I don’t even wipe the soup off my chest. I just laugh. It’s a low, dark sound that fills the room, making Torin flinch.
“She has such spirit, doesn’t she?” I say to the table. I stand up slowly, and before she can even blink, I’ve grabbed the back of her chair and yanked it across the marble until it’s slammed flush against mine.
She tries to bolt, but I catch her by the waist, pinning her down. “Sit. Down.”
“Get your hands off me!” she shouts, hitting my chest with her fists.
I ignore her. I look at Vane. “Vane, tell me about the shipment from the docks. I want details.”
Vane starts to speak, his voice a gravelly rumble, talking about crates and manifests. Under the cover of the table, and while the men dutifully pretend to be absorbed in logistics, I reach down.
I grab Wendy’s knees and force them apart.
“No,” she whispers, her face going pale then a deep, frantic red. She tries to squeeze her legs shut, but it’s like trying to move a steel vice.
I lean into her, my lips brushing the shell of her ear while Vane drones on about shipping lanes. “I told you what would happen if you didn’t behave, Wendy,” I whisper, my voice a jagged, private rasp. “Now, you’re going to sit here. You’re going to look at my guests. And you’re going to pretend that the only thing making you gasp is the quality of the wine.”
I slide my hand up the inside of her thigh. The black lace of the gown is thin, and the heat coming off her is staggering. I find the centre of her, already slick and weeping from her time in the closet.
I drive two fingers into her, deep and punishing, right as Vane mentions the customs agents.
Wendy lets out a sharp, choked-off sound—half-sob, half-gasp—and her hands fly to my wrist, trying to pry me away. “Peter, stop… please, they’re right there…”
“Shhh,” I murmur, my thumb finding her hood and grinding into it with a brutal, steady pressure. “They aren’t looking, Darling. They know better. Only I get to see you like this.”
I pick up the pace, my fingers curling inside her while she starts to squirm in the chair, her body betraying her with every frantic rub against my palm. She’s hitting myshoulder, her blows getting weaker as the friction takes over, her head falling back against my shoulder.
“Yes, Vane, continue,” I say aloud, my voice perfectly steady, even as I feel Wendy’s walls start to quiver around my knuckles.
She’s moaning now, a low, desperate sound she’s trying to bury in my neck. Her legs are wide, her heels digging into the marble, and she’s grinding against my hand with a frantic, rhythmic need.
“Stop,” she whimpers, even as she thrusts her hips harder against me. “Please, Peter, I can’t… not here…”
“You can,” I whisper, biting the lobe of her ear. “And you will. Show me how much you hate me, Wendy. Cum for me while they talk about blood and money.”
I hit her clit one last time, a sharp, flicking motion, and she loses it. She stiffens, her back arching off the chair, a muffled, shattered cry escaping her as she collapses into a jagged, messy climax.
I hold her there, feeling her pulse against my fingertips, while Vane finishes his report.
“Excellent work, Vane,” I say, pulling my hand away and reaching for my napkin. I wipe her onto the silk, a smirk of pure, unhinged triumph on my face.
I look at Wendy. She’s slumped in the chair, her eyes unfocused, her chest heaving. She looks like a woman who’s realised the cage doesn’t have a door because she no longer wants to leave.
“Now,” I say, standing up and offering my hand to her. “I believe it’s time for dessert. Upstairs.”
The dessert course never arrives.
Instead, the massive stained-glass windows in the dining room shatter inward in a rain of jagged, crystalline confetti. The heavy oak doors aren’t opened; they are breached.
Six men in tactical gear—Viktor’s elite, the North End’s finest wolves—swarm the room. Vane and Torin are on their feet in a heartbeat, weapons drawn, but I don’t move. I don’t even put down my wine glass. I just feel Wendy’s hand clutch the fabric of my sleeve, her fingers digging into my arm like talons.
A man steps forward, his face obscured by a mask until he pulls it away. It’s Mikhail, Viktor’s youngest nephew, a boy with too much ambition and not enough scars.
“Wendy,” Mikhail says, his eyes ignoring me entirely to fix on her terrified face. “We’re here to take you back. You don’t belong in this den of vipers. You’re the key to the city’s peace. You’re more important than you know, girl. Your blood is a currency you haven’t even begun to spend.”
He reaches out, his hand gloved in black leather, and grabs Wendy’s wrist to pull her from her chair.
She lets out a piercing, animalistic scream. It’s a sound of pure, instinctive terror. She doesn’t run for the door; she lunges for me. She dives behind my chair,cowering in the shadow of my shoulders, her face buried in my back as she sobs.
