Page 65 of Skin Trade

“I told you, you were overstepping.”

“That’s not what you said the other day.” She focused her icy gaze on Payton. “Did he take you last night, Payton? Like he planned to? Did he take you into his bed?”

“Enough, Tasha.” He held her by her wrist.

“No,” she said, snatching her arm from his grasp. “She needs to know.” She turned to Payton. “You know he’s grooming you right? Treats you like the queen. I bet he even has you in the room next to his to make you feel special. Makes you feel like his number one so when he’s ready to turn you out to the other vampires you’ll do it willingly. Until the next one. Then he’s done with you. Isn’t that right, Seth? Made me think I was something and then you bring her home.”

“Payton is under no illusions why she is here. It seems the only one who is, is you. I’m only going to tell you once. Go back to work. You have clients waiting.”

Her nostrils flared and she ground her jaw. Her fiery gaze went from Seth to Payton, brushing over Bobby like he wasn’t there. They’d forgotten him. Payton wished she’d been the one to be forgotten right then. The look Tasha gave her.

Payton felt Bobby’s hand on her arm as he gently pulled her back. She didn’t miss the way he pulled her in behind him, put himself in front of her. But Tasha was clearly thinking better of her actions.

“Fuck you, Seth,” she said. “Just fuck you.” She fixed her sights on Payton, her eyes blazing. “Don’t say I didn’t fucking warn you.” She stormed out of the room, slammed the door behind her and left them in the stone-cold silence of her outburst.

Chapter Thirty-Six

When everyone had left the room, and she had stopped seeing red long enough to speak, she turned to Seth. “Is it true?”

“Is what true?”

She narrowed her eyes at him. Now was not the time for him to play dumb with her. She was in no mood for it. “What she said Are you grooming me? Is that what you’re doing? In your room. I gave you my--” Heart aching words that cut off in her throat with an icy sharp jolt. “You know Creven trained me already. You don’t need to try and trick me, so I’ll work for you.”

He stayed completely still, his expression giving nothing away. “I thought you were better than to listen to what someone else would say,” he said finally, after a long drawn out minute that made her want to scream at him. Now was not the time for this kind of talk, for these games of long pauses and thinking.

“Don’t,” she said. “Don’t try and turn this on me that I am thinking something I shouldn’t. Tasha was pretty direct with what she said. I am asking you if it is true. Did you groom me?”

He still wouldn’t answer her, and she stood in front of him, ground her jaw, her expression as blank as she could make it. She was no vampire, but she was damn well going to try to show him that if what Tasha said was true, she wasn’t going to care about him. “Tell me.”

He gave a shrug, and with it, something in his demeanour looked the most human she had ever seen him, but it was gone an instant later. “You make up your own mind Payton. You were there when I made love to you. You know what you felt.”

“Fucked me, you mean. Isn’t that right? That’s what you did. I--” She glared at him. The problem with vampires is they weren’t like other men. If this were someone like Bobby, he’d either launch into a verbal attack or start apologising and try to straighten out what Tasha had meant. He’d have begged her to believe him until she was satisfied. But not Seth, not someone like him.

“Forget it,” she said. There was no point in trying to argue with him. The only thing that would manage to achieve would be to piss her off even more. She was on her own. Always had been. Anything she’d felt coming from Seth had been nothing more than his games to lure her in. She saw that now. Realisation aside, it didn’t mean it didn’t hurt. “I get it. You used me and I’m a fool for thinking anything else of it.”

She went to storm past him, but like he always did when she tried to veer around him, he grabbed her arm, just above the elbow. She didn’t look at him, didn’t want him to see the bitter sting of tears in her eyes.

“Payton.”

“No.”

He reached up to try and turn her head, so she had to look at him, but she batted his arm away. Her pride already in tatters, she wasn’t going to give him more of it. Swallowing down her sob, she raised her gaze to meet his. She knew without a doubt that he could read on her face the humiliation she was feeling, and if emotions were words, she could have read them across his face; they flickered across so fast, it was hard to catch whatever it was he wasn’t saying to her.

“Let me go.”

“No.” He stepped into her personal space making it that she had to either step back and show weakness, or deal with standing close enough that her breasts touched his bare chest. “I have never played you, Payton. You wanted me to feed off you yesterday and I didn’t. Did it ever occur to you why?”

“Because something is wrong with my blood.”

“No. Because you are more than that.”

“You’re playing me.”

“Do you really believe that?”

Doubt niggled at the edge of her mind, but she had seen enough, seen women go to his room, his office. “What about the others? You say these things to me, act a certain way, but then you take these women to your bed and expect me to what? Hang around and wait for you? I’m not a toy, Seth. I’m not something you can use and cast off like it doesn’t matter. How many nights have they been in your bed?”

Several long painful seconds passed before he answered.

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