24. Twenty-Four
TWENTY-FOUR
HARLOWE
The crowd had begun to grow restless. Drunker.
Meaner. The Virelli and Romanov satellites circled tighter, and from our raised vantage, it was clear who would fight for dominance next and who would vanish before midnight.
A new, unstable game was already in play, and Arrow was letting it run without interference.
The cleanest violence is the kind that takes out your enemies as a natural function of their weakness.
Arrow leaned in, mouth close to my ear. “Are you ready to go?”
“So soon? I was just starting to enjoy watching everyone squirm.”
His breath was hot on my skin. “I have something better in mind.”
My pulse kicked. I knew what he meant. Knew it in the way his fingers had traced my spine during the waltz, in the way he’d looked at me after I bit him—like he wanted to return the favor somewhere no one else could see.
“Better than watching Manhattan’s elite trip over themselves to kiss your ring?”
“Much better.” His fingers tightened around mine, and the pressure sent a jolt straight through me. “But if you’d rather stay . . .”
I couldn’t. Not anymore. Not when every nerve in my body was screaming for him to finish what he’d started on that dance floor. Not when I’d spent the entire night pretending I didn’t want his hands on me, his mouth on me, and his body pinning me down until I forgot my own name.
Frank watched from the shadows. Our eyes met, and understanding passed between us. Permission. He knew what I was about to do—what had been building all night.
I turned back to Arrow, met those silver eyes, and let myself say what I’d been holding back since the moment he’d kissed me in front of all these vultures.
“Take me home, Romanov.”
It was a command, and he obeyed it the way a wolf obeys the full moon.
He arm locked around my waist, and he guided me down the stairs, with the single-minded focus of a predator moving in for the kill.
When the doors opened, cold autumn air hit me hard enough to make me gasp. Before I could react, Arrow’s coat settled over my shoulders, heavy and warm and smelling like him—bergamot and leather—a scent I found comfort in.
The ride back to the manor was silent at first. I kept my eyes on the city sliding past the window, lights blurring together as the driver navigated through traffic. My pulse hadn’t settled since the balcony, though.
Arrow sat beside me, close enough that I could feel the heat coming off him. He wasn’t looking out the window; he was looking at me.
His gaze tracked the line of my throat, the curve of my shoulder beneath his coat, and the way my dress had ridden up slightly when I’d slid into the car. He wanted me to look at him. Wanted me to acknowledge what was happening between us.
I didn’t give him the satisfaction.
Then his hand moved to my thigh.
His palm was hot through the thin silk of my dress, thumb pressing against the inside of my leg with absolute certainty—not tentative, not asking, just the weight of someone who believed he already owned me.
“You bit your lip seventeen times tonight.” Breaking the silence. “Every time someone asked about the wedding. Every time someone mentioned my name. Like you were trying to keep yourself from saying what you really wanted to say.”
I turned to look at him. “You were counting?”
“I count everything about you.” A glance, brief but enough to make my stomach drop. “How many times you touched that necklace. How many times you looked at me when you thought I wasn’t watching. How many times you crossed and uncrossed your legs under the table because you couldn’t sit still.”
“You’re delusional.”
“Am I?” His fingers spread wide, claiming the space between my hip and knee. “Tell me to move my hand, Harlowe.”
I shifted in my seat again. Just slightly, and just enough that his hand slid higher.
“That’s what I thought,” he murmured.
“Fuck you.”
“You will.” His thumb traced a slow circle on the inside of my thigh, just above my knee. Not moving higher. Not yet. Just reminding me he could. “But right now, I’m going to make you admit what we both already know.”
“Which is?”
“That you want this.” His hand moved higher, fingers pressing into the soft flesh of my inner thigh. “That you’ve wanted this since the announcement dinner with your father. Since I put that collar around your throat and you looked at me like you wanted to kill me and fuck me at the same time.”
My breath hitched. I hated that he heard it.
“You don’t know what I want.”
“Don’t I? Tell me you don’t think about me when you’re alone in your room. Tell me you don’t imagine what it would feel like if I stopped being patient and just took what’s already mine.”
“You’re not—”
“I’m not what?” His other hand came up, fingers wrapping around the back of my neck, pulling me closer until there was nowhere left to hide.
“I can feel your pulse, Harlowe; it’s racing.
You’re terrified to admit that everything you thought you knew about me was wrong.
That I’m not the monster you wanted me to be—I’m worse. Because you want the monster.”
“That’s not—”
“Your mind finally stopped fighting your body, Harlowe. They’re on the same side now, and you hate it. You hate that you can’t tell the difference between what you want and what you need from me. You’re not scared—you’re starving.”
“Let go of me.”
“Make me.”
I grabbed his shirt and yanked him toward me.
Our lips brushed, his breath warm against my mouth, but he didn’t close the distance. He held himself there, a fraction of an inch away, letting me feel the heat of him without giving me what I wanted.
His hand slid higher, fingers brushing the edge of my underwear. “Is this what you want? Me touching you in the back of a car like some desperate teenager?”
“Shut up,” I gasped against his mouth.
He smiled against my lips, and something in me snapped.
“Fuck it,” I breathed, then slammed my mouth against his with all the desperation I’d been holding back.
No more pretense.
No more resistance.
All that was left was the brutal collision of his lips and mine, his hands gripping my waist as I pulled him closer.
My fingers tangled in his hair, yanking hard enough to make him groan.
His body covered mine, pressing me back against the seat, and his hand moved between my thighs. The sound that escaped me was half-moan, half-curse, and he swallowed it, his mouth never leaving mine as his fingers slipped beneath the fabric of my underwear.
I arched into his touch, my hips involuntarily moving against his hand, and he pulled back enough to breathe against my lips.
“That’s it,” he murmured. “Stop fighting it. Stop pretending you don’t want me to fuck you right here.”
“I hate you.”
“I know.” His fingers slipped inside me. “But you’re so fucking wet for me, aren’t you?”
I bit his lip, and he pulled back just enough to look at me. His eyes were dark, pupils blown wide, and there was blood on his mouth that matched the blood on mine.
My hand dropped to his belt, fingers working the buckle. He caught my wrist, held it there.
“Not yet.”
I shifted beneath him, letting my knees fall open wider, and pushed his fingers deeper inside me. The stretch made me gasp, made my hips roll against his hand in a rhythm I couldn’t control.
His breath hitched. Just barely, but I heard it, and his entire body went rigid. He stared down at where his hand disappeared beneath my dress, watching me take what I wanted from him.
“Harlowe.” My name came out rough, almost broken. His free hand gripped my hip hard enough to bruise, holding me still even as I tried to move against him. “You need to think about what you’re doing.”
I met his eyes, saw the war happening behind them—the control he was clinging to by his fingernails, the violence he was holding back.
The hunger in his gaze made my pussy clench around his fingers.
He looked like he wanted to devour me. The only thing keeping him from tearing my dress off and fucking me right here was some last thread of restraint.
“What?”
His fingers curled inside me, found that spot that made me moan.
“Tell me to stop,” he begged, but his hand was already moving. “Tell me you don’t want this.”
I should have ended this before we crossed a line we couldn’t uncross. But rationality had left the building, and all that remained was this aching, desperate need.
So I didn’t.
Shifting closer, my hand slid down his chest to his belt. “No.”
The car slowed, gravel crunching under the tires. We were at the manor.
Arrow pulled back, breathing ragged, his hand still between my legs. He looked at me like he was memorizing every detail—my swollen lips, my flushed cheeks, the way I was trembling under his touch.
“This isn’t over.”
Straightening my dress, I fought to catch my breath, trying to remember how to be defiant when my body was still screaming for more.
When we finally halted by the manor’s entrance, Arrow peeled himself from his seat and circled to my side, opening the door. He leaned over me, both hands splayed on the door frame, so I was bracketed in his shadow, but he waited for me to climb out on my own.
My heel caught at the last step.
Arrow caught my waist, set me hard on the gravel, and, in full view of the security and the midnight hedgerows and the house packed with invisible eyes, brushed my hair off my neck and pressed his mouth to the bloodred A on my throat.
God, the wet heat of it.
It was just a kiss, nothing else, but in that second, I heard the universe split in two—the world before Arrow, and the world after. When he pulled back, there was a perfect ellipse of his bite on the glossed skin.
My entire body thrummed, equal parts terror and sublime hunger, as Arrow led me up the stairs and guided me down a dark corridor, his arm curled with the practiced ease of a predator who knew exactly how this would end but still wanted to watch me try to escape.