Page 44 of Sinful Desires (Sinful #4)

A pang cracked through my chest. Yes . God, yes.

“No,” I said flatly. “Just wanted to make sure my money wasn’t wasted.”

His laugh was quiet, cruel. “Shame. She didn’t even get to unzip me. Hope you’re not too heartbroken.”

I was thrilled, actually.

“I think she dodged a bullet. Must’ve been hard for your poor little virgin cock to remember what to do after rotting in your pants for thirteen years.”

A full lie. A filthy, desperate lie.

He was the best lay I’d ever had. The best I ever would. No one else would ever touch me without making me remember what it felt like to come undone in his arms.

He stepped in, close enough to drag the air from my lungs.

“Not what you said when you begged me to fuck you, Miss Harper,” he murmured, voice low and dangerous. “Because last I remember, you were riding me so hard you scratched my back raw and left teeth marks in my shoulder.”

He leaned in, breath searing against my cheek, voice even colder. “You said no one ever fucked you like I did. That you couldn’t come unless it was me. That your sweet little pussy didn’t know what to do without me ruining it first.”

I should’ve stepped back. Should’ve run. Should’ve screamed. But my knees buckled.

His hand slammed against the door beside my head.

“You remember choking on it, don’t you?” His eyes burned into mine. “How you looked up at me with tears on your cheeks, swallowing every drop like it was holy?”

My thighs clenched.

His fingers skimmed my waist as he traced the doorframe. “And then you passed out in my arms, your pussy dripping all over my thighs.”

I hated that I remembered the exact rhythm of his voice when he’d said that. Hated that my thighs clenched tighter instead of walking out.

I gasped, breath hitching.

His hand trailed up my leg, dragging my dress with it, until his fingers grazed the inside of my thigh. We both watched as he cupped me. My head dropped against the door, a broken sound slipping past my lips. His mouth brushed my jaw, barely there.

“But sure. Keep lying. Pretend you didn’t spend every night with your fingers buried inside you, wishing it was my tongue wrecking you from the inside out.”

“You’re disgusting,” I whispered.

He smiled. That same wicked, knowing smirk. “And you’re soaked.”

His finger brushed my thong aside, and when his touch slid through my folds, a moan slipped out before I could catch it.

“Well,” I swallowed hard, voice uneven. “The past is the past, Mister LeRoy. I had a year to move on. You should try the same, buddy.”

Another naughty lie. I would never move on. I’d tried.

God, I’d tried. But nothing had worked.

His hands lifted, bracing the doorframe, trapping me beneath them. “I had every intention to come back to you, Scarlett.”

I froze, my body locked in place, betraying me all over again.

His mouth was near my ear, his voice dragging roughly against my skin. “The second I landed, I went to your condo. It was empty. Your scent was still there, but you weren’t. You were fucking gone.”

I stayed frozen, hands curled tightly by my sides, pretending I didn’t feel the way my body leaned into his without permission.

“He fucking took you from me.”

My throat tightened.

“I lost it. Punched Lazzio so hard his teeth rattled. He promised he’d take care of you, but he didn’t. Then I went to your father.”

His breath was shaking now, and when his forehead dropped to mine, I shut my eyes like I could block the memory crawling between us.

“That bastard said you were locked away in rehab. I didn’t even get to shoot him. Fourteen of his security dogs dragged me out. I ended up in a cell, Scarlett. Your father tossed me behind fucking bars.”

His hand moved back, slow and heavy, tracing my waist, fitting to my hip.

“Lazzio got me out a week later, but it didn’t fucking matter. Because by then, you were already gone, weren’t you?”

He pressed a little closer. His breath touched my lips. My chest rose against his, my body screaming at me to close the last inch between us. I licked my lips just to taste him.

“So, don’t you dare say I lied to you,” he whispered. “When you’re the one who lied to me.”

Confusion pinched at my chest, soft and fluttery until it turned into a blade. That was the second time he’d called me a liar.

He stepped back and looked at me.

“You wanna punish me?” he said, voice low and cracked. “Go ahead. Test me. Burn me. Put me on my knees. Parade every woman on this planet in front of me. But don’t stand there and pretend you didn’t know I’d crawl through fucking fire to get to you.”

I stared at him, pulse wrecked, breath uneven, lips parted. “You?—”

His mouth curled, bitter and cold. “Shut that pretty mouth, Scarlett. Because nothing will change the fact that I’m still yours.” His voice dropped. “ Je t’appartiens comme tu m’appartiens. ”

I turned around and reached for the door handle breathlessly, but not before hearing him say something that threw a dagger into my chest.

“You were patient number 16482.”

His voice scraped down my spine. I drank it like poison, knowing it would kill something soft in me.

That number wasn’t supposed to mean anything to anyone but the doctors who had drugged me.

But he’d memorized it. How?

I opened the door.

“The second I got out, I never missed a day, Scarlett.”

And suddenly I wasn’t standing in a strip club anymore. I was back in that horrible white room. Alone.

Except I never really had been.