I hold her there until the last tremors fade.
I’m panting. She’s gasping for air.
The room is silent again, save for the crackle of the fire.
I pull out slowly, hating having to leave her body and already counting the seconds until I can get back inside her.
I fix her panties before I adjust my clothes and pick up my phone from the ladder.
“Don’t let any of me spill out.”
Blair turns around. Her eyes are wide. She looks like she doesn't know whether to slap me or kiss me.
"You're insane," she whispers.
"Certifiably." I tuck the phone back into my pocket. I reach out and wipe a tear from her cheek with my thumb. "You did well, little bird."
She shivers.
"I hate you," she says, but she leans into my touch.
"Liar."
I kiss her forehead.
"Go get changed," I tell her, slapping her ass gently. "Wear something sexy."
"Why?" she asks, still leaning against me for support, though I don’t think she realizes she’s doing it.
"Because you were such a good girl," I say, picking up my tumbler of whiskey and downing the rest in one swallow. "I’m taking you to Mulberry. I think it’s time you saw exactly what kind of man you’ve gotten into bed with."
"Where are we going?"
I smirk.
"To church," I say. "But not the kind you’re used to."
Romeo’s running the fights tonight, and I feel like watching something bleed.
Twenty minutes.
That’s how long it takes to slide from the gates of my estate to the gutters of Mulberry.
Heaven to hell in under half an hour, though honestly, I’ve always preferred the company down here. The Bentley hums beneath us, but the air inside the car is thick enough to choke on.
Blair hasn’t said a fucking word since I told her we were going to church.
She’s staring out the window, watching the mansions fade into strip malls and the manicured lawns turn into cracked pavement littered with potholes big enough to swim in.
That black silk slip I told her to wear clings to her like a second skin beneath the cream coat I bought her. She looks good enough to ruin entire empires.
She looks like a queen.
Streetlights slice across her profile, illuminating the tension in her jaw. She’s not crying. Any other woman would be sobbing her eyes out after what happened on that ladder. She’d be demanding to go home, threatening to call the cops, or falling apart because I fucked her while humiliating the boy she thought she loved.
But Blair isn't weak and she’s not just any other woman.
I can see the gears turning behind those dark blue eyes. She’s replaying the conversation with Ryder, what I did to her on that ladder, dissecting the cruelty of it.
