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What did that make me?
“I don’t believe you,” I whispered against his fingers.
“Yes you do,” he said, voice low, “but you don’t want to acknowledge it yet.” He probed me with his eyes, demanding I get lost in them.
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.” I ripped my gaze away and snapped my chin from his grasp. I attempted to get up, but stumbled, so I placed my hand on the heat lamp to steady myself. My ass was wet, my hands red and frozen from pressing into the snowy ground. I focused on the individual bricks in the ground to stop the world from swirling. For a moment I’d forgotten I was drunk, I’d been so focused on him.
“Then why are you here?” he asked to my back.
Was he serious? I snapped my head up. “Because I have no choice.”
“You’d still risk your life for a father who abandoned you?”
“You’ll still kill him if I leave?” I countered.
“You have a choice, Frankie…” He came to me, closing the distance between us in two slow and deliberate steps. “I won’t come after you if you leave.” His index finger gently trailed across my cheek, pulling my gaze back to his. “But if you stay, you’re mine. I own you, every inch of you.” The finger that had been so lightly caressing my cheek came down to my neck and he opened his palm. I sucked in a breath as his fingers wrapped around my neck. It wasn’t harsh, just enough to pull me to him.
I came, leaning so close I could smell the taste of him on his lips. Just when I was sure he was going to kiss me, he let me go.
“But if I go you’ll kill my father,” I whispered my fear.
“Yes.”
I broke away, stumbling across the roof. I had to put distance between us. “That’s not much of a choice,” I said, over my shoulder. “I’m in exactly the same position.” Oh God, it felt like each minute I was getting drunker and drunker. Everything was getting blurry and I was having a hard time standing.
This would be a good time to admit I’d never really had anything to drink.
Ever.
“If that’s how you feel.” His voice was suddenly right next to me, but all around me at once. I waved a hand out to grasp at it, and I met something solid. At first I thought it was Beast, but then I saw my hand slip on the table and knock over the pitcher of hot chocolate. It melted pretty brown rivers into the snow.
“Are you drunk?” I had half a split second to register his voice sounding angry before he gripped my wrist and threw me to the table. The food crashed to the ground. The vase shattered, and I shuddered as he threw my dress up. Beast’s fingers curled around my neck, keeping my body in place. This is it, I thought, he’s going to do it again. The small reprieve I’d had since the first night was over. He’s going to enter me again. It’s going to happen. It’s going to be just as dirty and dark and violent as the first time.
The worst part was that earlier I’d been asking him about it. I’d been wondering where he’d gone.
“Are you asking me why I don’t fuck you Fra
nkie?”
“As long as you’re here, I own you Frankie,” he growled. “You keep forgetting that. I owe you no answers. I owe you no bargains. And you are to obey me.” His fingers curled around my thighs, skin digging into skin. “I don’t know where the fuck you got alcohol but I’m going to find out.”
A sob caught in my throat. “I should just go then.”
He leaned down, his whispered words like razors against my ear. “You should.”
“You would kill him though,” I spat. “You fucking murderer, you leave me no choice. It would be like I’d put the knife in his belly myself.” With a violent shove, he pushed me away. The small table shuddered with the movement. I heard his footfalls soften, the elevator ding, and then I assumed I was alone. Afraid to move, I stayed where I was. Exposed. Open. The frigid air licking at my skin.
My head pounded rough and brutal. I felt awful. It was like my emotions were coopting my drunken state and twisting it for their use.
“So stay.” When he spoke, I jumped. I’d thought he’d gone back down with the elevator. “And put the knife in your own belly instead.” I heard the elevator close and this time I was certain he was gone.
I stared at the shattered glass shards on the ground, made blurry by the snow.
Or maybe those were the tears in my eyes.
Fourteen
Anteros woke with a start, bright light streaming through the windows. He must have fallen asleep on the desk. The last thing he remembered doing after dinner with Frankie was going to the office. He stayed up but he didn’t work at all. He stared out the windows at the glimmering, devil-eyed city trying to work out a different problem.
