“You don’t get to play saviour,” she snaps, her voice raw.
“I’m not saving you, Wendy,” I murmur, leaning down until my mouth is hovering inches from her ear, close enough that I can smell the cherry on her breath and the lilies on her skin. “I’m keeping you. There’s a massive fucking difference.”
She’s shaking now—anger, adrenaline, the sheer, terrifying chemistry that happens whenever we’re in thesame zip code. She hates that I can tell the difference. She hates that I’m the only one who knows she’s not a saint.
“You think this is some kind of game?” she spits, her voice low and dangerous. “Dragging me in, twisting my head until I don’t know what’s real anymore?”
I lean my weight into the booth, my hands braced on either side of her, caging her in. She stiffens, her silk dress rustling against the vinyl, but she doesn’t move. Brave little Wendy—always playing the martyr when she’s already halfway to the altar.
“This isn’t a game,” I murmur, my eyes locked on hers, boring into that grey storm. “I don’t waste my time on things I don’t plan to win. And I’ve already won, Darling. You’re just waiting for the final move.”
Her chest heaves, the silk of her dress straining against her breasts. She looks like she wants to slap me, to claw my eyes out—but then her gaze flicks down to my mouth, just for a millisecond, and I see it. The traitorous, hungry flash of want.
I grin slow, sharp. “You want to hit me? Go on. I’ll still be here when you’re done pretending you don’t want to be underneath me.”
Her nails bite into her palms, her shoulders squared. “You don’t get to decide what I want.”
“I already have.” My voice is silk over a bed of nails. “You wouldn’t be in this club, in this booth, in this dress, if you didn’t want exactly what’s about to happen.”
The crack in her mask is a canyon now. Her throat works as she tries to find words that won’t betray her further. I step in closer, so close our bodies are almosthumming against each other. My shadow swallows her whole.
“Don’t,” she whispers, a final, pathetic plea.
“Don’t what?” I’m so close I could taste the salt on her skin. I could lick the denial right off her lips.
Her breath stutters, hot and ragged against my jaw. She tries to look away, but I tilt her chin up with two fingers—gentle, but with the threat of a vice. She flinches, but stays.
“Don’t make this something it isn’t,” she says, her voice barely audible over the music.
I smirk, dragging my thumb along the razor-sharp edge of her jaw, feeling the heat of her skin. “It already is, Wendy. It’s been this since the day you were old enough to know better.”
Her pulse slams against my hand, a frantic, dying bird. She hates me for knowing. Hates me for being the only person who sees the darkness she tries so hard to hide.
“You’ll ruin everything,” she hisses.
“I’ll ruin you,” I correct softly, my voice dripping with the promise of it. “And you’ll thank me for every second of the wreckage.”
For a second, she freezes—and then she shoves me. It’s a hard, desperate hit against my chest, but it doesn’t move me an inch. I just laugh, a rough, dark sound that scrapes up from my lungs. There she is. The fury. The fuel.
“Stay the fuck away from me!” she snaps, standing up so fast the table rocks, her curls flying around her face like a dark halo.
I catch her wrist before she can take two steps. Mygrip is firm, undeniable. I want her to feel the strength of the trap. Her eyes flash down to where my hand is circling her bone, then up to my face. Her voice shakes with a mix of fear and something much, much filthier. “Let. Me. Go.”
I hold her for one heartbeat longer than necessary. Just so she knows I could keep her forever. Then I release her.
She jerks free, her skin red where I held her, and stalks toward the door. I don’t follow. I just watch the way the silk of her dress clings to her hips as she walks away, marking the path she’s taking. But when she throws one last look over her shoulder—that look of pure, agonising longing disguised as hate—I know.
She was mine before she ever walked through that door. And she’ll be back before the night is through.
I don’t chase. I just sit back in the red light, pick up her glass, and taste the smear of her lipstick on the rim.
“See you soon, Darling,” I whisper into the pink gin.
Wendy
The air in the alleyway isn’t just cold; it’s a vacuum, sucking the oxygen out of my lungs until all that’s left is the scent of him—leather, expensive tobacco, and that dark, metallic tang that follows men who don’t fear the dark.
Peter doesn’t move fast. He doesn’t have to. He knows my legs are fucking water. He knows that if I take one step toward the street, I’ll collapse, and if I take one step toward him, I’m signing a contract in blood.
