Page 28 of Pretty Little Prey
She cocked her head back to stare into those mesmerizing green eyes. “You didn’t plan for the towel to fall? You don’t actually expect me to believe that, do you?”
“I wished to punish you for your statement. Not strip you.”
She was hardly listening to him. Shame and embarrassment clung to every portion of her revealed skin. She knew she looked like she suffered from hunger pangs—which she often did because she cheaped out on food to save money to skip town every few months, constantly on the run. She had just rubbed her skin to a state of irritated pink. She had also not fully shaved in…a while.
But when she dared to glance around at the men behind Bastille, she saw nothing but desire in their expressions. Hungry desire.
Frowning, she focused back on Bastille. “Are you going to keep holding my throat until I shiver to death or will you let me bend down and pick up my towel?” she asked him.
“You said something that angered me,” he replied evenly. “Take it back, and I will release you without punishment.”
Punishment?“What did I say?”
“You tell me. What did you say wrong?”
She wracked her brain. Before Bastille had turned all throat-hold-y, he had teased her about getting licked between the legs by the dragon. “You mean, when you slut shamed me?”
“I did not slut shame you. I mentioned that you let the dragon touch you, barely knowing him; yet, you refuse to sleep in the same room as one of us. Are we too low on the food chain for you, Princess?” Bastille shook his head. “That doesn’t matter. Now, repeatexactlywhat you said.”
“I don’t remember.”
“Why don’t you use your pretty little brain andthink?”
She scowled at him—mostly, because he was making it hard to think. They all were. Bastille held her naked body out for display in front of the other men. All of them emitted knock-your-socks-off level pheromones, which seemed to wrap around her and squeeze and buzz. Warming her. Arousing her.
There was something so tantalizing about being so vulnerable and bare in front of the powerful men. She should be terrified by them, but all she felt was indecent excitement.
“Don’t remember?” Bastille asked. “If not, I will have to proceed with your punishment.”
What the heck was he planning for that? “Why don’t you remind me?”
“Nikolai has a perfect memory,” Bastille said. “Nikolai, why don’t you remind all of us of what she said right before I stood?”
The vampire licked his lips, his red eyes blazing as he replied, “She said, ‘do you have a reason for making me sound like a slut in front of your friends?’”
“Right.” Bastille released her throat and gestured for her to approach the couch. “Bend over the arm of the sofa.”
She stood still, not obeying the alpha’s orders.
“Accept your punishment, and it will be tame the first time.”
“I don’t deserve punishment,” she said. “I’ve done nothing wrong.”
As she refused him, he took a step closer to her. She stepped back. This continued until she stood close to the spot where Bastille gestured for her to accept her punishment.
Bastille rasped, “You implied having a normal, healthy sex drive makes a woman a slut.”
She blinked.Wait, what? That was what he thought she should be punished for? Not for talking back to him? “I—I… No, I didn’t.”
“Yes. You said I made you ‘sound like a slut.’ And I do not appreciate that term used in a derogatory way.”
“Like you’ve never used that word before,” she shot back.
He loomed over her, his gaze piercing hers. “I use it in the context of pleasuring a woman. Never to demean one.”
She stepped back once more, the back of her thighs touching the arm of the sofa. “How is it different?”
“Because you used it like you should be embarrassed that the dragon tongued your pussy. You used it about yourself like you have something to be ashamed of.”
