his touch.
“Unless you prefer it when I call you my good little whore?”
The rage in my belly wars with the feeling underneath it—the one that has me clenching and loosening and almost believing that I do like him calling me degrading names.
“Fuck you.”
I bite the words off slow and sharp, deliberately leaving no room for him to doubt my anger. But my anger doesn’t inspire his. He only laughs at me.
“So, no dinner, then?”
“I don’t wantanythingfrom you.”
It’s a bold lie, when his touch on me makes me feel high and his fingers are close to one of the spots I desperately do want him.
It’s probably clear to anybody who can hear my heartbeat crashing against my ribs or see the rise and fall of my chest that I want him. But Declan doesn’t want me. He wants to ruin me. He wants to torture me, to humiliate me over and over again.
I think back to him dumping me off his lap on the jet, pressing me into the bed but denying me his touch. I think back to the photos he left up for me to see that not only was my husband unfaithful to me, he may have been even more of a monster than the one in front of me.
“That’s your problem.” He laughs, wedging his shoe between my feet and forcing my legs apart. I can’t take my gaze off of his even as he presses the pad of his thumb against my throat, letting the fingers on his other hand trail up my thighs.
Even through the thick fabric of my leggings, his touch makes me shudder. My eyes flutter closed while I try to compose myself, try to get my shit together and do something other than think about how much I want his hand to inch higher.
“No.” He chides. “Open your eyes, Ren. Let me see how much you hate me.”
My body seems almost hard-wired to respond to him—I oblige him despite the fact that my brain is telling me to do the opposite of anything he demands. When I do, his eyes are gleaming with approval, a wolfish look of hunger in them. He’s a predator, making a five-course meal out of his prey.
“What’s my problem?” I gasp, because I need to say something and I’m sure as fuck not about to tell him to keep doing what he’s doing, no matter how great the thrill is in me as his hand skates higher, curving around to cup my ass.
I keep my eyes open, but my head tips back as he squeezes one cheek, and I fight to keep my breathing steady.
