“No?” His grip tightens just slightly, enough to make me gasp. “Then who do you care about, Violet?”
The question hangs between us, heavy with meaning I’m too drunk to process fully.
In the silence, Darius’s thumb brushes over my bottom lip.
I want to bite it. I want to pull him down and make him lose his control the way he makes me lose mine. I want to feel his weight pressing me into the mattress until there’s nothing between us but skin and heat and desperation.
The thought sends a flush across my skin that I can’t hide.
“You can’t tell me what to wear.”
“Can’t I?” He leans closer, his breath ghosting across my lips. “Because I’m telling you right now, if I ever see you in something like this again, around anyone but me, I will put you over my knee and spank that pretty ass of yours until you learn better.”
Fire crawls through me, especially between my thighs. I should be angry. I should tell him to leave. Instead, I stare up at him, my pulse racing beneath his fingers.
“You wouldn’t dare.”
His smile is dark, promising. “Try me, little wolf. See what happens.”
The endearment makes my heart clench. “Little wolf.” Like I’m actually one of them. Like he sees me in a way no one else does.
“I hate you.”
“No, you don’t.” His hand slides off my throat to cup my face, his touch gentle now. “You wish you did. But you don’t.”
Arguments pile up in my throat. I want to push him away and prove that I don’t need him, don’t want him, don’t crave his touch like oxygen. But the words won’t come.
He releases me and steps back, leaving me cold and aching. “You smell like other people. Like that bar. Like strangers who have no right to be near you.”
“So?”
“I don’t like it.”
Before I can process what he means, he disappears into my bathroom. Water runs, and then he’s back with a warm, damp towel.
“What are you doing?”
“Cleaning you up.”
He starts with my face, wiping away smudged makeup with careful strokes. His touch is methodical and focused. When he moves to my arms, I try to pull away.
“Stop fussing.”
As soon as he’s done, the towel disappears, and he vanishes into my closet. Rummaging sounds emerge, and then he’s back with one of my oversized sleep shirts and a pair of soft shorts.
“Change,” he commands, placing them on thebed beside me.
First the clothes get a stare, then him. “Turn around.”
His eyebrow arches, and he shakes his head slowly. “I’ve had you underneath me on two separate occasions, Violet. I’ve tasted every inch of your skin. And you want me to turn around?”
Heat floods my face. The memory of his mouth on me, of his hands mapping my body, makes my breath catch.
“That’s different.”
“Is it?” He steps closer, his voice dropping to a dangerous purr. “Because I remember you begging me not to stop. Remember the sounds you made when I—”
“Turn around.”
