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“Who would miss you, sweetheart,” he murmurs, “if I were to end your life right now?”
Mak’s big blue eyes and Hollywood grin flash in the forefront of my brain. If it wasn’t for him, I’d tell the Devil to put me out of my fucking misery. Instead, I squeeze my eyes shut, zoning in on the prick on my neck. It feels like a burn, spreading out across my flesh like an ink drop in water.
“You would,” I choke out. “You need me, remember? Husband?”
The pressure against my neck increases. I tense, waiting for the puncture. “I need you like a nun needs a condom, wifey.”
The glass is cold like an ice cube as he trails it down my neck, stopping at my collarbone. “No,” he murmurs, “I’m right. You didn’t want to kill me. You wanted this reaction. Don’t think I haven’t noticed, silly girl, how you thrive off testing me. If I didn’t know better—” I let out a raggedy gasp as the shank slides under the thin strap of my dress and slices right through it. “I’d say you’ve been desperate to receive your punishments.” He cuts the other strap, and the fabric around my chest pools into my cleavage. “The thought of me punishing you has made your tight little cunt wet, hasn’t it? Well, now you have what you want.”
He’s right about me being wet, and I detest him for it almost as much as I despise myself… Not just for being wet but also for not being quick enough with my attack and for the small moan that just escaped my lips.
“You’ve racked up three punishments,” he says thickly, the shank kissing the length of my spine, not hard enough to split the silk fabric. “One for killing English, one for wrecking my apartment like a spoiled little brat—” His hand grabs a fistful of my ass to emphasize brat, and another lustful hiss from my lips flutters onto the tablecloth. “And one for trying to kill me. Quite the resume, sweetheart. You know, I’m starting to think there’s something more to you than just being a whore.” Without warning, his hand moves from my ass to my hair, and he winds his fingers tightly into the base of my skull, jerking my head back. The shank is back at my throat. “Did you kill Danny English on purpose?”
The question is unexpected, and it rolls down my body like an avalanche. “You know I didn’t. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have needed your help. I would have been prepared to dispose of his body.”
There’s a growl behind me, long and strong. The Devil mutters something under his breath while I hold mine. “True,” he eventually murmurs. There’s no time to sag with relief; he flattens his body against my back, pushing his lips against my ear. The sharp tip of the shank grazes the top of my thigh. “You know, I had vowed to forget about breaking you. I was ready to show you leniency, something I don’t do very often. But oh, how that has changed. You’ve made it so tempting that I can’t wait any longer to have you at my mercy.” He punctuates his words with a nip on my earlobe, sending an electric shock zapping down my spine. I can feel his impatience growing in his pants, pressing into my ass. Holy shit, it has its own fucking pulse. “What will break you, hmm? I wonder, will it be pleasure or pain?”
I don’t know if the question is rhetorical or not, but I’m in no state to reply. The air swirling around us is hot, heavy, and silent, like the eerie moment before a thunderstorm unleashes its wrath.
“Tell me, do you believe in fate?” Yes, because I worked so hard to change mine, but I couldn’t. But under his hand, I shake my head. He chuckles. “I do.”
Something glints from the corner of my eye. Something new. A coin. He tilts my head so I can get a better view. Balancing it on the crook of his forefinger, he says, “Head for pleasure, tails for pain. So, what will it be, sweetheart?”
The pulse in my throat quickens. The tablecloth dampens under my sweaty palms. Death feels like it’s less than a stone’s throw away—so why do I feel so fucking alive?
Pain. It’s the only option my warped brain considers. It’s all I’ve ever known. Hell, I’ve built a whole defense mechanism around dealing with it. Pleasure…it’s a dark, unknown abyss. One that I’m not sure I’m strong enough to crawl out of.
“Tails never fails,” I say through gritted teeth.
There’s that syrup-like chuckle. “You’re fucking crazy, you know that?” His emerald ring flashes as he flicks his thumb against the backside of the coin. It launches in the air, spinning in slow motion, before rolling to a lazy stop between the plastic wineglasses.
Agonizing silence stretches out in front of me, and the Devil plays into my discomfort. Slowly, he curls his hand and brings his knuckles to my face. As he unfurls it, he lets out an animalistic groan, which starts deep within his chest.
It’s not George Washington that stares back at me.
Thank fuck.
For a moment, it feels like the ball is edging toward my court. I choke out a laugh, my lips splitting into a manic grin. “Fate is on my side today.” I almost add, so do your worst, but even I’m not that crazy to tempt the Devil in that way. Especially when the shard of glass is snaking up my thigh, getting dangerously close to my panty line.
“Wrong. You’ll find out very shortly that it is, in fact, on mine,” Donnacha says huskily. He sounds possessed. Drunk on power.
Die before you die.Mak’s words drift through the chaos of my mind, cooling my nerve endings. A smug sense of satisfaction pools in my lower stomach, extinguishing the flames there. I’m ready for him to see me for who I am. A hardened pustosh’ kid who won’t bend, let alone break, under his cruel touch. He can turn my body into a pile of ashes for all I care. Iam a phoenix, and I will rise above the storm clouds of the city. Bask under the sun’s calming rays.
I start with my toes. I always do. Releasing every tightened tendon and muscle, I let that relaxed sensation creep up my thighs, over my hip bones, and spread across my chest. Each knot of tension in my back dissolves, and lastly, I focus on my breathing.
In, hold. Out, hold. In—
“What—?” I pop a lid, the shock of his hands sliding up my dress and yanking my panties down to my knees undoing all of my hard work.
“Save your voice, sweetheart,” Donnacha rasps, lighting trailing the shank over the curve of my ass. “You’ll need it when I make you scream.”
All of my muscles recoil, my mind back on high alert. He bundles the silk fabric of my dress into a fist against the middle of my back and uses it to hold me in place against the table. Pressing my now exposed breasts into the cloth. I close my eyes, clench my jaw. Die, Romy. Die before it’s too late.
But I can’t. I fucking can’t. Anticipation swirls in my bones, wrecking me, awakening me, and all I can think about is what he’s seeing: me, bent over with my ass in the air.
I’m not ready for the first slap. It echoes off the cavernous ceiling, the noise as angry as the burning mark it leaves on my cheek. I wince but catch myself before more than a puff of air can escape me. I will not scream. I will not scream. I—
The second slap is harder, throwing me forward across the table. The burning spreads across my ass like a wildfire, over the curve of my cheeks and between my thighs, where the sensation morphs into something different. Something I don’t dare give a name. I hiss into the fabric of the tablecloth, then pull my lips together, forming a physical barrier in an attempt to stop me from making a sound.
