Page 113 of Swallow Your Sorries

He looks up at me and the devilish grin that splits his lips as he flicks me with the tip of his tongue lets me know this is exactly what he wants. Me to be transfixed on him.

“You said you wouldn’t touch me,” I say, suddenly hoarse. “This time you definitely are.”

“I said I wouldn’t touch you with my hands. Besides, you weren’t following orders. I said look at me.”

“Looking,” I mock his earlier sing-song tone from the dock and curl my fingers against the tabletop to keep from sliding them into his hair.

“Good. Remember the look on my face when I finally see what I’ve been dreaming about sinking into for two years. Focus on me the way I can’t stop focusing on you. Just see me. Only me. Because despite it all, it’s just you, Elle. It’s always just been you.”

Heat rushes to my core, my mind growing fuzzy from words that couldn’t be true.

It’s just a game.

It’s just bullshit to get you wet.

“You barely know me,” is all I manage to get out. My tongue suddenly feels thick and heavy.

“I think we have more in common than I’ve had with any single person I’ve ever met. I think that’s why I’m obsessed with you.”

“Obsessed with hatred?”

“Lately, I hate that I can’t escape you more than anything else.”

Well, if it isn’t the consequences of thine own actions.

“Then you shouldn’t have brought me here.”

“I bought you here for my own sanity.”

“You consider any of this sane?” I gesture around us to the grimy glasshouse and thousands of dripping candles.

His smile, which I don’t think is a smile at all, sends a shiver down my spine.

“It all makes perfect sense to me.”

That’s the troubling part.

“And about getting to know you more, I plan to do just that.” His eyes flick to my offending panties again. “Take them off and don’t ever put them on again.”

It must be the darkness, the seclusion, the hundreds of flickering candles that are putting me in a trance, because I want nothing more than to obey him in this moment. Hooking my fingers into the waistband, I pull, letting them fall into the dirt.

I study him. Drinking in the moment, he stares straight at my bare slit, his Adam’s apple bobbing, his lower lip disappearing between his teeth, his warm breath tickling my bare flesh as he releases it. But he doesn’t lean in to kiss me like I hope.

I’ve never craved anyone’s eyes on me. Even on the stage, I recessed into my own mind when I danced. But with Gant, I’m realizing more and more just how much I want to be seen by him. Like the first time we met when he watched me dance.

“See how well we get along when you just listen, Dove?” he asks, completely out of breath.

I may not see what he does, but I believe him.

I’m not a liar. Hisearlier words ring.

It’d be impossible to fake the emotions rippling through those irises that should be too dark for me to even see through, right?

“Get on the table.”

That’s the first time a protest threatens to tumble from my lips since I started to undress. I don’t think it’s bourgeois to want a little more luxury than the hard, human sacrificial table Sylo just got his nearly naked ass off of. It’s probably freezing, despite the hundreds of candles surrounding it.

“I thought we were starting off slow.”

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