Page 45 of Grotesque
Corban’s brows knit together. “Talk? Last night you were begging me to fuck you.”
I swallowed as I tried to ground myself. I could feel my body growing hot with want by the simple touch between us. The thrum of his heart was a welcome melody beneath my palm. I jerked my hand away and took a couple of steps back.
Corban followed. “Don’t you want to play another game?” He looked absolutely lethal as he prowled after me, matching each step as I backed into the living room. When he drifted into the shadows he seemed to meld into them, disappearing entirely until he moved again, back into the soft glow of the lamplight.
“Yes. But one of my choosing. Twenty questions,” I said quickly.
Corban’s steps slowed with a cock of his head. He scowled. “Ten.”
I kept walking backward until my feet met the cool hardwood exposed at the edge of the living room rug. “That’s not enough.”
“Twenty is too many. Take it or leave it.”
“Fine. Were you watching me earlier? When Quint was here, was that you?”
Corban’s head tipped to the side. His eyes caught the lamplight with the movement and that hunter’s glow returned, the flash of a cool green reflection. “I’ve watched you from the very first day you set foot on these grounds.”
Fuck, if it was anything like the way he was watching me now, it made it even more concerning. There was something soulless behind the keen, dark hunger staring back at me.
“How do you know who I am? I never met Maxine.”
Corban shrugged. “I know all of her children, and her daughter’s daughter.” He gave me a knowing look. “Maxine spoke of you all, often.”
“I’m sure she was complaining when she did.”
At that the corner of Corban’s mouth tipped up. “It is true she did not speak highly of them. You, though, she only mentioned once, and it was with kindness.”
A thousand questions came to mind when it came to Grandma Macky. As much as I wanted to pick his brain about her, I couldn’t waste all of my questions on her. Not tonight. “I never met her,” I said, more to myself.
A sick feeling overcame me as it dawned on me that she had lived in this house a very long time. Long enough that Corban must have haunted her too. Like he was me, like he had Rosaline.
“Did you ever….” My face heated at the thought. It was clear he’d hadrelationswith Rosaline but I hadn’t considered he’d also been with my grandmother. “Did you do to her what you’re doing to me?”
Corban’s eyes glittered like dark jewels. “Did I ever fuck her?” he clarified.
I nodded.
A flicker of darkness flashed across his features. “On rare occasions. Maxine was not much of a team player.” Poison dripped from his words as if the bitterness was a physical taste in his mouth.
“Did you hurt her?”
Corban took his time answering. Watching him closely, I could tell that whatever was going through his mind still simmered. Macky was clearly a sensitive topic. “No,” he answered thinly.
I crossed my arms, waiting. A low hiss escaped his lips.
“Maxine and I did not get along but I never hurt her.”
“Did you force her? I know you crept into my room the other night while I was sleeping.”
Corban clucked his tongue. “You’re watching me now? I should be flattered, but I’m offended you would think so lowly of me. I have never forced anyone to spread beneath me. And if my memory serves me correctly, you enjoyed yourself the other night while you weresleeping.” He said the last word as if I had been playing a game with him then too. As if I had been pretending.
“Some would consider that a violation,” I said thinly.
He chuckled. “And yet you invited me in. What does that say about you, Sorcha?”
My hands curled into fists, a movement he tracked with a smile. I hated when he smiled like that, like he was one step ahead of me and already laying the trap I was about to fall into.
“Are you done with your silly questions?”
