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Chapter 20
Deirdre
I stay, shaky and silent, with Curse as Elio threads his way through the event’s attendees. After he’s out of my line of sight, I find myself staring at my own shoes, unable to look up and meet anyone’s gaze. How many people here know what I just did? How many of them know that I just came in my captor’s arms? My cheeks are hot. So is the place between my legs.
Elio is gone for a while, and I can’t stand that I do it, but eventually I can’t help myself from looking for him. Maybe it’s the prey needing to know where the predator is. A self-preservation instinct.
He draws my attention with magnetic power and I find him instantly. He’s taller than basically everyone here, a prowling wall of a man in an all-black suit. All black except for the snowy white of his pocket square, which I once again notice looks slightly out of place.
There’s something else not black on his chest, I see suddenly. A hand, resting in the area of his sternum in an intimate, possessive gesture. That hand is attached to an absolute bombshell of a woman standing almost as close to him as I was a few moments ago. My insides twist when Elio’s gaze meets mine over her head.
Just how many women does he have in rotation?
I’m probably just one of many. That should be a relief. Relief that Elio’s attention might not always be so fiercely pinned on me.
But… it’s not. It makes me feel shitty and small and pathetic. Makes me feel even worse for reacting to him the way I do, reacting to him the way I’ve never reacted to any man, when for him I’m just one idiotic girl out of who knows how many.
His eyes still on mine, Elio grasps the woman’s wrist and pulls her hand off of his chest. He lets it drop, says something, then cuts around the blonde woman, heading straight for me. Instinctively, I try to move backwards, but my ass hits the table, rattling glasses, which makes Curse’s eyes snap to me.
“What does your brother really want?” I ask as Elio approaches, taking up so much space in my vision I know he’d blot out the sun if it were daytime.
Curse watches me silently, and I decide he probably won’t answer. Maybe even he doesn’t know.
But then, he says something. I’m pretty sure it’s the first word I’ve heard him speak this entire time.
It’s a short reply. One single word.
“You.”
There’s no time for clarification, because Elio is back. I cross my arms and look away from him.
“Sev’s got his money.”
I’m not sure if Elio is talking to Curse or to me. Maybe both of us.
Sev’s money… A million dollars, handed over like it’s nothing.
Handed over for me. Elio buying me and protecting me all at once.
But who will protect me from him?
Elio’s hand once again settles on my lower back, and I nearly jump out of my skin at the contact. It’s like my skin is electrified. Even the softest touch jolting through me.
“Are we leaving?” I ask tightly as he steers me through the room once more. But we aren’t heading for the exit. We’re walking towards another table of food.
We stop in front of it, and before me is the biggest, most beautiful cake I’ve ever seen. It looks like a wedding cake you’d see in a magazine. Three creamy white layers decorated with elaborate blue buttercream flowers and sugar beads that look like real pearls. My stomach grumbles, and I grimace. I wish I could turn my body into a block of ice. That I had no needs. No need to eat. No terrible need between my legs. If I could somehow disconnect myself from my own inescapable physical impulses, I could be just a little more in control.
But I can’t. I’m hungry. My pussy aches. My skin crawls and tingles and burns under the firm stamp of Elio’s hand.
It’s odd the cake is still in one perfect piece while the rest of the food has been picked away at over the evening. It’s not like the event just started, and we got here late.
Almost as if reading my thoughts, Elio slides his hand off my back and grabs a large metal cake server. Some strange impulse takes hold in me.
“Wait! Don’t cut it,” I burst out.
Elio quirks a dark brow at me, and I flush under his gaze.
“I feel like… I feel like we’re not allowed,” I say, feeling incredibly stupid as I do so. But this cake is just sitting here untouched, like it’s for later or something. Like someone else is supposed to take the first piece.
