Page 28 of Sinful Desires (Sinful #4)

Chapter

Twenty-Two

“If life gives you lemons, make lemonade.Then find someone whose life has given them vodka and have a party!”

― Anya Boszczyk

Théo

“You’re the sum of the people you surround yourself with,” General Lefebvre used to say, blunt as always, when anyone had asked how he’d become such a great fighter.

His words had stuck with me, and I’d taken them to heart. I’d built a gap between myself and everyone else.

I didn’t do people. Noise. Small talk. The fake grins and all that empty shit they fed off.

When they asked why I didn’t drink, I said something harmless. I didn’t like the taste. Clubs gave me headaches. Simple. Just enough to keep them from digging deeper. But the real reason? That was a whole other story.

I didn’t drink because I knew where it led: noise, chaos, and the kind of numbness you didn’t come back from. I’d been there. And I was not fucking going near it again.

Only a few people knew why I avoided those distractions. Why I’d carved myself into something cold and distant. Why I protected the small part of me that was still alive, even if just barely.

Because if I let myself get caught up in it all again, if I let the noise drown out the silence, I’d remember everything.

The scream that had ripped through my lungs. The blood. The tears. The shit I’d buried so deeply it felt like it’d tear me apart if I even thought about it.

My clients had avoided parties.

But the Red Queen? She breathed that shit in.

So here I was. Job in hand. Assigned to protect a goddamn superstar. Someone whose life was nothing but noise. Cameras. Parties. People clinging to her like parasites.

Everything I’d spent more than a decade avoiding, now my job to manage.

I couldn’t stop watching her. A fucking hour of her grinding, laughing, lit like a damn fire hazard. My eyes should’ve been anywhere else, but they’d locked in on the asshole gripping her hips like he’d bought the right.

Her gold dress caught every filthy strobe like she was asking for it. Her legs?…

Putain.

She leaned in, lips close to his ear, and whispered something that pulled a grin from his face.

Her hand slid across his stomach, fingertips grazing the edge of his belt.

She took his drink, ran her tongue along the rim, then sipped it slowly, her eyes on him.

Then she fucking kissed the corner of his mouth, a little too close to be friendly. Her hand stayed on his stomach.

And she kept smiling?…?at me. I should have looked away. I didn’t. Then she threw me a fucking wink and turned her back to me.

Heat roared through my chest. My grip on the glass tightened until it cracked beneath my fingers.

I wanted to grab her by the hair, drag her off that fucking dance floor, slam her into the nearest wall, and fuck the smug look off her face for using me, for yanking on my control like it was a fucking toy.

Instead, I set down the cracked glass and grabbed another, some disgusting sugary soda. I lifted it, the condensation slick against my fingers, and swallowed half of it just to force my gaze somewhere else.

Anywhere else.

“You should have a drink, Théo. It’s The Diamond . Safest club in town. Leonardo Vittori owns it. He’s a friend of Angelo’s. Scarlett’s perfectly fine here.”

I set my glass down. “Club and safe don’t belong in the same sentence, Miss Jung.”

Victoria Jung—Scarlett’s stylist. I didn’t give a fuck about her. But I knew everything .

Where she’d studied, who she’d dated, what she drank, how loyal she was. Anyone near Scarlett was mapped, tracked, and catalogued—whether they knew it or not.

British, with a clipped accent. Her parents were Korean immigrants who had started with nothing and built their way out of it one grueling step at a time.

Victoria was the result of that kind of climb. Polished. Image-obsessed. Trained in Paris. Smart enough to land the Harper contract after five years of dressing A-list clients with god complexes and too much money.

Her brother Josh hadn’t survived. At fourteen, he couldn’t take the weight of the bullying. After videos of him kissing another boy had surfaced, the world turned on him.

They’d destroyed him. And then, he’d destroyed himself.

Her brother’s death had become a news story, a tragedy they’d moved past in a week. She hadn’t. She’d channeled everything into her work, becoming a public face for mental health and suicide awareness in their town.

Some would call it admirable. To me, it was just a way to cover the emptiness. The guilt. The ghosts she couldn’t get rid of.

Some wounds didn’t close. They just rotted slower.

She laughed, her fingertips brushing my arm. “Good thing you’re here then.”

I didn’t laugh back. My eyes were somewhere else. On the prick who thought her hips were his to touch.

His hands slid lower, cocky, careless?—

Fuck it.

The crowd peeled away before me, whether from instinct or fear.

Three strides. That’s all it took. One hard punch to his face.

He scrambled to his knees, mouth already opening to spit whatever bullshit excuse he thought might save him. One look at me, and the lights behind his eyes just?…?switched off.

“What the fuck, LeRoy? That’s?—”

“This man was seconds away from hurting you, Miss Harper.”

She squinted at me like I’d grown a second head. “Hurting me with what? An orgasm ?”

A fire sparked in my chest, hot and fast, burning everything in its path.

An orgasm?

She knelt to help the bastard up, brushed off his shirt, then had the fucking nerve to glare at me while she did it.

“So sorry, Jonathan,” she said sweetly, all venom under honey. “My bodyguard confused you with someone else. Wait for me by the bar. I’ll be there in a sec.”

He nodded without meeting my eyes, whispering something pathetic before slipping away. She turned, shot me a look that could’ve slit skin, and walked toward the VIP suite staircase. I followed.

She climbed a few steps, then stopped when she realized I wasn’t letting up. I stayed at the bottom, close. My frame caged her in without touching her. She turned.

Now we were eye to eye.

“I’m leaving with him tonight. So, stop whatever the hell you think you’re doing.”She leaned in, her breath hot with vodka. “I’ve been a very good girl for almost a year now. One night. That’s all I’m asking. One fucking night off. So back. Off .”

I crossed my arms to stop myself from grabbing her, from throwing her over my shoulder and leaving that shitty place.

“No.”

Her brow shot up. “No?”

“You heard me.”

She laughed, low and dirty. “I don’t take orders, soldier. Thought I made that clear.”

I climbed one step. Then another. “Don’t test me.”

She tilted her head. “Oh, I get it now. You won’t touch me, but the second someone else breathes in my direction, you turn rabid? That’s cute. Pathetic, but cute.”

Her finger dragged down my cheek and slid to my throat, her nail pressing in.

I didn’t flinch, even when I felt the sting and the first lick of blood. She looked at me like she wanted to carve her name into my neck. Maybe she already had.

Then her fingers curled around my throat tight. “Tell me, soldier. How the fuck is that fair?”

It was fucking simple. Mine, or nothing .

If I couldn’t have her, couldn’t fuck the fire out of her eyes, couldn’t shut her up with my mouth, couldn’t make her forget every man who had come before me, then no one else would get the chance either. That was my fucking law.

“Nothing in life ever is, Miss Harper.”

She tried to pull back, but I caught her wrist. “I won’t repeat myself again. If I see someone breathe in your direction, I’ll rip his teeth out and feed them to him one by one.”

I let go. We were behind the wall now. Tucked away where no one could see us. The music bled through the stairwell, low and distant. But her scent clung to me. Faint lavender and something headier, something fucked up and sweet that made my dick twitch harder in my pants.

She scoffed and climbed the last few steps, hips swaying. Of course I fucking followed.

The door slammed toward me,but I caught it before it could close. She shoved back harder, but it didn’t budge.

Her glare cut up at me. “You’re seriously insane.”

“You haven’t seen insane yet.”

She held my stare for a second too long. Then she scoffed and turned her back on me. Gave up. Walked deeper into the suite.

It was quiet in here. Dim. The kind of place men paid for to do things they didn’t want remembered. Windows overlooked the crowd below, just shadows now, writhing under strobe lights. A long black couch faced the glass.

She walked straight to the far end of the room.

I stepped in and closed the door behind me. This time, she didn’t try to stop me. And she didn’t tell me to leave again either.

She crossed her arms and leaned back against the wall. “Tell me, is ruining my night your new kink, or have you always gotten off on making my life hell?”

I stepped closer. “Have you always gotten off on being a brat?”

She snorted. “Since birth.”

Her eyes weren’t playful. They were mean. Mean in that way that said she knew exactly how far she could push before I’d snap her neck or fall to my knees.

“I think I know what will make you finally shut up.”

She cast me a smile as she lifted her dress just enough to slide her hands under it, disappearing between her legs while her eyes stayed locked on mine.

My eyes followed as she pulled down her black lacy thong, dragging the fabric over her thighs with no rush, letting it fall to the floor while my pulse slammed against my teeth.

Then she bent to grab it and stood back up, folding it tightly. She walked to me and shoved it into the inner pocket of my jacket, right over my chest. Pressed it in deeply with her palm.

“There, baby,” she said, voice low and vicious. “A little souvenir. Since you can’t touch, you might as well sniff.”

My blood surged. I closed the last bit of space between us.

Nowhere to run. No crowd to hide behind. Just her, me, and the wall at her back.