Page 155 of Captive Ruin

I want more than anything to let it out, to smash things, maybe starting with Van Wyk’s too-handsome arrogant face. But I know how that’ll end, and I don’t want to give him the excuse.

By the time I’ve reached the house, my anger is back where it needs to be: suppressed, controlled, as much a captive as the rest of me.

“—discuss with Bastien after the Company meeting in Westchester tonight, so it’ll be a late one. Keep her safe.”

“I always do.”

“Yeah, I know.”

I stop in the hallway, listening, my glass in one hand, a bottle of red in the other. Van Wyk and Jorge in his office, and they’re talking about me. The door is ajar, otherwise I wouldn’t have heard them.

Wait. Why is Jorge on duty tonight? It’s Tony’s day. Not that it makes any difference. Neither of them talks to me; Tony and I haven’t exchanged words since our spat by the pool a week ago.

“Eavesdropping, Princess?”

I spin. Tony’s leaning against the wall, watching me with an amused smirk.

“I wasn’t—”

But in two strides, Van Wyk has crossed his office and pulls the door open wide.

“Amelia.” Too many emotions flicker across his face to name them. “You were listening?”

“No, I wasn’t listening—”

“She was,” Tony says. “I came around the corner to see her stopped right outside the door.”

“I was passing, okay?” I gesture down the hall with my wine bottle. “Sunroom, right? I heard you mention Bastien’s name, then you were talking about me. So of course I stopped.”

He steps in close, his hand gripping my arm. “What else did you hear?”

“Jesus. Nothing.” I frown. “Why, what shouldn’t I have heard?”

“Nothing,” he mutters, releasing me and turning away.

“Convincing,” I say in a sarcastic sing-song voice. “Keep your secrets, Van Wyk. I don’t want them.”

He turns back, glances at Tony who lifts his hands in placation and walks off down the hallway, then puts his hand on the small of my back and steers me toward the sunroom. “It’s not secrets. I’m… protecting you.”

“Of course you are. That’s your excuse for everything.”

“Damn it, Amelia,” he mutters. “You’re really testing my patience.”

“Going to clench your fist? Hit something? Hit me?”

A growl rumbles through his chest like a primal warning, my only warning that I’ve crossed the line. He’s on me in a second, pinning me to the wall, one hand around my neck. The other slaps into the paintwork with a crack. The base of the glass I’m holding catches the plaster and snaps off, but neither of us cares. I drop it as his leg shoves between mine, the hard muscles of his thigh pressing right against my sex.

And for the first time in weeks, held immobile with my airway constricted, I feel something other than anger.

Fear first, cold down my back. Then arousal, immediate and hot, my nipples tightening, stomach clenching, hips pressing forward against his leg. And underneath both, something I haven’t felt in weeks: the simple fact of being alive.

But my anger still wins.

“Go on,” I choke out, glaring at him. “Do it. Do it.”

“Do what?” he asks, his grip easing, confusion cutting through his anger.

“Slap me. Pin me down. Bend me over that chair and spank me. Whatever it is you always do.”