Page 43 of Art of Sin

“No,” he says, then pauses. “Despite your clear opinion of me, I’m not usually a slave to impulse. But I couldn’t resist touching you. I had to see you come apart. I think you enjoyed it, too. Should I apologize?”

“Fuck you, Gideon.”

Rising in a smooth flex of muscle, he wanders back to the canvas. His profile is hard, gaze fixed, seeing nothing. I stand, unsteady, my limbs looser than I’m used to. I can’t remember the last time a man fingered me to orgasm. Or a time it happened so quickly. Easily. Panic streams at the edges of my mind, building into a waterfall.

I’m going to drown in him if I don’t get away.

“I saw you, you know.”

I’m halfway across the room when his voice stops me. “What?”

“Three or so years ago. The service hallway at Crossroads a few months after they opened. It was dark. You came around the corner and stumbled. Do you remember?”

Blonde on her knees.

The floor is unsteady. Soft gravel instead of cement. I sway a bit before regaining control. Of course I remember. Her bobbing head. His smirk as he noticed me watching. That moment is flash-frozen forever in my mind.

I’m stunned he knows it was me, that he recognized me after all this time. I’m not sure what that means.

It doesn’t mean anything.

“Why are you bringing this up?” I ask, glancing over my shoulder. He’s still staring at the canvas.

Finally, his eyes move to mine. “Because sometimes, we have to let the animals inside us off the leash. Let them hunt and feed and satiate themselves. If we don’t, the pressure builds and builds, and bad things happen. Like they happened for you that night. Right, Deirdre? That was the night you got those scars on your back, was it not?”

My back twinges with recall of the barbed whip. Blood and helpless fury, impotent regret. Screaming—mine.

Blackness, unconsciousness, and waking up in a hospital room with Nate in a chair next to the bed.

“Why, Dee?”

I can’t look at him, at the pain and worry in his eyes. “Because I needed to feel something.”

Now, I lift my chin and square my shoulders. A front for the crumbling woman inside.

“Good night, Gideon.”

I leave.

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