My heart beats fast, heels lifted off the floor, ready to run. Gerard closes the door to the hall. Mrs. Page is gone in a heartbeat, the kitchen door swinging behind her.
“Get up.”
“What did I say?” Releasing my grip on the table seems like a bad idea. But then, so does staying in my seat. I push my chair back and stand up. “Tell me what I said.”
Leo blinks, and his face is transformed. He’s angry, yes—I can see it in the skin around his eyes. But taunting, now. Skin-deep. He uses this anger. He doesn’t just feel it. “It doesn’t matter, darling. What matters is that you signed a contract.”
The backs of my arms pull tight with goose bumps. “I thought we were having dinner.”
“There are no exceptions for meals.” He laughs. “Did you think you would be excused from your obligations as long as you had food in your mouth? Come here.”
He pushes his own chair back, creating space between his body and the table. It’s obvious where I’m meant to go. Two days ago I might have hesitated. Now my feet start moving before the fear can settle down.
It feels too close to the table, and too close to him. He’s tall even when he’s sitting down, and I don’t know what to do with my hands next to this cruel, beautiful devil.
“Take your clothes off.” I reach for the dress. Pull it over my head. The lingerie he bought me is a perfect, delicate fit, and I feel the smallest drafts from the air on my skin. On my nipples. Leo tests one with his thumb and I shiver. “You look better in something other than rags. Do you think,” he muses, “that I meant for you to leave anything on?”
“I thought you might want to take the lingerie off yourself.” Lie, lie, lie. I didn’t think. I just obeyed him, because that’s what I agreed to do. Because I’m too afraid not to. Because I don’t want to admit that part of me is afraid that I want to do what he says. That I get some kind of sick pleasure out of it.
A dangerous grin. “What a good girl. You thought so hard, and you were almost right.” Why? Why does it hurt to hear him be so mean, so mocking, and why do I want him to do it again? “If I have to take it off, then it won’t survive the taking. Do it yourself, and do it now.”
There’s not enough room for the way my body has to twist and turn to get out of my shoes and panties and bra. Leo doesn’t make it any easier. He lets me brush against his legs, lose my balance, catch myself in time to keep from touching him. Stand up, with a hot face and a racing heart. Let it happen already. Let it happen.
He stands up too, towering over me. Leo strokes three fingers down the side of my neck and then his hand is there, firm, on the boundary between holding and choking.
It happens again. My body goes still, all the tension concentrated under his palm. Leo looks down into my eyes. It’s a searching look. I don’t know what he hopes to find. He’s close enough to kiss me. The inches between us stretched tight. If he kissed me this way—if he did—
Leo looks away, and the loss of his eyes on mine causes a tumbling sensation. He keeps his hand where it is while he reaches around behind me. In the process my naked breasts brush against his shirt, one nipple catching on a button, and I gasp. “So impatient.” The comment is almost to himself. “The Constantines don’t teach women how to wait for anything, do they?”
A plate clatters against the linen tablecloth and his shirt is rough against my skin. It’s softer than I would expect a man’s shirt to be but it might as well be sandpaper. It’s too much. It’s not enough.
Something snaps behind me, and Leo brings whatever it was in front of my face. Chocolate. A piece of chocolate. It was decorating the dessert. He squeezes at the bones of my jaw and I open my mouth. I have to open it. He’s making me.
With fierce concentration, with that same pointed anger, he puts the chocolate on my tongue.
“Close.”
I clamp my teeth shut. The chocolate starts to melt right away, and my god, it’s good. It’s rich person chocolate. It’s the kind of chocolate only a Constantine with real money would have.
Or a Morelli.
He backs me up a step so my ass hits the table. “Lie down on the table, unless you want to test your theory. Don’t swallow.”
I was about to, but I don’t. I push myself up onto the table with sweetness on my tongue. Chilled sweetness. I wonder if the chef knew they were doing me a favor. It’s awkward, lying down on a dinner table, but I ease myself back.
Leo sits down, and then his hands are on my thighs. I have enough leverage to get my head up, to look at him. He looks me in the eye while he spreads my legs.
Wide.
And then wider.
I’d be panting, afraid and turned on, if I didn’t have to keep the chocolate in my mouth. He watches my face until it’s unbearable.
Then.
His eyes go between my legs. I try to close them but his hands keep them apart. He doesn’t comment on this. Doesn’t touch me. He’s had his fingers there, but he waits. I never knew patience could be so mean.
“It’s getting harder now, isn’t it? It’s starting to melt and get fucking everywhere. All you can taste.” One thumb traces a slow path on the inside of my thigh. “It didn’t seem like much in the beginning, but now you could choke on it.”
I find myself nodding. Find the beginnings of tears in my eyes. From frustration, overwhelm, I don’t know.
“Awful.” He sounds pitying, and that’s the worst, because I know it’s not real. Can’t be real, coming from him. “Touch yourself. Like you do when you’re all alone at home.”
I shake my head. “Can’t,” I say around the chocolate. “I can’t. Too embarrassing.”
Leo leans back in his chair, giving himself more room to look between my thighs, but keeps holding them apart. “You’re too embarrassed, but you’re wet. I can see it from here. This is turning you on. Here’s your choice, darling. You can put your fingers on that pretty clit like a good girl, or I’ll do it for you. And if I have to do that—”
I put my hand between my legs, fingers skimming my clit. Dying. I’m dying. But it feels good to be touched, even if I’m the one doing it. God. It doesn’t get worse than this.
“You don’t keep your hand still when you’re in your bed.” He slaps the inside of one thigh. It stings. The sting of his tone hurts more. Both of them together send my fingers into motion. This isn’t how I do it at home, but I can’t remember exactly what I used to do, and all that matters is not disappointing him. I do not want to disappoint him. It is so fucked up.
And it’s working. Pleasure starts a slow build between my legs, all caught up in the humiliation and the heat across my cheeks. Oh, god. Oh, no. It’s going to be terrible and so, so good.
“Swallow,” Leo orders, and I do, without thinking.
“Thank you,” I tell him, also without thinking.
He laughs, low and mean. “Tell me about your boyfriends.”
I wish for the chocolate.
Another slap to my thigh, hard enough that I cry out. “Tell me about all the things your boyfriends did to you while they weren’t fucking you, and keep your fingers moving.”
I let my head drop back because it’s too hard to keep everything coordinated and suffer through this horrible, hot moment. “My first boyfriend only kissed me. He wasn’t good at it.” I sound lightheaded, and it’s because I am, because I can’t get a full breath. “The next one touched me.”