Total pages in book: 88
Estimated words: 84763 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 424(@200wpm)___ 339(@250wpm)___ 283(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 84763 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 424(@200wpm)___ 339(@250wpm)___ 283(@300wpm)
“Free of me?”
“I want to go back to my life, and I don’t want you or your problems or your little confidences.”
His eyes harden, his jaw tensing as he sets his hands on either side of me on the altar, trapping me there. “My little confidences?” he asks, eyebrows high. “You would rather go back to a brother who would sell you off? A consigliere who has overstepped. Who has his own plans for you and your family?”
“And what plans do you have for me?”
“I wouldn’t sell you to the highest bidder, for starters.”
“No? Isn’t that what women are for? Isn’t that what you told me? Let me go, Cassian.” I shove against him, but trying to move Cassian Trevino is like trying to move a freight train.
He grips my waist and tugs me to him, bending down so his face is an inch from mine. “You want to be my enemy, Allegra?”
I push again, but again, he doesn’t budge. “It doesn’t matter what I want. I am your enemy, Cassian. Or did you forget?”
Something in that makes him stop. There’s a shift in his eyes, a shadow falling across his face, something dark shrouding us. Cassian Trevino may be the most dangerous man I know. He may walk around like he rules the fucking world. But he’s also broken. Broken and unpredictable.
I’m walking on a field of land mines with him, and I never know when one will go off.
Correction.
One is about to blow.
He takes a deep breath in and straightens to his full height to look down at me, eyes cold as steel now.
My heart pounds against my ribs, blood roaring in my ears.
“No, Moth, I did not forget,” he says calmly before spinning me around so fast that my arms shoot out and my hands land on the altar. Cassian sets his overtop of mine. “Keep them there,” he whispers into my ear before I hear the ripping of material and cry out as my sweater slips away.
“What are you doing?”
“You’re my enemy. You said so yourself. So, I’m punishing you,” he says, hands in the waistband of my leggings pushing them down and off.
My panties are next to go and when I pull my arms from the altar, he slaps my ass hard.
“You listen like shit,” he says, and unclasps my bra, pulls it off my arms and tosses it aside.
“What the hell are you doing?” I cry out when he sets his big hand between my shoulder blades and pushes me forward so I’m bending over the altar, the stone freezing against my bare skin.
“When I tell you to stay, you stay,” he starts, then leans over me. “I’m just making sure you remember that,” he whispers that last part, his breath hot against my cheek, my ear. I crane my neck to look back at him, seeing how dark his eyes have gone as he takes in my bare flesh before tipping his nose into the crook of my neck and inhaling deeply. “But don’t worry, I’m going to teach you, Little Moth,” he says, meeting my eyes before reaching over me to pick up a candle, the wax that has melted and hardened again snapping. “Now be still.”
He tips the candle and hot wax drops onto my lower back. I suck in a breath with the instant burn. I try to pull away, but that hand at my back keeps me down and it doesn’t matter that I wriggle this way and that, he pours hot wax over my back, my ass, down my thighs.
“It hurts!” I call out, and although it does hurt, the pain is gone as soon as the wax cools and solidifies, stiff on my body, cracking with every move. I press my chest into the altar and realize he’s not holding me down anymore as I stare straight ahead, trying to control my breathing.
“Had enough?” he finally asks.
I turn my head. “I hate you.”
“But have you had enough?”
“Yes!”
“Let’s see. Don’t move.” He sets the candle down and backs away. I don’t move, but watch from the corner of my eye and even in the dim light, I see how his eyes are fixed on me, how dark they are, no longer cold or hard, but molten. Like lava.
He meets my eyes and begins to unbutton the top buttons of his shirt before pulling it off over his head, sending the rest of the buttons popping to the stone floor.
“I like you like this, Moth.”
“Cassian,” I start, having to clear my throat because once again, the air has shifted, that electrical charge back.
“Don’t. Fucking. Move.”
I swallow, the look of him so different than I’ve seen it. That first night he was taunting me. This? Now? There’s only one thing he wants now. And the sight of him like this and the way he’s looking at me like he’ll eat me whole makes me feel like I’ve swallowed a hundred moths.