"Look at me," he commands, his voice a gravelly snarl.
I open my eyes, staring up into the face of the monster.
"You're staying," he growls, his thrusts reaching a frantic, desperate speed. "Tell me you're staying, Atara."
"I'm…I’m staying," I whimper, my body giving up the last scrap of resistance as the third orgasm hits me, a rolling wave of pure, golden light that makes my entire body go rigid.
Lorcan lets out a loud, guttural roar, his face burying in the crook of my neck as he finds his own release. I can feel the hot, thick spurts of his cum filling me, pooling inside my womb, a warm, heavy weight that feels like a seal. A contract.
Afterward, the office is silent, save for the rhythmic tick of the clock.
10:45. I’m lying on the dark carpet, my chest heaving, my body covered in a fine sheen of sweat. Lorcan is lying beside me, his arm draped over my waist, his breathing slowly returning to normal.
The papers from his desk are scattered around us like snow. My sundress is ruined, torn at the shoulder, and my bare skin is flushed pink.
I lie there, staring at the ceiling, trying to find my brain amid the wreckage of my body.
I lost.
I lost the bet. I begged him. I sobbed for his dick, and now... I am stuck here. In this golden cage.
And the thing clawing up my throat is the same cold dread I felt standing on a graduation stage in a torn teal dress while a man I'd given five years handed me a plane ticket like a receipt. I let someone take the wheel of my life again. I swore never, and here I am on the floor, owned.
The tears come before I can stop them, and they aren't the kind from a minute ago. They're quiet, and humiliating, and entirely mine.
"Hey." Lorcan's voice has changed, the triumph gone out of it. He props up on one elbow, and I feel him actually looking at me. Not at my body. At me. I turn my face away, because being seen like this is so much worse than being touched. "That's not about losing a bet," he says. Not a question. "Who taught you that going down once means you've handed yourself over for good?"
And God, I hate him, because he's right—because no one has ever looked at the mouth and the GPA and the nonstop running commentary and clocked the small, terrified thing underneath in under a minute. Mark didn't see it in five years. This man saw it in one.
"Don't," I whisper. It comes out smaller than I want it to.
I am furious. I am aching. I want to hit him.
But I’m also Atara Ross.
I look at the shattered papers on the floor. One of them is the routing slip for the North Pass.
I might have lost the bet, but I will get another leverage soon.
Lorcan turns his head, his smoke-and-ice eyes looking down at me. The grumpy, cold Don is gone, replaced by a man who looks thoroughly satisfied.
"Carlotta," I whisper, my voice raspy.
Lorcan frowns, his arm tightening around my waist. "What?"
"The mole," I say, turning to look him in the eye. "It's Carlotta. The housemaid. She’s feeding your routes to Silas."
I sit up, ignoring the way my body protests the movement, and look down at him. My sundress is torn, my hair is a disaster, and I am leaking his fluids onto his carpet.
But my voice is like steel.
"You won the bet, Don O’Shea," I say, offering him a cold, sassy smile. "But the next game is mine."
14
Lorcan
My hands are still stained with the lingering smell of cordite.
