My stomach churns and I gag. “I’m not like that. I’m for one man only.”
He laughs. It’s a deep, delighted sound that jars me.
“Oh? My pathetic servant is a Saint?”
“I’m telling the truth,” I insist, voice cracking. “I’m not experienced! I haven’t—”
I stop short and freeze. I just outed myself.
His silverware drops with a heavy clink, and his eyes narrow slowly, like a predator spotting prey. Those storm-gray eyes sear into mine, hungry and wild. For a moment, his tongue presses briefly against his cheek, like he’s skeptical. His fingers curl subtly on the table, knuckles white, holding himself back as he muses.
“Peighton,” he murmurs, voice menacing — much too full of delight and boyish wonder. “What did you say?”
I swallow, pulse throbbing in my neck.
Damn it.He knows, and I have no idea if that’s good. But the look in his eyes tells me:
I didn’t just say the wrong thing.
I said the worst thing imaginable.
Chapter 5
Peighton
For a long moment, he just stares at me across the table, those wolf eyes fixed.
Then Gustav rises.
Smoothly.
Like a dark apparition rising from the depths of hell.
He steps around his chair, shoes echoing on the stone floor, and swaggers toward me. The way he moves is certain yet casual. When he stops beside my plate, he doesn’t bother lowering himself to my level. Instead, he sits on the edge of the table itself, towering above me, knees spread, casting me in his shadow. He cocks his head, like I am a peculiar thing to behold.
I grip the edge of my seat, heart hammering so loud it’s deafening.
He places his finger just under my bra strap.
I freeze.
Absolutely still.
His knuckle skims the delicate skin of my shoulder as he follows the line of the strap downward… downward… toward the slope of my chest, until he reaches the swell of soft skin.
He says my name.
“Peighton.”
Creepier.
“Peighton.”
And once more, slower, darker. Taunting:
“Peighton.”
Each repetition makes my lungs shrink a little more.
