“Put your arms around me, Cleo,” she heard him say. His voice, so near, so husky, moved her more than any love song ever could. It made her sex tingle and for that disturbing feeling alone, she locked her arms straight and pushed back slightly, needing to put more space between them. Space to breathe.
“I’m fine, thank you,” she said, keeping her arms stiff on his shoulders, her eyes roaming. “Thanks for dancing with me. I know you didn’t really want to.”
“Stop looking at everyone else and look at me.”
Cleo had to quickly come up with a plausible excuse for avoiding his gaze, so she said, “I was just wondering where Luella and Haley are. Do you see them?” Glancing past his shoulder, she busily studied the crowd.
“Cleo.” Lean, muscled arms slid around her waist, yanking her body closer to his at the same time he bent his head and whispered, “Come here.”
At the unexpected flood in her panties and the sudden racing of her heart, Cleo’s instincts told her to step back. When she tried, his arms tightened around her, causing all sorts of whirlwinds inside her while she kept her eyes away from his face and her palms pushing at his chest. She started to babble. “Look, there’s Mrs. Schmidt—did you ever take classes with her? She’s such a good teacher…but I don’t think I see Luella or Haley anywhere. Where could they be?”
Every muscle in his body suddenly turned to stone and he stopped dancing completely. “It’s no fucking wonder no one wants to dance with you, Cleo.”
He said it so stiffly his lips hardly moved when he spoke. Cleo didn’t know why he should be angry—she’d been nothing but nice. She was always nothing but nice to him.
She stared at his lips, her stomach clenching horribly. “Why do you always have to insult me, Bas?” she whispered, hating that her voice broke.
He gripped her chin and forced her to meet his gaze, his eyes glowing with anger. “Go and find your friends.”
Cursing under his breath, he left her alone in the middle of the dance floor and headed off to dance with another. With a woman Cleo hated right then and there, a whore he fairly made love to on the dance floor, right in front of her eyes. And his eyes sought out hers in a silent dare, in defiance, as the woman rubbed her scantily clad body against his very notorious erection. His eyes, those cruel, piercing black eyes, remained fixed on Cleo as he roamed his hands freely over inches and inches of soft, supple female flesh. Those same strong, calloused hands that only moments ago had touched and melted her suddenly cupped that whore’s rump and pressed her to him, his beautiful dark head bending forward as his thick, magnificent lips swooped down to capture hers.
Cleo had wanted to die.
“I said look at me, Cleo.”
Cleo’s mind snapped back to the present. How many times had he spoken those very same words to her? Dozens, maybe even hundreds of times. She was certain if he asked her to disappear completely it would have been a far easier request.
Gathering her courage, she slowly looked up at him and shuddered at the darkness of his eyes. The flickering lantern light from below etched his features into hard planes of light and shadows. He looked unyielding and vicious and frightening.
“You should have chosen truth.”
Cleo drew in a deep, audible breath at the direct contact of his hand on her skin when he cupped her hip. “But I’m glad you didn’t.” He slid his hand up to her ribs and ran his thumb along the bottom curve of her breast. “You’re really going to get it this time, Cleo.” His free hand grasped her jaw, his thumb and fingers digging into her cheeks as he squeezed, forcing her lips into a pout. “And you’re going to get it from me.”
He sounded crazed, angry—desperate.
He kissed her forcibly, his lips covering the plump flesh of her pouted lips, kept open only by the force of his grip on her cheeks. He thrust his tongue inside her mouth and Cleo swayed backward, only to be steadied by a pair of hands on her elbows. His tongue ravaged her, and when she heard the sounds of his deep, haggard breathing, she knew with frightening certainty that one way or another he would take her tonight. The thought made her heart leap, whether in fright or inexplicable thrill, she didn’t know.
Sebastian pulled away from her, panting hard and visibly straining to recover.
For many reasons—one very important one in particular—Cleo wanted to scream at him. She’d never done anything to him, had never done anything to anyone. Why did he hate her? Why did he want to punish her, hurt her?
She’d loved him, damn him. Desperately so. Despite how he’d hurt her, humiliated her, laughed at her. It shamed her to admit it, even to herself. It had taken her almost four years to forget him, to pick up the pieces of her battered, sorry little heart.
“Lie down, Mother Cleo,” he sneered, slamming his eyes into lethal slits. “And open your legs.”
Cleo knew that begging him would be like fueling his hatred, nurturing this sick, festered need of his to humiliate her. So instead she turned to Jason, met his deep blue eyes with her own.
“Jason please…let me go.”
“It’s just a game Cleo, just relax,” Jason said with a smile.
“No, it’s not!” she yelled.
She turned to David, her former study companion and one of only two men in her entire life who’d held her naked in his
arms. “David, please!”
David’s dark brown eyes slowly studied her features. “I’ll stop this, Cleo. If you really mean it, I will. But we both know you don’t, do you?”