Leo’s still watching me. “Strip,” he says.
I pull my shirt over my head before I lose my nerve, keeping my eyes on his clothes. He wears another sweater, this one hunter green, but it’s a different knit than last night. I bite back the urge to make small talk about how often he wears a suit and an overcoat, the way he did last night, on the street. God—it was only last night, and now I’m taking my clothes off for him in his dining room, in broad daylight.
A hand around my jaw brings my attention back to the burn of his eyes. “Focus,” he orders. Oh, yes—my hands have stopped moving. Leo drops his hands and steps back to watch me wriggle awkwardly out of my jeans.
I have nothing on underneath.
The last item to go is a T-shirt bra the color of a blue robin’s egg. The only one to survive his purge last night, and only because I was wearing it. It falls to the floor next to my jeans and top. They look so sad there. So pathetic. So discarded. I can’t take my eyes off them.
“Enough with this shy bullshit. Pick your head up and look at me.”
I do it.
It’s a shock, every time, because I’ve always thought evil would make a person ugly. Leo Morelli on his worst day couldn’t be described as ugly. He’s so handsome it’s heartbreaking. My heart shatters with it all over again. So handsome. So cruel.
He crosses his arms over his chest and looks at me, taking an eternity to let his eyes travel over my naked shoulders and my naked breasts and down to my stomach. I want to fold my own arms over my body, but I know he’d be awful about it.
The shivering starts right away. I brace myself for a biting comment, but Leo says nothing. He’s too busy watching my nipples pull tight. He watches and watches until finally he steps forward and pinches one between his thumb and finger.
Relief crashes into me—thank god it’s happening—and a heightened, desperate fear stomps a heel into that relief. Leo pinches my other nipple and I hear myself make a sound that I’ve never once made in front of another person.
My gasping attempt to catch my breath makes Leo laugh.
“Oh, who would have guessed?” He pinches that same nipple harder, increasing the pressure until I cry out with it and dig my nails into my thighs, hands shaking. The truth is that I want to grab at his wrist, but I don’t want to push him away.
I want to pull him closer.
“Does my dirty girl like this? Does she want more?”
A moan escapes me in response.
Then he is closer, but not touching me anymore. Leo’s gone back to circling me, this time from inches away. I can feel the heat of his body as he crosses behind me. My knees shake. Anticipation compounds until I could scream, but then his hand comes down on my hip. I angle my elbow to give him room to touch and he rewards it by digging his fingers in, testing the flesh there.
His fingers trail up and up and up until they meet my rib cage and then he goes higher, reaching around from behind me to cup one breast. Too close—too close to my nipples. I arch back on instinct, trying to get away. I’m stopped by his hard body and my mind shuts down. Don’t move. Don’t move at all.
“It’s fucking delightful, watching you struggle.” He spreads his hand flat on my stomach and slides it down over my belly. I hold my breath. He’s getting closer and closer to a place that I want him to touch, Jesus, why? Why? He’d only hurt me. And it might feel good. It’s all so very fucked up. “You want to let go, but you can’t.”
“I won’t.”
He laughs again. “I’m going to break you, darling. It’s only a matter of time. And it’s so much fun to watch.” The contact lifts, and I suck in a breath that’s too hopeful for its own good.
Leo isn’t done with me yet.
He’s a flash of dark fabric shutting out the world, so close in front of me that I can smell him, smell the clean laundry detergent of his sweater and a hint of expensive cologne and something else, something that must be his skin.
When Leo touches me again, it’s to wrap a hand around my throat, using my jaw as an anchor for his fingers and thumb. He forces my head up so I have to look into his eyes.
They’re not black like I thought. They’re not windows into the black reaches of hell. Or maybe they are, and hell is actually stunning. Maybe hell is the color of deep night and rich wood and, impossibly, gold. Thin striations of gold, just like his wallpaper.
Leo puts his other hand on my shoulder, stroking down my arm like I’m livestock in need of soothing. It works. I hate how it works. I hate how my body goes still and pliant with his hand hovering over my airway. He could choke me, but he’s stolen all the tension I’d need to fight it.
He touches my hip and prods at my waist, a mocking smile playing over his lips.
And then.
He cups a hand over my pussy with an even, direct pressure that coaxes my legs apart at the same moment the sensation registers. I let out a strangled gasp. How did he know, how did he know that this would verge on too much, that this would scramble all my nerve endings and turn me into a panting thing hanging from his hand?
This is worse than outright cruelty. Leo’s making me look at him, scanning my face—for what, I don’t know. But he keeps his hand between my legs, perfectly still.
My ragged breathing is the only sound in the room. I don’t know how long he holds me this way, only that I can’t think of it directly. It’s like looking into the sun.
“That’s it.” Leo’s voice burns the room away. There’s nothing left but his hands and his eyes and the perfect bend of his lips. “Prove to me that you’re a liar.”
“I’m—not. A. Liar.”
“Then why are you trying to fuck my hand?” The humiliation is instant and obliterating and I try to get a hand up over my eyes because I’m going to cry. I am trying to fuck his hand. Leo gives my face a little shake. “No covering. You can cry, but I’m going to watch.”
I try to stop myself, and I can’t. Because. I want it so much. I don’t know what it is, exactly, I don’t know. All I know is that if he stops touching me, I’ll die. I try to speak and what comes out is an embarrassed moan.
Leo strokes one finger over my wet slit.
If it weren’t for his hand on my jaw, I’d be on the floor. My knees are nothing. My legs are nothing. The only thing they’re good for is spreading open for him, which I cannot stop myself from doing.
“Hmm.” His tone is bored, but his expression is so intense that I can’t breathe. “That was fine, but...” This time, two thick fingers, and he changes the angle of his hand so it’s pressing against my clit. My hips work into a frenzy. I wasn’t going to come, wasn’t going to let the idea cross my mind, but now I need it to survive. Leo pulls his hand away and slaps me hard between my legs. My shocked cry doesn’t stop him from working his hand back over my pussy. “You’re not going to come today unless it’s on my fingers.”
Those fingers are already circling my opening. “What if I can’t?” It’s honesty I didn’t want to give him. Didn’t mean to give him.
A delighted laugh. “Was your pretty Constantine cunt too tight to take your boyfriends’ fingers?” He pushes two of them inside, up to the knuckle, and the breath goes out of me. It is tight. Leo’s expression shifts, and he works them in a little farther. I am hopelessly, shamefully desperate for him to put them all the way in. It’s going to hurt. I want to know that hurt. “Christ. No one has ever finger-fucked you?”