I don’t budge. He spends a moment picking his teeth, which I see match his hand jewelry.
“Now, in my experience, silence is a form of disrespect. A very particular one. Because what silence says to me is that you don't think I'm serious. You don't think I'm going to come for it. You think you can wait me out.”
He leans forward slightly. “I'm not a man who gets waited out, Mr Ravenscroft. Ask anyone. Cash flow. I suppose you won't know about this, you're a different kind of businessman, but cash flow in my world is the whole game. I've got overheads. I've got staff. I've got suppliers who don't take late as an option. And your brother, lovely boy that he is, has been sitting on what belongs to me. Which is disrespect to me, it's disrespect to my boys, and honestly?”
He looks at me properly for the first time.
“Honestly, I expected better from a family like yours.”
I keep my face still. Beside me, I hear Christopher swallow. I take the ledger out of my inside pocket and hold it up.
“I'm here to clear the debt,” I say. “With my sincere apologies. I’ll send the code when we're out of the building.”
He looks at the ledger. Looks at me. Nods.
“Put it on the table.”
I set it down in front of him. He doesn't pick it up.
“If it doesn't cover what he owes,” he says, “you can expect a visit from my boys.”
“Understood.”
“And we wouldn’t want that, would we?” Vellcottt holds my eyes a moment longer, then his face breaks into a cold smile.
“There’ll be no need for that,” I reply.
“I'd say it was a pleasure doing business, Mr Ravenscroft, but we'd both know I was lying. So I'll say this instead. I appreciate you coming in and doing the right thing. A lot of men in your position wouldn't have. Most would have sent someone. You came yourself.” He taps the ash off again. “That says something about you. I'll remember it.”
I turn to go, and Henderson is already moving. Christopher is half a beat behind.
The way he saysI'll remember itis not a small thing. Not quite a compliment. Not quite a threat. It lodges in my chest and I don’t like it one bit.
CHAPTER 24
A Small Death
IVY
I’m not in a hurry. I tell myself I am not even sure this is what I am about to do, though my body, which is several minutes ahead of my brain, has already decided. I run my palm across the soft cotton of his shirt over my belly, feeling the fabric against my skin and the weight of my own breasts under it, the heaviness, the way my nipples push at the cotton.
I cup myself through the shirt, both hands. I run my thumbs over my nipples and feel them harden further under the friction, and a small jolt of sensation goes from there to a much lower part of me.
I think about Alistair's mouth.
The very specific weight of him bending to take a nipple between his lips—the heat of his tongue, the slow circle of it, the moment he closes his teeth gently and I lose track of what room I am in. I think about him doing it last night, in his office, against the steamed glass. I think about him in the dungeon, while the ropeheld me still. I think about him doing it the very first time, in the suite at the hotel, when I was concussed and bleeding and could not believe my luck.
My hand slides lower. Under the shirt now, palm flat against bare skin, dragging slowly down across my stomach. I am not yet touching myself where I want to be touched. I am making myself wait, the way Alistair makes me wait. The cotton bunches around my hips. The cool air of the room finds the bare skin between my thighs and I shiver.
I open my legs slightly. My fingers find the inside of one thigh, slow, light, the way Alistair would, and trace a long deliberate line upward without arriving anywhere. My breath catches. I do it on the other side, slower this time, and feel the heat rising and the slow uncoiling of something low in my belly.
I think about Alistair's hand. The specific shape of it. The width of his palm, the length of his fingers, the calluses where he holds a pen, the gold of his wedding band. I think about the way he braces my hip when he has me from behind and the way his thumb sometimes finds my clit at exactly the right moment, and I groan into the pillow, and my own fingers finally slide between my thighs and find me.
The first touch is electric.
I am hot and ready. My fingers feel small and unfamiliar and not quite right, but my body doesn't care. My hips lift. I drag two fingers slowly along the length of myself, parting, exploring, gathering the slickness, and the sensation is enough to make me arch my back off the bed.
I think about Alistair's mouth.
