Page 79 of A Vicious Love

Celeste blinked. Sienna’s face went crimson. Alistair’s mouth tightened.

I looked back at Sienna. “We’re leaving this conversation.”

Again, she nodded.

I had wanted obedience from her for years. Now she gave it to me, and I hated how it looked.

I started walking again before I did something generous like ruin the benefit.

Sienna followed me to the edge of the ballroom, near one of the black marble columns where the light turned lower and the crowd thinned. I stopped there because I needed the room to stop touching her with its eyes.

She stood beside me. Hands clasped in front of her. I looked down at her.

The champagne dress was worse up close.

The halter tied behind her neck with a delicate knot I wanted to undo slowly. My fingers itched with the image. Tugging one ribbon loose. Watching the fabric shift. Watching her breath catch. Pulling the zipper down slow.

My mouth went dry.

Christ.

The thoughts accelerated.

Sienna bent over my desk, champagne silk pushed up over her thighs, my hand spread over the small of her back to hold her still.

Sienna on the edge of my bed, looking up at me.

Sienna’s thighs over my shoulders. My mouth between them, licking, and sucking her clit. Until the only word she remembered was my name.

My hand tightened around the marble column.

I had to look away from her.

Immediately.

It did not help.

My cock thickened.

At a benefit.

With my brother ten meters away. Syndicate issue active in my phone. Sienna standing beside me terrified to breathe wrong.

I was a fucking disaster.

She saw it. Her body tightened because my hand moved. That was the reality. My breath left in a rough, silent exhale.

Fuck. I had a problem.

I had been sexually frustrated before. I could handle want. Want could be drunk, fucked, fought, or buried under work until it learned to stay quiet.

This wasn’t that.

I wanted her, yes.

Badly enough that every inch of champagne silk felt like a personal attack. But beneath that was something worse.

I wanted her to ask for my hand again.