I popped a hip, defiant. “That’s on him, not me.”
“Don’t push me tonight, Pink.” His voice dropped lower, like a warning. “I already took one man’s head.”
“And?” I shrugged and licked my lips at the thought. “You going to take Jameson’s too because he gave me the attention you can’t?”
He growled and pushed off the doorframe. “You want a man you don’t even know giving you attention just because your future husband won’t?”
I scoffed at him still talking about his brother like it was him I wanted rather than Bane himself. “You think I care what myfuture husbandis doing?”
“Do you?”
“Jesus. Maybe I just need something more than what you give me, Bane.” My words spilled out before I could stop them. “Let’s be honest—astrangerstole my virginity once, and then he came to me night after night for years until he wasn’t a stranger anymore. Maybe I want a stranger again.”
That was all it took for Bane to slam his hand down over the light switch. In two strides, he was up against me as the whole room went dark.
“You’re supposed to care just about him, Pink. You chose to care about him, to fuckingbewith him. And that means you chose to be a penance for your family’s indiscretions against ours.” He grabbed my hair and whipped me around so that my hips pressed into the sink, where I had to really stare at the silhouettes of us in the mirror, his chest up against my back.
“Well then, I’m here serving that penance, aren’t I? Let me pay the consequences of it even if it’s with another man,” I taunted him, realizing that even if he didn’t want to feel our chemistry anymore, he still did. “You don’t want me anyway, right? You’re done with me just like everyone else.” The wordsrang so true that I almost choked back a sob while saying them. My father sat at that table like I was invisible, and Bane acted like I hadn’t existed for months before that. They were one in the same.
“Is that what you think? I’m done? When I cater fucking meals to your door, when I drag you on planes, when I invite you to dinner with your parents who I can’t stand? And Angela who won’t shut the hell up.”
“Oh whatever. She was all over you, and you liked it.”
“Like you enjoyed Jameson all over you?” His eyes darkened, his grip tightened, and his body shifted closer to mine. “Ishouldgive you to someone else. Then you’d see what not caring looks like.”
“I see what caringdoeslook like with Jameson. He actually spoke to me during dinner.”
“He spoke with you because he wants to fuck you. Not because he cares about you.”
“I’ll take that over what you give me,” I murmured, and I saw how his eyes widened, felt how his whole body tensed at the idea of me having another man.
Good.
At least I could still get a reaction out of him when he’d been causing reactions in me day after freaking day.
He dug in his pocket to grab a Zippo and flicked it open to light the candle in the corner of the vanity. The smoke curled around the mirror and framed my reflection. He was a shadow behind me, just enough darkness to feel like he had that barrier between us still. He leaned close to my ear and murmured, “Let’s see if that’s what you want. I want you to watch your reflection, Pink Poison. Watch how you don’t just take any stranger, Bianca. You take me.”
He yanked my curls so that my back was arched and I fell forward, my hands catching on either side of the double sinks,my face dangerously close to the candle in the middle. The light of it flickered over my face, creating light within the shadows, dancing in the darkness.
He shoved my skirt up with the butt of his blade and stared at the globes of my ass. All I could do was glare at him, knowing his grip on me would overpower anything I did right now. He slid his knife under the string of my thong and dragged it down between my thighs. When it got to the part between my legs, he leaned back a little so he could get a good look.
He tutted and murmured, “Wet as always.” And then he sliced the fabric away, making sure that the tip of the knife nicked my thigh once or twice. I hissed and then whimpered as I felt the bite of it.
“I could be wet for anyone,” I shot back, because I didn’t care if he had a gun between my legs, I was furious at him for so many things I couldn’t hold in my vitriol anymore.
“Exactly.” I heard him undo his zipper and then felt the tip of him with that metal piercing drag across my center. “Feel that?”
“Yes,” I whimpered. “I want more of it, please. I love the way you feel, Bane.”
“Or you just like how a cock feels against your clit, huh? I’m just a stranger in the dark now.” He threw out the words I hated, the ones that made all this between us mean nothing. “You get wet for anyone even when everyone's out there thinking you’re saving yourself for my brother. Should I tell them you want my cock instead?”
“They wouldn’t care,” I mewled, knowing I was completely at his mercy. “You’re the one who truly cares. Say you care.”
“I used to.” He dragged his length in and out from between my legs but never into me. “But then you betrayed me, baby girl. You let him have you when you belonged to me.” I saw him shaking his head at how pathetic I was, at how I still wanted him after I was stupid enough to give myself to someone else.
He didn’t know the whole story, of course. He didn’t have to though.
In his eyes and in my own, I was the enemy.
