Page 19 of Promise of Destruction (Destruction & Vengeance Duet #1)

nineteen

Declan

Quinton will live long enough to regret calling her a cunt. I promise myself as much the minute the word is out of his mouth.

I want to go after him and pin him to the wall by his collar. I want to punch him in his conventionally attractive face, to kick him to the ground and bash his face in until the tongue he just used to insult my girl is coated in blood and he chokes on it.

If Soren wasn’t here, I’d probably do all those things. But I won’t lose my composure like that in front of her. I want to scare her, not traumatize her.

Witnessing manslaughter may be a line she’s drawn in the sand. Who’s to say?

“Rude.” She mutters, and the tone of her voice is so affronted, I actually have to laugh.

Here I am, ready to tear his tongue out through the back of his skull because he had the audacity to demean her, and she simply huffs in surprised indignation.

It’s kind of cute.

“What?” Soren asks, her eyes narrowed on me in suspicion as I shake my head.

“You really are sheltered, huh, little bird?”

That prompts a scowl, and it’s so fucking divine I have to dig my nails into the tender flesh of my palms so that I don’t grab her by the neck and pin her to the wall just to taste her disapproval.

“I’m not a bird.” She squeaks. Her voice comes out strained through her irritation, small with fear of fighting against me and her frustration with me.

I think the irony is lost on her, because when my smirk deepens, she jumps out of her chair and plants her hands on her hips. “And I’m not sheltered.”

“Oh?” I tease, enjoying the rouge on her cheeks and how it deepens when I refuse to relent. “Then what are you? A whore who’s enticed by the fight? Are you a secret slut under the cover of an unassuming reporter?”

“I’m not a whore!” Her objections fall on deaf ears. I don’t care who she’s been with before. She could have fucked her way through the phone book and it wouldn’t change anything. I’ll be the last man to ever touch her.

Honestly, part of me hopes she is a little bit of a secret whore. She’d need to be to withstand the things I’m going to do to her. An even larger part of me hopes she isn’t , because it will be all the easier to destroy her the way I vowed I would.

“Then what are you?” I insist. “Women are always one or the other, in my experience.”

She stares at me a moment before blinking. Her long lashes flutter over her eyes and she opens them slowly to resume staring at me.

“You’re literally a walking red flag.”

Her assessment of me is a bit hasty, but it’s not wrong.

I chuckle at her conclusion and take a step toward her, eliminating the space between us. “I may be a red flag, but don’t deny you want me to tie you up with it and fuck your sweet cunt like the whore you pretend you aren’t.”

She opens her mouth to suck in a ragged breath, and maybe to object. But no words come. Instead, her lips move like they’re trying to form something before she abandons that and presses them together.

“You can’t even deny it.” I tell her, satisfied that my words have quelled hers. It’s so much easier to imagine taking her lip between my teeth when it isn’t moving. “If you didn’t, you’d already be gone.” I tell her, lifting a strand of hair off her shoulder. My touch grazes her collar bone.

Soren fails to suppress a shudder or bite back the sound that comes from her mouth. I take advantage of her staying still to rub the lock of hair between my fingers, luxuriating in the silky feel of it on my skin.

“I’m just waiting to see what you can offer me.”

She sounds like she believes it, but she’s a little bit breathless, too.

Those words command my full attention. I drop her hair and let It fall back against her chest. When I tear my eyes from the cleavage that’s peeking over the neckline of her dress, it’s to see her eyes full of questions.

She’s wondering if this is all worth it, if I’ll pay her enough to withstand my advances, if she made a mistake by running that article.

“Yes.” I say out loud. Yes, to all of the above.

She sighs a little sound of relief when I take a step back from her, my gaze commanding hers to meet it. “I can offer you the world, Soren.”

The hitch of her breath betrays her. She tries to look unaffected by my claim, but I can see how she shifts her weight from one foot to the other and grasps her bony wrist with her hand, forming a shield that would do nothing to keep me away from her if that’s what I wanted.

“Money,” She clarifies, and then her cheeks redden at the realization of what she just said. “I mean, I’m waiting for you to tell me about the job offer.”

“Ah,” I nod. “The offer. I assume you need the money since you seem quite keen to get to the heart of the matter.”

A quick glance up at her proves that her cheeks can get redder. Fascinating .

I can’t wait to see just how lovely her skin looks when I can get that crushed cherry color even deeper. “As I said, it’s an offer you can’t refuse.”

The scratching of the pen on paper is the only sound in the room as she waits for me to present her with the information she’s waiting for.

“It’s a great offer. One that you won’t be able to surpass even if you were qualified.” I drop the pen on the desk impatiently and fold the paper crisply, pinching it shut as if I were going to seal it in an envelope.

But I don’t. I just close the space between us again so that there’s no more than an inch of space between her body and mine.

Her back is toward the door, and nothing stands in her way.

I didn’t lock her in the office with me, and I didn’t push her against the wall despite the desperate desire to do so.

She could leave if she wants, but she doesn’t.

Her eyes hold mine as she reaches for the paper I hold in the air between us.

She unfolds the offer before tearing her eyes off of me. They fall immediately to the paper in her hands, held taut between bitten-to-the-quick, unpolished nails.

Another habit I’ll have to break her of. I should have knocked a zero off of that offer for all the work I’ll need to invest in her.

“I—” Soren’s voice cracks right down the middle, so she takes a moment to regroup. When she’s gathered herself, she looks up at me. “Is this a joke?”

“A joke?” I laugh. “No, Soren Palmer. This isn’t a joke. If it offends you, I’m willing to negotiate…” I let the offer hang in the air a moment. “But I have to warn you, I am a very aggressive negotiator.”

She stares at me mutely, like her brain can’t compute what I’m saying. I simply arch an eyebrow, waiting for her to rise to the challenge.

“I…”

I raise a finger, as though I just remembered something. It’s not necessary since she’s still struggling to make her tongue move.

“This is a really good offer, Soren. You’d have to be very persuasive to take that amount higher. And I don’t think you really have the means to up the ante.”

“I…” She tries again before giving up on whatever she’s trying to say. She squares her shoulders, lifts her chin. “I don’t need to negotiate the amount.”

“Perfect.” I say, letting my eyes slip over her.

I’m a little sad that she isn’t going to take me up on the offer to try and ante up, but I can be patient when the reward is worth it. And she is worth it, I have no doubt about that.

“I just need to think about it.”

“Oh?” I muse. “I’m afraid that offer is time sensitive. The best ones usually are.” I shrug. “With the merger being so sudden, I’m in urgent need.”

Her lips pull to the side as she chews at her bottom one in deep thought. It’s clear that she doesn’t want to accept the offer, but she also doesn’t want to turn down the money.

Her eyes drop again to the paper in her hands and I can practically see the wheels turning in her mind. She knows that if she accepts, she will be losing a bit of herself for my sake. She’ll be selling herself to me, no matter the terms of our contract. She knows she’ll be letting me win.

But I have her in check.

“Okay,” She breathes it softly, like she can’t believe she’s agreeing to this. “I accept your terms.”

I don’t bother trying to hide the smirk when I meet her eyes and hold out a hand for her to shake. Soren looks at it with unveiled resignation before slipping her hand into mine and giving it a dainty shake.

“So, you’re a whore after all.”