Page 58 of Vipers and Vendettas

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Jules

I don’t move anything, but I can feel my eyes getting incrementally wider. He’s standing in the room shirtless, his trousers hanging around his hips, his muscles as defined and as alluring as I remember from that day at the pond. The tattoo on his chest with its familiar face stares out at me, and I flick my eyes away from it, only to find them following the pleasure trail south. I tilt my head quickly and focus on his face, promising myself I won’t deviate downwards again.

Maybe he hasn’t noticed that I’m …

His eyes are on mine, and with my mortified eyes locked on his, I very slowly ease my two fingers out of myself.

My involuntary whimper as I leave myself unsatisfied when I was sofuckingclose has his nostrils flaring even though he can’t smell me.

He doesn’t say anything, and for once, I feel like I need to fill the silence.

‘It’s just the hormones,’ I say as I sit up slowly, trying to pretend I’m not wishing I could just sink into the floor.

Why did he have to come in now? It’s been hours. I figured he was waiting until morning.

I draw myself into a ball to hide even though Julian Maddox, my nemesis, has just walked in on me in the most vulnerable position I can ever imagine.

I struggle to keep my nerve as I open the drawer next to the bed and pick up the key with the fingersthat weren’t just inside me.

I hold the disk out to him, not able to meet his eyes. ‘You can leave.’

His lip quirks. ‘Shall I provide some toys for yourpersonal enrichmentduring your incarceration here?’

He’s laughing at me. Mocking me. It’s bad enough that my only escape plan was thwarted tonight and that I was attacked in the maze, but now this? The tears that are always so close to the surface now threatened to fall. I didn’t think this could get worse, but I guess it can. I try to force them back, and when I finally do, I make myself look up at him. I won’t give him the satisfaction of thinking he can actually hurt me.

‘They don’t tend to satisfy the itch anymore,’ I say truthfully, low-key hoping to shock him a little.

Something about Maddox has always made me want to tell him the truth, even when I can’t, and I hate it. At least this time, maybe I can make him feel a little uncomfortable.

I expect some cutting reply or sardonic retort, but he just takes the disk out of my hand and throws it at the exit wall. It disappears.

‘I would have just done that if I’d known,’ I say.

‘But then I wouldn’t have walked in on you frigging yourself silly with my name on your lips.’

I cringe. It sounds so much worse when he says it out loud.

‘Can we pretend this didn’t happen?’ I put the back of my hand to my forehead, hiding my eyes from him. ‘Can we pretend the whole evening didn’t happen?’

‘That depends on you,’ he rumbles.

I glance up. ‘You want to make a bargain?’

His eyes travel over me, and he steps closer, his hand almost touching my knee. ‘Of sorts.’

I shuffle back to make sure we don’t have any skin contact and wait for him to continue as I belatedly think to flick the blanket over me.

‘You let me help you with your littleproblem, and I’ll forget about the escape attempt. I won’t tell the others about it.’

I can’t help but gape at him.

‘What about catching mein flagrante delicto?’ I finally ask.

I see his eyes dance, and the mood suddenly lightens. ‘I’m not sure what you were doing alone would be considered ‘in flagrante’ but no. The image of you with your fingers in your cunt and whispering my name is seared into my memory, Julia. I’ll never forget it. But, if it makes you happier, I also won’t sharethatwith anyone, either.’

‘I’d consider it a kindness if you kept it to yourself,’ I swallow hard. ‘But let’s call this what it really is. Blackmail. Not very gentlemanly of you, Maddox.’