“I didn’t go near your room.” Mmmmm, his New Orleans accent came out thicker when he was tired.
“Yes, you did,” I managed to choke out. “I was outside and I saw a face at the window. I was outside and I saw the light in my room, and when I got back it was turned off.”
“Not me.” Titus grabbed the chain around his neck and dangled it in front of my face.A key.The exact type of key that opened the old lock on my bedroom door. “This doesn’t work no more. I haven’t been upstairs since that first night, when I watched you drool on your pillow.”
“Where did you get that?” I lunged for the key, but Titus held it beyond my reach.
“Clare gave Dorien a copy so he could sneak up in the night. I could hear the bed creaking from down here. Friendly warning – Dorien’s got a real thing about shagging the help. Must be something about this tight black dress.” Titus rubbed his finger down the inside of my arm, and even through the thick wool fabric it sent a fire through my body.
I knew I was rapidly losing control of the situation and myself, but the anger and violation still surged in my veins.I must have that key.It was a symbol of claiming back my space. I lunged again, taking Titus by surprise. As I reached for the key, my chest brushed his, sending a jolt through me like I’d stuck my nipple in an electrical socket. Titus felt it too, because his eyes narrowed, the lashes tangling together.
Titus didn’t flinch away. Instead, he leaned in closer, his fingers dancing up my arm as I scrambled for the key. My breath came out in ragged gasps as I fought against my desire. His face hung inches from mine, so close his musk and myrrh swirled around me, and the notes of rose conjured a memory that seared my skin with pain. Roses sent to my mother’s hospital room by her board members, back when she thought she’d be cured in a week, back before the coma and the poisoning and—
“You should stay away from me,” Titus hissed. His deep voice reverberated through my entire body, bringing me back to myself, to the present moment, to the scant inch of air that was all that protected me from the most delicious mistake of my life.
“Or what?” I tried to issue it as a challenge, but the words came out husky, thick with desire.
“Or—” He chose to finish the thought with his eyes, the fire within them promising darkness and depravity and beautiful obsession. Tension crackled between us, a lightning storm flickering between our eyes. Why,whydid I let Titus do this to me?
Titus’ fingers walked over my wrist, trailing along the veins pulsing against my skin. The touch was featherlight, but it left a trail of fire against my skin that melted my insides into a wobbly mess. My breath hitched, and I dared myself to lean a little closer, a little… to feel the air shift as his lips brushed mine—
“Bro, you wouldn’t believe—what thefuck?”
Dorien.His voice shattered the spell. I wrenched my arm from Titus’ grip and turned to the doorway. Dorien stood in the hall, a storm in his grey eyes, tension tightening his shoulders to rock. Titus stared bug-eyed at his friend, his mouth moving but no sound emerging, while I staggered toward the door, shoving my way past Dorien.
Shame burned in my cheek as the fire in my veins cooled to ice.What the fuck just happened? What am I doing? That guy openly admits to tormenting me, and I was about to… I wanted to…
Sound the fucktrumpets, I want to shag my bullies.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Titus
“What was that about?” Dorien demanded.
“She thinks I was in her room.” I lifted my knees so Dorien didn’t have to see the tent in the bedsheets. My veins throbbed with fire from Faye’s presence. “You didn’t go up there? Apparently, she was outside with Aroha and someone turned the light off in her bedroom.”
“What’s she doing outside with Aroha? Our no talking to the trash rule still applies.” Dorien glared at me.
I shrugged. “You know Aroha likes to flaunt our rules.”
“She’s not the only one.”
“So you weren’t up there?”
Dorien shook his head. “No way to get in with that new lock Harrison installed.”
I sank down on my bed, Faye’s scent spinning me out. When she burst in, her hair wild around her face and that defiant look in her eyes, I wasso fucking close…
The only thing that stopped me was Dorien. He was in the room, a ghost between us, before he appeared at the doorway.
“And the storage room? She seemed to think someone has been up there at night, moving around.”
“Usher would never give up the key to that place, not even if it meant getting her out of here forever. Sprite probably heard rats or something. Why do you care?”
Sprite.Hearing that childhood nickname fly from his lips made my stomach twist up with envy. It could have just as easily been me who had a history with Faye, if my parents had sent me to a different New York school. I looked away so I wouldn’t fall apart under Dorien’s gaze. “I don’t care. I just think it’s a waste of energy to terrorize her. She’s a shit musician and can’t keep up with Madame’s rules. She’ll eliminate herself.”
“What energy? The only thing you have to do is not talk to her, but apparently, that’s too difficult. Heather and I are taking care of the rest.” The petulant tone in Dorien’s voice reminded me of the first time we met at a music camp in Colorado in our teens, and he complained to the staff because he didn’t want to share a room with me. It was touch and go for a while as to whether we’d end up friends or bitter enemies, but Dorien had a magnetism that drew you in, and I was a kid desperate for anyone’s approval. By the time that camp finished we were like an old married couple. The kind of married couple where Dorien was the alpha and I went along with everything he said.
