Page 168 of The Ruthless Note

“Did I finally tame that sharp mouth of yours, Brahms?” He leans back. “You don’t have any irritating comebacks?”

I make a frustrated sound under my breath. Not because he’s insane for proposing marriage. Not because I’m angry that he broke in. Not even because of the injustice of Dutch barreling his way into my life and trying to control me again.

It’s because I want it. I want him. And it’s getting really freaking hard to deny that Ihavewanted him since the moment our eyes met backstage.

He was beautiful then, when I didn’t know just how much he would screw up my life. After he put a target on my back and things got even worse, he was still beautiful.

But now…

Now he’s twisted into the very fiber of me.

My body starts trembling. I think about the note I found and what that means for me, for Vi. How it’s going to change my life.

A storm is coming.

And maybe this is my last chance to make bad decisions, to do whatIwant, no matter the consequences, before every action I take starts to become a matter of life and death.

I stare at Dutch, my breath hitting hard and fast in the silence.

Two truths hit me with unforgiving clarity.

I was relieved it was him in the kitchen tonight.

And I don’t want him to go.

With a quiet breath, I dig my fingers into the band of my tights, making sure to catch my underwear too. Eyes locked on him, I shove them both down my legs.

“Step out of them,” Dutch says. His smile is gone and a frown turns down the corner of his lips.

My willpower rises. I feel the swell of anger, the driving bite to argue with him, but I want his hands on me a little more than I want to be right.

Fingers shaking, I kick off the clothes and they tumble next to the legs of his chair. Dutch doesn’t bat an eye.

“Get on the table.”

A fire rips through me, starting in my belly and blazing a path between my legs. I close my eyes, wondering if I’ve gone insane.

But in the darkness behind my eyelids are the words from that note.

Why did you change the locks?

Damn.

My heart pounds.

I need out of my own head, but I don’t know if I’m strong enough to go all the way.

Dutch gets up and moves over to me. Putting his huge, skilled hands on my waist, he lifts me up and deposits me roughly on the table. Weathered wood bites my thighs. The table wobbles.

Silence reigns in the kitchen. It goes on for so long that I have to open my eyes. When I do, I find Dutch leaning over me. He’s scanning my face like I’m a complicated riff on his music sheet.

“Do you know what enthralled means?” Dutch asks, skating his fingers over the side of my face and down to my neck.

“What is this? A vocabulary lesson?” I choke out. I have to show that I’m not rattled, even if he’s weaving a spell over me.

Dutch chuckles and brings his finger down to my lips. “It means to capture someone’s attention so they can’t ever look away.”

His amber eyes have a wicked gleam in them, but his voice is almost monotonous. I wonder how much effort he’s putting in to pretend to be so damn unaffected by this.