Page 118 of Sweetheart: Part One

I clutched him, my voice so close to his ear that no one else would catch my words. “You ruin their reputation,” I breathed. “I’ll ruin yours.”

THIRTY-ONE

EBONY

Manic pixie demon girl.

That was how I’d describe Vex tonight. With her little black dress that showed off perfectly smooth thighs, vanishing into black boots. The tumbling waves of silver-brown with that peach streak elevated her look to another level. She was like a female Drake, except Drake didn’t have the kind of vengeance she did.

As the night progressed, she took my challenge literally, she spoke tono one. Not one single person aside me.

And she didn’t justnottalk to them: when someone addressed her, she shrank against me, looking up at me with wide chocolate eyes, all worried and letting me answer for her. As if I was five seconds from dragging her into the bathroom and giving her a black eye if she said the wrong thing.

And,fuck me, she could act.

I hated, more than anything else in the whole world, that this mad, and oddly genius response to my threat was probably the hottest thing I’d ever seen.

As my makeup was being applied, she waited dutifully beside me, silent. Her submissive gaze, framed by deadly winged liner, was fixed on me; dangerous twinkling voids that let slip a briefest moment of victory when no one else watched, a faint sneer crinkling her nose.

The rest of the world melted away beneath that gaze, the distracted shouts around us, the touch of a makeup brush on my cheeks, the gentle tug of someone fixing my hair. All gone, but for her.

She might taunt me, yet she didn’t know what a fool she was. The beast she baited was stirring as I realisedthiswas what I wanted. I didn’t care if I had to ruin anyone who ever crossed her path if the result was Vex at my side, speaking to no one but me,lookingat no one but me.

She was mine.

I wanted her.

For a moment, my lust got away from me. I imagined seizing her by the hair and bending her over the vanity. I’d rut her so hard that her sneer, the twinkling malice, it would all be gone for the way she’d scream for me. I’d make her come until she cried and begged for my knot.

I’d do it in front of all these people she so dearly wanted to save.

* * *

Finally, we were left alone. My makeup and prep was done with a bit of time to spare. When the door to the studio room closed and I was left alone with her, I tilted my head meeting her eyes. “Push me some more, Vex, I dare you.”

She regarded me flatly. “You don’t like when someone challenges you?”

I laughed. “You’re reading me wrong.”

She paused, brows furrowed.

“Bait me more, I’ll cancel the interview and drag your bratty little cunt over my cock on live TV so no alpha would ever dare touch you again.”

She went as still as a frightened bird, plush lips parted in shock. By the way her pupils were blown, all composure gone, I knew it wasn’t fear at all—and I realised I’d also possibly been misreading her fear before now.

The strings tying me to fame, to Love, to expectation were the only things keeping me from doing what I’d just said I’d do. And I was surprised at how faded those strings were as I stared at her, her chest heaving, and slender neck exposed.

I’d claim her and bite her for the whole world to see in a heartbeat. My fame, my access to a live show, was—in this moment—just a means for more reach of that claim.

Yet, she was a beta, which meant she’d have to agree to the bond to make it stick. I could get her agreement one way or another—that,I wasn’t worried about. ButLovewas a problem.

I couldn’t bite her in because he was pack lead. She’d used makeup to cover the mark I’d left earlier, and every time I saw her unmarked wrist, I felt a flare of anger.

“I can see why Love puts so much effort into managing you,” she said, tucking her hair behind her ear, trying—and failing to compose herself after what I’d just told her. Her pupils were still dilated.

I grinned. “He does, doesn’t he?”

“Does it bother you?”

---