Page 20 of Sadist

Fix his mistakes.

This wasn’t a cash grab. He had done something, and I was the leverage to manipulate him into fixing it. My mind raced as I tried to come up with something to fill the silence, but Theo spoke before I could come up with anything.

“So, what did Daddy do to make you despise him so much? Got you the wrong color Bentley for your sweet sixteenth?”

“Who said I despise him?” I asked carefully.

“Your face,” she huffed.

“What did your father do to turn you into a criminal?” I shot back.

She didn’t even falter in her movements, that lopsided smirk that showed the tip of her canine making me shift against the ache that just wouldnotleave me alone.

“I never knew my father,” she said.

“That comes as no surprise,” I muttered.

“But mygrandfather,”she continued, “I have never met a better man. Don’t blame my questionable life choices on him, Sweets. This is all me.” She dropped the handle, letting it clatter back into the machine, and rolled her shoulders.

“So.” Theo wandered back toward me, and my heart seemed to pick up speed with every step. “What did he do?”

I tilted my head so I could look up at her.

“Nothing.”

“Don’t lie to me.” She leaned down, andgod,it was the first time I had looked into her eyes at this distance. Central heterochromia. I had read about eyes like these and had laughed to myself at the characters in my silly romance books swooning over them. And here I was in manual breathing mode.For fuck’s sake.

“He was never made to be a father,” I replied quietly, attempting to hide how flustered she made me. “I learned I was better off without him years ago. That’s it.”

She hummed noncommittally, her eyes narrowing on me. There were two small scars on her face. One at the bridge of her nose, the other to the side of her brow. Invisible at a distance, but this close, I could just make out the faint silver line marring her skin.

“Do you realize,” she said after a long moment, “that every thought you have dances across your face, Octavia?”

I glared at her, schooling my features into what I hoped was a Fort Knox level of impenetrable to observative assholes.

“Good. Would you like to decipher what it’s saying right now and get out of my space?”

A slow smile spread across her face.

“Octavia, if I were to do what your body is telling me you want right now, I would be soverymuch more…insideyour space.”

“Don’t be vulgar,” I choked out.

Heat. There was heat everywhere. My face. My chest. Even the air burned.Get a grip, Octavia.

“No?” She lowered her gaze to my lap. “So, if I were to slip my hand down between those thighs of yours, you wouldn’t be soaking through your panties? Aching for me to run my finger through the mess you are becoming and take a little pressure off?

I dropped the mug, and it shattered in a splash of coffee on the floor, but neither of us moved to do anything about it.

Fort Knox.Nailed it.

“See,” she murmured. “Your expression is begging me to touch you, Sweets. And telling me everything your lips aren’t.”

“Don’t you dare,” I croaked, while my traitorous body hummed with need.

“It would be incredibly unethical of me,” she whispered. “And you have no idea the devil you dance with.”

I reared back. “Oh, sothat’sthe moral line you are drawing? Good to know they exi—” An alarm sounded across the room and Theo glanced over at the computer monitors, a crease forming between her brows momentarily before it was gone.

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