22. Twenty-Two #3
Not just because Arrow could have had me gone at any hour, but because his restraint was as fierce as his appetite.
The charm of the night was that they thought I could be bought or displayed; the joke was that every woman in this menagerie had been, once, the sacrificial lamb.
Arrow leaned down. “There’s a photographer from the Times who wants to snap us together under the chandelier.”
Rolling my eyes, I held the pose.
His arm locked at my waist like a viper’s body across its prey, the heat of his hand drawing the sensation of a split-second before a kiss. The bulb flashed, dizzying, and for a moment, everything was rendered in contrasts of dark and light, with nowhere safe to land in between.
After the picture, Arrow guided me through the guests to the dance floor.
The string quartet navigated Bach with precision as I let myself be led across marble, feeling the eyes of the entire room on us.
I wasn’t exactly a debutante, but my mother had made sure I could waltz with any monster who tried to wring an advantage out of the three-four time.
Arrow, however, didn’t bother with the subtleties. He took the lead with a hand at the base of my spine, fingertips splayed just above the slice in the dress. The first step, he yanked me closer than the music demanded, so our hips bruised.
We circled, his breath low at the edge of my ear, our bodies an axis no one else could challenge.
The lights above turned into dioramas, splattering radiance across the parquet, and in each rotation, I caught the stares, the envy, the recalibrations happening in every rival’s head.
That was the real music—the sound of future threats already sharpening to tempo.
“It’s tradition in my family,” Arrow said, voice velvet over gravel, “to open the floor alone.”
“You like the idea of everyone watching?” I hissed, eyes fixed over his shoulder at a group of Virelli cousins, their unblinking gazes glittering in time to our steps.
He grinned. “I like the idea that they remember who survived.” He spun me elegantly, almost violently, so my hair fanned in an arc, and the neckline of my dress threatened to slip another inch toward sacrilege. But when I landed, Arrow kept my body flush to his.
“You’re thinking about stabbing me, aren’t you?”
“Not until I’ve danced you into exhaustion.”
“Sweet little viper,” he said, not quietly. “You haven’t seen what I look like past exhaustion.”
“Maybe I don’t want to.”
“Liar.” His hand traced the curve of my spine, fingers skating over the exposed skin, before pressing me harder against him. “Your pulse is screaming.”
“That’s fear.”
“You’re lying to both of us.” He pulled me so close there was no space left to breathe.
“I know what terror feels like against my body. Prey that’s truly afraid—they fold.
Their muscles lock up, their breathing gets shallow.
” His jaw brushed my temple. “You’re not folding.
You’re leaning into it. That means you know exactly what this is, and you want it anyway.
That’s so much more delicious than fear. ”
“How poetic.” Every nerve in my body was on fire. “You’re basically admitting you get off knowing I’m choosing this.”
“I’m admitting I get off on you choosing this. There’s a difference.” He spun me again. “Most girls are too stupid to understand what they’re walking into. You’re not. You know I’m dangerous, and you’re still here, still trading barbs with me on a dance floor while a hundred people watch.”
“Maybe I’m just stupid in a different way.”
“No.” His hand found my jaw, tilted my face up to his. “Stupid would be running. What you’re doing? That takes a specific kind of courage. Or arrogance. I haven’t decided which one yet.”
“Let me know when you figure it out.”
He laughed—that genuine, unguarded sound that made him seem almost human. “I’m going to destroy you, Harlowe.”
“Get in line,” I countered.
Arrow continued to move me through the steps with absolute control.
His grip didn’t waver on my waist, his thigh directed mine through each turn, and this close, I tasted the champagne on him.
He wasn’t performing for anyone—he was demonstrating ownership.
Every eye in the ballroom watched what he did to me, watched how easily he moved me where he wanted.
“Is this all foreplay to you, or just the means to an end?” I asked, letting my nails sink lightly into the tight swell of muscle at his shoulder. “If it’s a war, you can say so.”
He feathered his palm over my lower back, gliding us in a tight circle, his mouth too close for anyone watching to know whether he was threatening me, worshiping me, or both.
“War is ugly. But I do my best work when they’re all watching, hoping for blood.”
He dipped me unexpectedly, so abruptly my foot nearly went out, but he caught me in a steel trap, his hand hot and unyielding along my spine.
He straightened me, smoothed the static from my hair, then leaned in so the whole front row saw the promise of teeth on my neck, the whisper not meant for the crowd.
“But you want to know the worst part?”
“Always.”
“I haven’t decided if I want to break you or keep you just the way you are.” He let the silence hang while the waltz cycled to a crescendo, as if he’d won a coin toss with my name tattooed on both sides. “That’s your genius, Harlowe. You make me want to do both at once. No one’s ever managed that.”
Our orbit became the room’s new center. Maybe it was the alcohol, or the high of being watched.
It likely had nothing to do with the Romanov king looking at me like he would devour me, and I’d thank him after.
But the longer his hands grazed up my bare spine, and his hard dick pushed against my stomach, resisting him became harder.
Letting my lips graze his ear as he spun me, I asked, “Do you want to fuck me, or destroy me more?”
He smiled, so wide the dimple sharpened to a pit. “Why not both?”
I bit his ear, a warning at first, then a real bite, hard enough that his breath caught and he stopped us in the middle of the dance floor.
“You can bite harder, little viper.”
He shifted his grip, trading the old ballroom frame for a true two-handed chokehold that, if he had wanted, could have snapped my neck in front of all assembled. His palm pressed hard at the base of my skull, jaw cupped in the groove of his thumb, before his lips crashed against mine.
Cameras flashed.
I let myself be kissed, molten and brutal, his mouth grinding mine wide open as the city’s oldest enemies watched and pretended not to ogle. The taste of him was salt and dark berries—he’d been drinking, too—and the tongue he forced into my mouth was a lecture.
This is power, this is what you’re marrying, this is me putting my body in your mouth so you never forget where you belong.
Shuddering, but not in defeat, I hooked my hand into his hair, tangled it at the root, and then bit—really bit—until he jerked back with a low sound that wasn’t quite a moan.
His mouth was glossy, smeared with lipstick, and he worked the bite mark on his tongue slowly, testing the sting of it, eyes locked on me the whole time.
“Good girl,” he breathed, hand settling at my throat.
When the music stopped, he pulled me close and dipped me deep. Then he straightened me up, brushed a strand of hair from my face, and led me off the floor without a word.
The room exhaled.
Men whispered, and women watched me more than they watched the stage. Waiters kept my glass full, and Arrow let them, always just enough behind to let me feel in control, but never so much that I could lose the taste of danger at the back of my throat.
* No, you are my prize.