Audition - Skye Warren, Amelia Wilde Page 0,55

kind of hollowness, knowing that men only want to use my body for pleasure.

What would it be like to believe you can only cause pain?

I’ll never convince him otherwise. I’m not even sure he’s wrong. Whatever’s happening between us—it will break my heart. It’s already breaking. I lift his hand, shocked at how even this part of him is heavy with muscle. I press his palm flat against my chest, in the place between my breasts. Standing far away, he could be an ordinary-sized man. Like this, it’s clear how large he is. How powerful. His thumb rests against one breast. His pinky finger against the other. My heart beats erratically beneath the weight. “Then hurt me.”

He stares at me, the conflict plain in his gaze. There are a thousand battles fought in the span of seconds. I should probably give him time to consider the consequences. Instead I lick my lips. It isn’t something conscious. It’s as if my body is preparing itself for sex, as if it knows what this will feel like even if my mind does not. An ambush. The war is over.

He lifts his hand to my mouth, tracking the path of my tongue. It’s wet and crude and somehow sweet at the same time. Scars on his fingertips drag along my lips, the way mountains jut into the sky. He’s the jagged line; I’m the endless blue.

“I’m going to kiss you here,” he says, his voice almost conversational. He could be giving me instructions for our security detail. This could be routine. “I’m going to fuck you here, too. There’s no part of this body I won’t touch and bend and use. Understand?”

Wrong. He shouldn’t be talking to me this way, and I definitely shouldn’t like it. My whole life I’ve been fighting against the idea that men can use my body. I’ve been kicking and screaming against society’s demands—only to discover they turn me on. Well, not any man. Not every man. Joshua North. When he says those words, they turn me on.

“What if I say no?” The question comes out coy, and I’m not even sure how I want him to answer—as the man who’s protecting me or as the asshole I’ve always wanted.

“Then I stop.” The corner of his mouth turns up. It’s a smile without humor, without doubt. “You aren’t going to want me to stop. Not until I’m through with you.”

A clench between my legs. “You’re pretty confident.”

“I fuck the way I do everything else. Mean. You come when I say so.” Heavy lids hood those green eyes, making him look sinister, underscoring his words. “We stop, you don’t get to come.”

I should want someone like Landon, someone who has the same interests as me, someone who understands the life of a dancer. I should like any one of the men who come to my performances, who look at me like I’m a figurine in a music box. They would never talk to me this way. And I would never feel this pulsing, aching sense of being alive.

“Prove it,” I say, lifting my chin away from his touch.

Half of me braces for impact, as if he might rip the leotard off my body, as if he might slam me into the mats. He has more patience than I gave him credit for. More strategy.

He smiles. “Say no, Bethany.”

He traces the line of my cheek with his forefinger. Sensation suffuses my body. His finger is a heat source, and my body is pure metal. I’m conducting everything he gives me. There’s complete concentration as he draws his finger down to my jaw—and lower, lower, to the tendon in my neck. He takes his time. So much time, as if this is the only thing he ever wanted to do to me, as if his finger pad on my pulse point is the culmination of our entire sexual encounter.

I understand now why I’d never say no—because I’m desperate for more. “Yes,” I whisper.

The back of his hand brushes over my breast, back and forth, back and forth, until my nipple hardens, until it shoves against the fabric, small and sharp. He squeezes the tip, making me moan. Harder. Harder. Hard enough that I let out a squeak of protest. Then he does let me go, and the feeling is enough to make me light-headed. It doesn’t feel good, exactly. This isn’t chocolate milk. It’s a shot of whiskey that burns down my throat and warms low in my belly.

“Should I?” I