“I hoped that was gonna come out of that pretty mouth. Let’s see how pretty that mouth can really be.”
I was ready to snap at him again when he tugged me against him even more, making me take a step backwards. My back nearly bowed from the angle he kept me at.
“Turn around,” he ordered. A shuddering breath escaped as I, for the first time that night, finally did something he requested. He probably would have broken my back if I kept up any stubborn trade. He kept the grab on my hair tight, though finally let go of my throat, just for a moment. I nearly choked as I took mouthfuls of air back into my lungs. He moved his free hand to cup my jaw and I frowned when his eyes softened in the slightest way. “You’ve been bad tonight,baby. Fuck, you’ve been bad the past four years. What should I do about that, huh?”
I shrugged.
Silentpiss off’swere a specialty of mine lately.
He smirked, but only shook his head. “I think you need an attitude adjustment, little Phoebe.”
“Fuck you,” I spit out, trying to reel my head back. Did he truly think I was a seven-year-old girl who had forgotten to do her homework? If he wasn’t going to touch me in a way that I liked, then I wasn’t going to respect him.
That softness that coated his features seconds ago hardened into something akin to fury, disappointment, and buried lust, nearly making me stagger back. He stared at me a moment longer before he sat down, promptly shoving me to my knees in the process. They cracked as they hit the ground and I ground my teeth together, keeping the whimper from falling out of my mouth.
I didn’t know if I wanted to gag from touching this floor, deck him for manhandling me, or weep at his feet like the horny siren in me screamed to dofromthe manhandling. Yet, everything in me seemed to freeze when he reached behind his back and pulled out a gun.
Afuckinggun.
His finger wrapped around the trigger, just as his other hand took off thegoddamnedsafety.
Fuck.
Double, triple, quadruple fuck.
Why did I have to have a mouth?
God? It’s me again.
He pointed the pistol to the ceiling and my heart nearly gave out entirely when it fired. I heard a scream and the thuds of a few drunken people tripping over their own feet. I’m sure proper terror was flowing through them more than ever.
My ears were ringing, and I didn’t know if it was from disbelief or fear.
Debris fell from the ceiling and I knew that if I didn’t die from the man in front of me, I might if concrete started falling on my damn head.
“Get out,” Aureo snarled as he kept a firm grip on my shoulder. For a short few seconds, I had completely forgotten about everyone around me. It took the sound of dozens of feet and rushed whispers for me to truly realize how we were the complete focal point of attention now.
I was going to die tomorrow, if I didn’t tonight.
My father was going to auction me off. That was it.
He repeated himself again, exactly as the music in the entire bar went out. The sounds of people'sfootsteps sprinting out mixed with the sound of my heartbeat in a crushing rhythm.
“Out!”
Fuck me, he sounded like a mad-man. I knew I should have held onto the fear clouding my brain as tight as I possibly could.
Yet the disturbed part of my brain couldn’t help but feelhot.
To know that I was the cause of that change in him, until his eyes looked as crazed as he sounded, made an ache develop in both my head and in between my thighs.
It had been way too long since I’d had good sex.
I heard Ero’s voice behind me, as timid as a grown man’s voice could be. I didn’t dare take my eyes off of Aureo’s to check. “Are you gonna be okay, Phoebe?”
Aureo snared. “She’ll be fine. You know that.”
“I asked her,” Ero persisted—well, nearly growled, actually.
