Page 30 of Start With A Slap

The alcohol—that’s what it was. She pulled herself together and walked ahead, turning the corner to the elevator well. “I know you’re bluffing about the blackmail.”

“Am I?” He followed, said casually, “In case you haven’t noticed, he’s the self-righteous sort. Told me tonight the one thing he can’t stand is a liar. He finds out you’ve been lying to him — aboutme— it’s all over between you, and I get to enjoy the spoils without interruption.”

How fuckingdarehe threaten her. “Is that how you think this would go?” She hammered the down arrow on the elevator while saying in French, “If it wasn’t for Jason I would have moved away and changed my number the second you came on to me. You’re everything I hate, Sever. You’revermin. You think I would lower myself to you? I would sooner?—”

With a menacing growl, he grabbed her by the shoulders and pushed her to the wall.

Eyes wide, she gasped for air. What the hell did he think he was doing?

Seething at her, he moved his grip to the nape of her neck, his thumb grazing her throat, and looked down at her quivering mouth. Slowly, he angled in. Toward her mouth.

She didn’t know what to do. He was going to kiss her and she didn’t know what to do, or how to stop it. Why couldn’t she stop it? Why was she breathing like a helpless little girl?Stop it, stop it, stop it?—

He stopped, just short of her mouth. Pausing there for a moment, their faces centimeters apart, sweet liquor on his breath, he said, “You would sooner what?”

Through clenched teeth, she said, “Die.”

Sever smiled slightly, his tongue sliding up behind his teeth and flicking down, and she wondered what it might feel like between her legs.

A hot shiver coursed through her body, tightening her nipples and creaming her panties. “I hate you.”

“And yet...” he spun her to face the wall, “I can almost smell how much you want me.”

“You’re disgusting,” she said as he sniffed her neck. “Let me go.”

“One more thing.” He bunched up the hem of her dress, riding it up in the back. “Pink satin,” he declared in a raspy voice as he found the ribboned edge of her g-string. “Is that Jason’s favorite wrapping as well?” He hooked his finger underneath the center string and slid it down slowly. “Or did you, in the dark recesses of your psyche, put it on just for me?”

“Stop,” she said, struggling to break away before he found the wet between her legs.

He didn’t go that far. Instead, he wrapped his arms around her waist and pressed himself against her until she could feel his cock throb against her exposed lower back. “Scream if you want me to stop.”

Stilled by the sensation, all she could do was whimper.

He knotted her hair in his fist to tug her head to one side, and before she understood what was happening, he’d feathered his lips against her neck, making her quiver.

Next, he gave her shoulder an impossibly soft kiss. Then another. Then another, until he’d kissed a heady trail up her neck to the juncture of her jaw and ear. At the last kiss, he expertly finessed her spot.

She moaned so loud it echoed through the hallway.

The elevator dinged and the doors opened.

“See you next week,tigresse.” He let her hair fall, set her dress hem free. “Pack the apron.”

Eyes clamped shut, breath shuddering, she heard him get into the elevator, heard the doors close. Heard the cables moving.

Her body slumped against the wall. Her knees were shaking. It took her several minutes and countless deep breaths before she could even process what had just happened.

What she knew was that he’d gone too far… and that she’dlikedit.

Whowasshe? Why was this man making her rethink her entire existence—and making her want more than she already had? She had so much privilege, so much to be thankful for…

And she was not a cheater.

Back at the apartment, she found Jason passed out on the couch. She watched him for a while.

They were so fundamentally different, yet she could see echoes of Sever in certain angles of his face; in the way he scratched his chin and ate his ice cubes; the way he pursed his lips and smiled with his disarming blue eyes... even the way he walked in the courtroom, like he owned the world.

These mannerisms had to be genetic. Jason was twelve when he met Sever for the first time. A few days after his grandmother’s death, his flighty mother reappeared to tell him that the successful, debonair father he’d long dreamed of meeting was finally going to accept him into his life and take him under his wing. He was whisked to California and droppedoff at the mansion, where he quickly learned that Sever, who had recently married an heiress, wasn’t the least bit warm or welcoming. Before he was shipped off to school that year, Jason had to spend an entire summer with a stepmother he came to despise, and his father, a snake.

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