Page 40 of The Villain's Beast
“Where are you going?” I asked.
“Don’t touch me,” he growled.
He didn’t even need to shake me off, I let go on my own.
“It’s just…where are you going?”
“My room.”
“I thought?—”
“You thought wrong,” he snapped, glaring at me over his shoulder with so much force I wished the forest floor had swallowed me up beneath the weight of Fletcher’s thrusts.
“I’m…I’m here of my own accord,” I said softly, wringing my hands together in front of me, aware of how dirty and tattered my clothes looked, at how much of a lie the words must have sounded to him.
“Did Fletcher force himself on you?” Gideon asked, squaring his shoulders but still keeping his back turned to me.
“Technically,” I said, “but I did want it.”
Gideon turned his face toward the wall, giving me the soft angles of his profile and the tight purse of his lips. His dark-blond hair fell in soft waves toward his shoulders, strands escaped from the knot at the base of his neck.
“I wantyou, too,” I said.
“You don’t know what you’re saying.”
If he’d look at me, he’d see how untrue his assumption was. He’d see clearly, with his own eyes, how much the fear and the adrenaline turned me on.
“What, then?” I asked.
“What, nothing,” he said. “Do whatever you want, but do it in your room.”
It was playing with fire, but I hadn’t gotten off with Fletcher and my body was electrified. The adrenaline was a drug and I never wanted to come down. I couldn’t stop the words from coming out of my mouth, but I knew if Gideon left me alone to jerk off in the shower of one of Rose Hall’s many guest rooms, I would claw my way through the lathe and plaster walls until I could escape.
“I didn’t come here to twiddle my thumbs.”
He ignored me, instead saying, “I’ll bring you up something to eat shortly.”
Before I could argue further, Gideon was gone, down the stairs and somewhere into the heart of the house that was too far removed for me to see. Resigned, I stepped into the guest room and closed the door behind me. It latched closed louder than I expected, and all it took was one quick test of the knob to figure out it had a self-locking mechanism and I was trapped inside.
“Son of a fucking bitch,” I cursed Gideon NorthandFletcher Sinclair under my breath before stalking through the room toward the bathroom. Any malice I had toward my host died on my next breath.
The bathroom was bigger than the bedroom itself, a palatial landscape of black marble with gold fixtures. A clawfoot tub sat comfortably under a window, a shower with the biggest rainfall head I’d ever seen tucked into the far corner. The vanity had two gold sinks situated beneath the most ornate gold-framed mirror I’d ever seen.
I left the bathroom and tried the bedroom door one more time, confirming I was going to be stuck inside for the long haul. A different sort of fear laced up my spine, but there was no point in letting it overwhelm me. The only escape was through the window, and I knew without looking it would be locked and barred. Without anything better to do, I stripped out of my clothes and left them in front of the door. I was going to appreciate that bathtub for as long as I could.
Chapter 28
Gideon
Iknew what was expected of me, and I knew it was bad enough I’d given Luca up to Sinclair instead of following the traditional expectations about the offering and offering exchange. I’d done Luca a service, while only causing myself more hardship. If Luca were here, I could pawn Bellamy off on him and pretend to care while they fucked. But Luca was at Thorn Hill, and I was trapped with a man who reminded me so much of the boy I used to love that I wanted to scratch his face off with my bare hands.
Bellamy didn’t look anything like Fletcher, didn’t walk like him or talk like him, sure as hell didn’t own a room like him, but he had this quiet and speculative way of peeling back my layers without even trying that made him just as dangerous as the boy I’d loved before. Of course, he was probably just trying to do what was expected of him. He was an offering from the Thorns, an irrelevant member of an inconsequential family, using the same tools we were all born with to try and level the playing field.
He would have done anything I wanted, anything I asked.
I could have asked him to let me choke him unconscious during sex and he probably would have let me. Even if he hadn’tagreed, I would have been within my rights to take it from him anyway. Not morally or ethically, but there were things my name and rank allowed me that other men would never have. I wouldn’t take what wasn’t freely given, though. But I could have…if I wanted to.
Instead of takinganything, I went to the kitchen and made Bellamy a sandwich with sourdough and roast beef. Piled high with cheese and fresh lettuce and tomatoes, I chopped up an apple and grabbed him a bag of chips from the pantry. I didn’t know what he wanted to eat, I hadn’t asked, and I didn’t care. He was a burden for me for one night only. All I had to do was keep him alive and keep him away.