Chapter 4 #2
My voice comes out breathy and smoky and fuck. I need to run, but I’m caught as he leans in, and I realize he’s only inches away, crowding me. My breathing changes, speeds up, and my body wants things I can’t have, even as heat pools between my legs.
“Please, what?” he asks.
“You can’t be serious.”
“Will you be a good girl and ask, or will I have to withhold that pleasure?”
I shiver. “Please… sir.”
That last word comes out low, sultry, and hits me like a battering ram. God, I want to go back to the time when I was his, when he collared me, even just for one night. I want to do it all again and mean more than just that night.
“Good girl,” he says, and the sound of it melts me as it sinks into my veins and swirls, hot. “Give Lola his treats.”
I expect him to back up, but I have to reach around him. My breasts slide up his chest and this close I can feel his heart thudding. It’s not slow. It’s fast.
I get the treats, close the door, and turn, pressed against the pantry door with my hand full of treats for Lola who won’t just meow now, he warbles. Like he’s singing to us.
Or me.
The look in Declan’s gaze is complex. Dark. Full of want, and hate and… longing.
I’m frozen in place as he cups my face with one hand, takes a treat from my open palm with the other, and throws it to the cat who chases it.
Declan doesn’t back up.
My pulse thrums. I lick my lips because they’re dry, and his gaze follows the movement.
“Molly,” he says, his voice like gravel, like smoke, like the edge of a cliff before we leap.
And I want to leap.
I want to wrap my legs around his waist and let him take me hard against the pantry door.
A screech from upstairs breaks the spell.
“Murder! Murder! Bitch-ass monster! Murder! Help!”
He lets me go abruptly and rises, forgetting me as he follows the high-pitched squawking.
In the library, Daddy’s crotchety African Grey sits on his perch in his huge brass cage, and on the back of a chair, swishing his tail, is Lola.
There’s evil in the cat’s eye and malice in the parrot’s.
“What took you so long, bub?” Pepper asks, dropping the call for help.
Lola lets out his scratchy, deep meow, sticks out a leg with a permanent bald spot and a scar, then licks it.
“Dear Jesus, you live with all this?”
I nod. “Yep. And I like to travel with them all.”
“Like some sort of spoiled Doolittle?”
I’m about to talk it up, try to make him see how crazed this would make him, being with me and the pets all the time, because I spend six to seven hours rehearsing every day. He’d have to sit somewhere with the lot of them.
But instead of balking, he grins.
“Fucking brilliant,” he says to Pepper. “We need to expand your vocab, bird.”
“Fucking brilliant!” Pepper agrees and squawks.
“His name is Pepper,” I say before storming out. “The housekeeper is in charge today. I’m running late.”
“Fucking demon brat,” Declan mutters.
“Demon brat! Demon brat! Fuck! Help!”
I ignore Pepper, and I try to ignore Declan, too, but it’s hard when he grabs my arm, pulls me out into the hall, and pushes me up against the wall.
He leans in and I breathe him in, my heart and stomach fluttering. He’s intoxicating, smoke and incense and dark musk.
My clit throbs and I press my thighs together, right as he bites my throat.
His teeth on my skin are pure fire, and with it the bite of static electricity. And then he licks the spot he just bit.
The stroke of his tongue sets free a moan as my nipples harden, and I’m glad I’m in black Nike Pro shorts and old ballet tights under my loose, dark gray sweats.
Except…as he nibbles his way up, my pussy is buzzing with need, throbbing, and I can feel the wetness pooling.
Crap, what if a wet spot shows anyway, what…
My thoughts stutter to a stop. His lips are soft and inviting as they feather over mine, soft with just the right hint of firmness as he keeps the kisses light and chaste, making me swoon into them, wanting that prize of bite that I get when the kiss deepens and pierces my soul, makes me shudder, and sends my pleasure centers spinning and skidding and flooding everything with that high only he can give me.
I remember that high. I’ve never done drugs, but he turned me into an addict, making me chase that high no matter what the price, until I went cold turkey when he kissed that girl.
It’s enough to make me shove him away now.
“You might be able to kiss, Declan Murphy,” I spit, “but you won’t be kissing me.”
“I just did.”
“Last time. You’re a cheat, a liar, and a no-good fuck boy.”
He frowns. “I never fucked you.”
“I hate you.”
“You got me locked up on lies because your feelings got hurt, Marlowe. I’d be careful where you go with this.
Me kissing another girl when we weren’t even dating, and kissing her for a fucking reason that had to do with my particular job at that moment, and you trying to get me put away for assaulting and molesting you, is not the same thing.
And don’t think I’m over that bullshit, either. ”
Declan shuts down. There’s an easy smile on his face, but his aquamarine eyes are cold. Icy and bitter. Not fiery wrath, just coldness. And that, I think, is worse.
“Consider the subject closed,” I say. “And consider this your last day in my presence.”
“Go to hell, Molly. I’ll do what I want, when I want, and right now, I want to get to the bottom of why you were there in that truckyard, so I’m not going anywhere.”
“Screw you, Declan.”
“Thanks, but no thanks,” he snaps back. “Not interested. Now move your fine ass, I have things to do.”
“Stop!” Monty Abrahams smacks the top of the piano, then stalks up to me. “You’re out of time, Miss Briggs. Take five and then we’ll go from the top.”
Topher Bell, my partner in Swan Lake, whispers, “What’s up with you, Mar? You seem a little stiff. Please tell me you weren’t doing anything stupid.”
I most definitely was. And the most stupid thing I’ve been doing is waiting downstairs for me.
Why can’t my body react to Topher the way it does to Declan? We even dated, but I felt nothing. Zip. Zero. “Overdid it yesterday when I was rehearsing from home.”
“Five minutes are up,” Monty says. I furrow my brow. I’m not even sure it’s been a minute.
Monty, the director, is old school. The other dancers aren’t in this room, and the coaches are waiting to take over to handle the flow of this part of the ballet, between me and Topher. Monty wants to see the mechanics of the dance, and I’m not up to snuff today.
I throw myself into it, making myself work harder.
And it is work. The dew is definitely off the rose with dancing.
This is Mom’s dream, not mine. I’m tired of killing myself to be better than good.
I work hard enough that my feet bleed and I cry every night, but I’m still not the best. There are others in the Manhattan Ballet Company who are naturally better than me and deserve these roles.
More talent, more drive, more fire.
And I’m more than aware that my mother’s a huge benefactor of the ballet. I know the gossip. My principal role was bought.
When the torture is over for the day, I try to linger in a quiet spot near the changing rooms and call Leon.
It goes straight to voicemail.
And my entire body prickles with awareness.
Declan sticks his nose against the back of my neck which is damp with sweat. He licks my slick skin and I shiver. Then he blows gently, and my knees almost buckle as need swamps me, so thick and hot I almost drown.
It’s like he’s tonguing my clit.
Blowing on the wet, tender flesh, making it swell and throb and ache with a desire only he can fulfill.
“That your boy-toy’s number?” He licks me again, slides an arm around me, and plucks my phone out of my hand before walking away.
I chase him, trying to snatch the phone as his fingers fly over the screen.
“Stop that.” I reach for it but he pulls it away.
He shoots me a look. “Make me.”
A gaggle of dancers stare as we rush past. A few at me, but mostly—something nasty pulls sharp in my chest—at him. One of them utters a dreamy sigh.
Whoever she is, I hate her, too.
Someone barrels out of a darkened, empty rehearsal room, fast.
I don’t have time to move as whoever it is slams into me and shoves me hard, almost picking me up as they push past. “Bitch!”
I go flying back into a wall.
Declan loops an arm around me and pulls me to him, steadying me.
And now…I’m plastered against him.
Such delicious torture.
“Who the fuck was that?” he asks, one hand sliding down to my ass to mold me into him and the thick erection that’s forming in his pants. “Your stalker?”
I piece my fractured thoughts together. “I don’t know. Someone in a hurry?”
“To knock you down?” He captures my chin with his other hand and tilts my head up to his. “Because, Molly, that’s what it looked like to me. And he was dressed not to be identified. Hood up, cap low. Or was that someone you knew?”
“You really are a piece of shit. Don’t think you’ll be working as my bodyguard after today.” I step on his foot, as hard as I can, and he just raises a brow.
I wiggle free and start to run. He’s got my phone, I realize, but that’s okay. There’s one spot I’ll either find Leon, or someone who knows where he is.
I squeal as I suddenly fly through the air and land stomach first onto a shoulder.
Declan holds my legs, one hand dangerously high on my leg. I slap his back with my palm.
“Stop that,” he says.
“You stop this,” I snarl. “Put me down.”
People gawk as he carries me out of the dance center, ignoring everyone around us.
“Seriously,” I say. “Put me the fuck down.”
“Do you have a favorite soap?”
“What?”
“Do you? I figure you must, Molly, considering that mouth on you. It’s so filthy it must get a good wash on a daily basis.” Then he laughs.
I curl my hand into a fist and thump it against his muscled back.
He slaps me hard on the ass, and everything in me goes haywire. My head spins as the world flares out and then back in. The sharp, hot pain gives way to a stunning tingling sensation I’d long forgotten. He’s slapped my ass before, and I basically came. Every. Single. Time.
I must be wiggling because he smacks me again, this time in the way that gives maximum tingling edges to the pain, the little jumps of delight, the pools of liquid desire that start to stir in me.
I close my eyes.
Shit. We’re in public.
“Stop, Declan. Please.”
“I’ll stop,” he says, pushing open the doors and striding out into rush hour street traffic. He’s like Moses, and the people the Red Sea. They part for him. I witness it from the back as they close up again. And my entire being quivers at the power he has. “Soon.”
“Now. Stop now.”
“Fuck no,” he says. “And have you escape, Molly girl? C’mon now, I’m no fool.”
He stops, bends down, and tosses me into the back of a car.
“I don’t want to go with you.”
He slams the door shut, then gets in the driver’s seat as I struggle to sit up. “Too bad, because that’s what you’re doing.”
“Where?”
“You’ll see,” he says, starting the motor.
I grab the door handle, but of course, it’s locked. “Over my dead body.”
“Hopefully,” he says, “it won’t come to that. But at this point, I wouldn’t rule it out.”