Page 33 of Crescendo (Beautiful Monsters #1)

“What about you?” she asks suddenly, like a jackal demanding I let her feed off the carcass of my own suffering the way I fed off hers. “The red-haired man. You defer to him, but he doesn’t own you. Why?”

My eyes narrow at her word choice. “He doesn’t own you.”

“I’m not someone you can own,” I tell her coldly.

“Vinny’s men are,” she counters. Her eyes dare me to prove that I don’t have the name of some master tattooed into my skin.

“If you haven’t noticed, I don’t exactly work for your fiancé .”

She flinches, and I feel an echoing twinge in my chest that I write off as satisfaction.

“Who is he to you?” she asks, trying to rephrase the question, and only the softness of her voice keeps it from seeming like another haughty command.

“My brother.”

She raises an eyebrow but doesn’t challenge the designation—and a part of me almost bristles as that. It almost wants to see her challenge me. I’d gotten a taste of the little wolf lurking beneath her lambskin... One more peek of her couldn’t hurt.

Oh, yes it can, a part of my anatomy warns. The front of my jeans was becoming a vise grip. Death , I chant inside my head, forming a list of the most disturbing shit I can think of. Blood. Gore. Screaming. Gaping. Wounds...

Like the one on her ear. She doesn’t seem to notice that one is sporting a delicate diamond stud while the other is adorned by a wad of toilet paper and duct tape.

It’s like she’s conditioned herself to shut the pain off.

I’ve seen grown men barely cope with less of an injury. Color the predator in me impressed.

“So...” I inhale and switch to another topic of burning interest. “If Stacatto does want you alive, what if he specifies that we bring you to him first before any trade can be made?”

If I’ve poked a hole in her flawless plan, she doesn’t let on. “You promised me,” she says, refreshing my memory. “A man owned by no one should be very good at keeping his promises. ”

The little bitch has a point. “I warned you,” I say rather than admit as much out loud. “I don’t make promises.”

Something dark taints the hazel of her eyes. I don’t know what to think when she turns and opens the nearest drawer. She rummages through it, carefully searching. Opens another. Pulls out a knife.

I can’t help the laugh that bellows out of me. My fingertips itch. The buzzing starts at the back of my skull. My cock throbs.

“Then I’ll just kill myself,” she says, pressing the blade to her throat.

It’s little more than a butter knife, but anything can make for a weapon if you’re determined enough.

Case in point was the ball-peen hammer Van Hallen cited in my own fucking case file.

“Here and now. You should have nothing left to lose if I do.”

The words aren’t a threat because she knows she has nothing left in her arsenal to barter. The tip of the blade presses into her flesh. Her hand is steady. Her gaze doesn’t leave mine once.

“So do it,” I tell her. I shift my weight as if I’m turning for the door. I see her fingers tighten their grip. Then I move.

Vincent’s little whore has never held a weapon before.

It easily flies out of her grip when I bat her hand away and wrench her arm behind her back before she can even break her own skin.

I force her onto the counter facedown and position myself behind her.

She hisses in pain. It’s a position designed to immobilize—but the seconds pass and I don’t let her go.

I fully intend to, but my cock seems to have other intentions.

She’s too close. I can sense her heart beating frantically through her skin.

The smell wafting from her is that of soap mixed with the artificial flavor of mint.

She’s warm...so fucking warm. And her ass avoids brushing the front of my hips by mere inches.

I don’t want her. My fingers twitch, aiming to let her go, and she forces her body to go limp, making it easier to do so.

More seconds pass. Minutes. I know that her arm must have gone numb, but she doesn’t complain. She doesn’t resist. The little lamb has overcome her inner wolf as if resigned to a life of being prey.

Or so I think until her words reach me, muffled against the counter’s surface.

“You are owned by no one,” she says. “Vinny doesn’t own me anymore, either... So go ahead. Take what you want. Kill me. Hurt me. I won’t stop you.”

It’s a dare, though I’ll be damned if I know just what she is taunting me to claim.

“Stop me from what?” I ask. Another minute passes without an answer, and I can’t stop my free hand from fisting in her hair and using the grip for leverage to yank her head back, lifting her face from the counter. “What do you think I want?” I growl into her good ear.

She stares ahead, her mouth set in a stubborn line as if she knows a dirty little secret she won’t tell me.

“What do you want?” I demand, tightening my grip until she winces.

“I want...” Her eyes threaten to go vacant. Then she twists her head around so that she’s staring at me directly. “I don’t want to be his.”