Page 42 of Ruined (The Knights of Ruin)

I turned back to the show by the fire. I didn’t want to watch what was going on in front of us—I really didn’t. Yet something in me wouldn’t let me look away as the woman began to give Tiger a blow job right in front of everyone.

Smoke’s hand moved, sliding up to cup my breast.

I went still, the breath catching in my throat.

My blouse was very thin, and his hand felt like one of the coals from the fire, burning right through the material. Then his thumb brushed over my nipple. Electricity shot through me and I nearly gasped aloud. He began to circle my painfully hard nipple through my blouse slowly, lightly, and I shuddered before I could stop myself.

‘What are you doing?’ I asked thickly.

He didn’t turn his head, his attention still on the show that was being performed in front of us. ‘Making it look real.’

My mouth was dry and I couldn’t hear anything else through the sound of my heartbeat. There was a deep, aching pulse between my thighs, an intense pressure.

Tiger drained his beer and tossed the bottle away, so he could put both hands in the woman’s hair, moving his hips faster.

Don’t, I wanted to say to Smoke. Please don’t.

I didn’t know why I didn’t. Because this was wrong—this shouldn’t be happening. He shouldn’t be touching me and I shouldn’t be getting worked up about it.

But he was. His thumb was moving in slow, aching circles around my nipple, making me tremble, making it hard to breathe.

This wasn’t making it look real. No one could see his hand, so what the hell was he doing?

A blind, unreasoning panic squeezed my chest tight, and before I knew what I was doing, I’d jerked away from him, turning and shouldering my way through the crowd, heading towards the clubhouse. Someone called my name but I ignored them.

I had no idea where I was going or why. I only knew I had to get away from what was happening in front of me, away from the woman and Tiger, and most of all away from Smoke. From the intense, hungry feeling that had wrapped its hands around my throat and refused to let go.

There were crowds inside the corridors of the clubhouse, but I didn’t meet anyone’s eyes, walking blindly, not looking where I was going. I didn’t even have a direction. I only wanted to get away, find somewhere I could be alone and figure out what was happening to me.

I didn’t realise I’d gone through the main set of clubrooms and into the back of the clubhouse, where all the bedrooms and other offices were, until the dim lighting and the lack of people brought me to a stop. There were lots of doors in the hallway and the sound of people talking behind them—other sounds, too, of pleasure.

The place was familiar. And I knew why.

‘There’s a reason you came here,’ a voice said from behind me, deep and dark and full of rough heat. ‘Isn’t there, Cat?’

Smoke. He’d followed me.

I sucked in a ragged breath, my legs trembling. No, I had no idea why I’d come here—to the place where I’d found him getting a blow job from that woman. I should have gone out to the front, called a taxi and gone home.

But I hadn’t.

His footsteps sounded behind me and I tensed, but he walked past me, going down the hall a little way. Then he stopped and turned, leaning back against the wall, looking straight at me. His hands were in his pockets. There was nothing threatening in his stance. Yet I felt like he’d pinned me where I stood all the same.

He’d brought the heat of the bonfire inside with him and the flames were flickering in his eyes.

‘Come here,’ he ordered softly.

I couldn’t tell myself I didn’t know what was happening between us any more. I couldn’t tell myself this was only pretend. I couldn’t tell myself I didn’t want it more than I wanted my next breath either.

I’d run from him, but I hadn’t run in the direction I should have. I’d run here.

He was right—there was a reason for that.

My feet were moving before I even knew what I was doing. I was walking towards him as if he had control of me, as if he was reeling me in like a fish on the end of a line. I stopped in front of him, my breath coming hard and fast in time with my hammering pulse.

He looked calm and relaxed, leaning back against the wall. Except for his eyes. They burned so bright.

‘On your knees.’

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