I was naked. Except that wasn’t the problem. It was the way Felix and Flynn were looking at me that made me feel more exposed than I ever had been. It wasn’t the first time a man had seen me. I wasn’t a virgin by any means, but this was different. It felt like they could see everything. Every wrong choice, every thought I’d ever had, and every black mark staining my soul. They could see it all.
Flynn reached down and plucked the grape off my hip.
I watched as he slowly pressed it between his lips.
Felix’s voice drifted down from the far end of the table. “Exquisite, isn’t she, Flynn?”
Flynn’s expression didn’t change, but his eyes lit up. The way he ate that grape was somehow sensual and terrifying at the same time. The way his jaw tensed with every chew felt like he was devouring a part of me.
Then he picked up a knife.
I held my breath as Flynn traced the edge of the blade along my inner thigh. The cool kiss of metal made it hard to stay still. I had to keep stopping myself from closing my legs as the blade inched closer to my pussy. That would not only knock off the bowl but possibly get me cut in the process.
At the other side of the table, Austin jerked against his restraints. “Get away from her, you motherfucker.”
“It’s okay,” I reassured him, mostly because his yelling wasn’t helping me stay still. “I can handle this.”
My reassurance didn’t help calm him. If anything, it made him more feral.
“I’m going to kill you all,” he snarled. “You sick motherfuckers. I’m going to tear you apart.”
Felix didn’t so much as glance his way. He simply smiled into the rim of his goblet and said, “Let him rage, Poppet. His jealousy sweetens the performance.”
Why did he insist on egging him on? Did he want me to fail? That was a dumb question. Of course, he wanted me to fail. Not that I had much time to think about it because Flynn lowered his head, bringing that painted-on smile to the grapes strewn across my chest.
When his breath grazed my breast as he plucked one with his teeth, a shiver tore through me. That burst of heat felt like fire on my cooled skin. It was a stark contrast to his monotone appearance. Black and white covered every inch of him from theshoes on his feet to the fedora on his head. Even his hair was black.
A soft pop filled the air as the grape burst against Flynn’s tongue. Juice dribbled from the corner of his mouth and dripped onto my chest, leaving a thin sticky trail that caught the candlelight. He didn’t wipe it away. He merely tilted his head and watched as another drop fell onto my breast.
No emotions toyed with his face. He gave me no arched brow or sinister sneer. He was simply there. Yet underneath that exterior, a dark storm raged. I could feel it in the way he slid the knife up my thigh, and I could see it in the hunger blazing in his eyes.
The Mime didn’t talk because he didn’t need to. His feast wasn’t the food laid across my body.
It was me.
Don’t move, Mazie. I silently told myself as the edge of the blade scraped my skin.
What they were doing was sick and wrong. Yet a part of me enjoyed the depravity of it all. The sharp, threatening edge of the knife, the man—who was a victim himself—forced to watch, and the cool kiss of the air on my naked body. They all called to something inside me that I buried a long time ago. A dark, twisted desire that I gave in to once, and never would again.
Felix’s chuckle rolled across the room. “See how she quivers, brother? Even the simplest taste is enough to make her sing.”
I wanted to snap that I wasn’t singing. That this wasn’t arousal but dread. But the flush spreading over my chest betrayed me. I could feel their eyes dragging over me, peeling me open in ways no hand ever had. It was worse than any kind of physical torture.
Flynn leaned over me, and I watched as his mouth closed around a piece of candied fruit. His painted grin brushed the side of my breast. The bristles hidden underneath his makeupcaused a wave of goosebumps to trickle across my skin. I’d been denied touch for so long that it felt like heaven.
The dishes on me clattered as my back tried to arch off the table. My body wanted to give in, but my mind regained control before anything fell.
All the while, Flynn slowly chewed and watched my reactions, as if every twitch were part of their fucked-up performance.
“Exquisite,” Felix purred while rising from his chair.
He strode closer, circling the table until his shadow fell over me.
“Do you know why you tremble, Poppet?”
My voice cracked with my lie. “I’m cold.”
Felix smiled down at me. “You tremble because the line between desire and terror is thinner than silk. Flynn tastes your fear. I taste your shame. And you…” He dragged his gloved finger down my sternum, smearing the trail of grape juice into a sticky sheen. “You taste both.”
