I force myself to be steady, remain respectful.
Rory has enough to deal with, she doesn’t need a broken gutter-rat panting all over her as well.
But Gods, I want to pant.
Bite.
Take.
“Now,” she says, her breath hitching as I pull her leg a fraction higher. “I need to stretch my hip. Can you… wrap your arms around my waist? From behind? I need to lean forward.”
I step flush against her back, my chest meeting the blades of her shoulders, then wrap my arms around her middle, my hands interlocking over her stomach. Her body feels so right in my arms. She exhales a long, shaky sound, and sinks her weight into me.
“Is that helping?" I rasp.
My voice betrays how turned on I’m getting. So does the growing hard-on in my pants. I’ve got to keep it in check. She’s only seventeen, but she’s playing a game that would break any grown man.
I’m her anchor, I remind myself, not her undoing.
Mom and Dad got together when Mom was seventeen and Dad was twenty. Mom was pregnant with me only a few months after that.
Not helpful, brain.
“Mmm. Perfect,” she purrs, tilting her head until her lips are mere inches from my ear. “Do you think Frank is enjoying the show?”
Outside the cage, the sound of a book being slammed shut echoes like a gunshot. I hear the creak of François’s chair as he stands.
Then the sheet is torn down. The air in the room suddenly fills with an acidic, oily scent of his rage.
“Enough,” François snaps. His voice is a low, dangerous vibration. “Aurora, I believe your ‘hamstrings’ have had quite enough attention for one day.”
Rory doesn’t move an inch. She holds her pose, her back arching against me, and I feel sure she’s pinning him with her icy-blue stare.
After several more beats she slowly unwinds herself from my arms, face flushed, a look of pure, triumphant mischief in her eyes. “Don’t be a spoilsport, Frank," she says, wiping a bead of sweat from her lip. “Tally is just making sure I stay flexible. It’s important for a dancer to have a partner she can trust.”
Mine.
Gods.
And watching the look on François’s face, for the first time since the Frenchman arrived, I feel like the one holding all the cards.
Ignoring Frank, I pull Rory around to face me.
She’s so small in my grip. Her eyes search mine for a second, then she gives a tiny nod, moving closer.
The moment her soft, hesitant lips press against mine, I taste a sweetness that is purely, dangerouslyher.
The snarling presence inside me surges, clawing at the walls of my chest to get to her. I stand there like a statue for a heartbeat, while my brain screams a thousand warnings.
She’s innocent. She’s fragile. She’s a Drakeward.
But when she starts to pull away, when I feel her hands begin to slide off my chest, I lose the fight.
Mine.
Threading my fingers around her neck, I haul her back toward me until there isn’t a breath of space left between us. I lean into the hunger I’ve been suppressing since the first day I saw her in those faded red scrubs.
This isn’t part of her game. This isn’t to torture the Frenchman.
