Page 28 of Velvet Thorns
“Don’t threaten me,” she hisses. “I’ll do what I damn wellplease. And right now, I want to finish my night bouncing on the bartender. So why don’t you do what you’re best at and fuck off?”
That kind of shit was my reality when I was hiding in the shadows like some ghost in her past. But not anymore. I’m not a ghost tonight. I’m flesh and blood, and I’m right fucking here.
But if that’s how she wants to play it? Fine. Game the fuck on.
Before she can get another word out, I grab her and haul her straight out of the chair. She shrieks my name, her fists hammering into my back, making me flinch where I’m already sore, while her heels slam into my thighs like she’s trying to leave bruises as I throw her over my shoulder.
God, I’ve been waiting for her body to be pressed against mine again like this, even if she’s scratching and swearing she hates me. She’s fighting me hard, but I don’t care how crazy it looks. I hope it looks unhinged, and every person in this room sees me for what I am when it comes to Shannen—obsessed, irrational, and so completely gone for her I’d tear heaven to shreds just to keep her hell wrapped around me.
By the time we reach the elevator, a group of women near a different bar are staring, slack-jawed and wide-eyed, like they’re watching a live abduction, and to be fair, they’re not wrong.
I quickly flash them a grin that makes girls forget what their mothers taught them about danger.
“She’s fine. Her kink is roleplay.” I say it loud enough for every nosy bitch at the bar to hear, grinning like I’m playing out their dirtiest fantasy.
“Shut up, asshole, and put me the fuck down!” Shannen’s fists are like hammers on my back, but her anger only makes me harder.
“You know that’s not our safe word.” My hand glides up her bare thigh, stopping just shy of where she’s already burning for me. She’s pissed at me, humiliated, and ready to rip me apart, buther body hasn’t caught up with her mouth because I know damn well she’s soaked.
The women are still watching, whispering behind their hands and giggling like they’ve just witnessed the world’s hottest kidnapping. And the fucked-up part? They’re into it.
They like it.
The danger.
The aggression.
The illusion of control being ripped away.
Fucking idiots.
If I had a knife in my back pocket, duct tape in the trunk, and plans to dump my girl in a river, they’d still be whispering to their friends about how hot it is to be manhandled by someone who looks like me.
Give the devil a pretty face, and they’ll hand you the knife and ask to be sliced open.
I keep Shannen clutched to me the whole ride up, my arms holding her so tight she’d have to break bones to get free. She fights me every second—thrashing, twisting, spitting pure hell—but I don’t loosen my grip.
I don’t give her an inch when the elevator finally dings for her floor. I’m not an idiot. All it would take is one crack in my focus, and she’d bolt. She’d slam the door in my face, lock me out, and try to vanish.
So I take a hard left, straight through the nearest stairwell door. I ram it open with my shoulder, not even breaking stride, and only when the door slams shut behind us do I finally set her down. She stumbles slightly, her heels clicking against the concrete as she barely catches herself before straightening.
I back her into the wall before she even breathes a word, but I don’t touch her yet. She needs space, or at least the illusion of it.
“Let me go.”
“No.”
“You can’t just say no, you dick.” I almost laugh at how she talks to me as if no time has passed.
“When you say you’re gonna end the night on someone else’s cock, you better believe I’m gonna react.” I drag my gaze over her face, letting my stare burn. “Especially when it’s some lame asshole in face paint.”
“I hate to break it to you, but I’m not a virgin, Phoenix. I’ve ended the night on a lot of cocks.” She says it like she’s proud of it, and it lands exactly where she wants it to—right in the center of my chest, detonating like a fucking bomb. She’s aiming to wound, and god, does she hit her mark.
Shannen’s furious with me, and I get it. I do. She’s still trying to wrap her head around everything I dropped on her tonight. But understanding her feelings doesn’t dull the images ripping through my brain.
Her on her back with her gorgeous legs open, begging for someone who wasn’t me. Some prick’s hands on her thighs, some other asshole’s mouth on her neck, stealing sounds that should’ve only ever been mine to hear.
I grit my teeth so hard my jaw aches, a dull, pulsing throb that matches the tension in my fists. They’re clenched at my sides, tight enough my knuckles crack, because all I want to do is grab her and slam her back against the wall, make her take it back, and feel what her words just did to me.
