pain in the ass.”
“Cut your losses and leave.”
“Not happening.”
I held out my hand. “Give me your phone.”
He lifted a brow. “Why would I do that?”
“I’ll block your mistresses since you’re so hell-bent on controlling my life. Or maybe I’ll tell them humiliating stories, like the time I caught you and my cousins watching porn in the living room.”
“That story is only embarrassing because you were nine.”
“No, it was weird because we’d just returned from a funeral.” I still remembered tottering downstairs after the wake, captivated by the moving limbs on the television. “What kind of kid watches porn after seeing a dead person?”
“Blame your brother. His idea.”
“Oh, it’s all Michael’s fault?”
“He was in charge,” said Vinn, not looking remotely abashed. “We visited the video store after the funeral to rent something. We were trying to cheer up our cousin. He’d just lost his mom.”
“Nothing says I’m sorry for your loss more than a porno.”
“Teenage boys.” Vinn shrugged. “We didn’t know any better.”
I shook my head. “Did it work?”
“Well, no. You barged in and ruined everything.”
Waves of heat bounced from me to him as the light overhead dimmed, throwing us into shadows. Candlelight softened Vinn’s stony features, making him less a predator, more Prince Charming.
“Mom was so mad,” I whispered, alarmed by the electricity pinging my skin. “I remember you springing from the couch to cover my eyes.”
“Like this?”
Vinn slid his palm over my gaze.
Warmth bloomed inside me.
A slender thread of attraction slowly formed between us.
His hand weighed as heavy as it had back then, and the arm hooking my shoulders echoed his gentleness. Suddenly I was a breathless girl, disarmed by his undivided attention.
He pressed his mouth into the shell of my ear, sending a jolt through me. “Close them, Little Li. I’ll know if you cheat.”
“I hate this game.”
“Do as I say, and I’ll make it worth your while.”
Twelve years ago, he’d lured me from the living room with those words to the attic. My reward was half an hour of board games, which for a nine-year-old was huge. We’d played while the floor rumbled with my mother’s scandalized voice. My mind swam with the image of Vinn hunched in the cramped space.
Until his lips grazed my neck.
The sensation made my head spin. Still blind, I sank into his arms. He kissed a line from my ear downward, every touch striking a vibrant chord inside me. He slid against my palm, hot and dry. Then he led me by the shoulder, steering me across the room. My heart pounded an erratic rhythm, his magnetism so potent that I obeyed.
A door groaned.
He crowded my back, his impatience making me stumble. The noise from the party dropped as the door slammed. A lock latched. We stood in an empty gallery. White walls and concrete surrounded me.
Vinn grabbed me, dropping the pretense.
My smile dissolved.
Reality set in.
This wasn’t Vinn, my protector. He was a predator who’d lured me away from safety, locked the door, and immobilized me. His arms wrapped me like a straitjacket, freeing my vision but binding me everywhere else.
It’d all been an act—the banter and his gentleness.
He’d put on a show to get me alone.
Fuck.
Eight
Liana
I bucked against his strength, but it was like pushing rock slabs. My breath hitched as he wheeled me toward a blank wall. I was too aware of his brutal power. He could strangle me by squeezing me too hard, but Vinn had other ideas.
“Put your hands on the wall. Bend over.”
The impersonal words lashed my mouth with unbidden heat.
“Too soon, don’t you think?” I rattled off, my nerves haywire. “Usually guys start with dinner and drinks before jumping into foreplay.”
“You’re just like your goddamned brother.” Vinn plastered my wrists above my head, his weight buckling my knees. “Impulsive. Hotheaded. No sense.”
“You’re the one ordering me to bend over.”
I should shut up.
But I relished his punishing grip. Vinn never lost his temper. He seethed. I still remembered the flare of indignation across his brow those few times I’d disobeyed him, but this was something else.
Vinn had no reason to grind against me. His thigh brushed my hip, and a jolt seared me.
“You push me to the brink.” His words blasted my ear. “I should rip off this dress and parade you outside. Leave no doubt who you belong to.”
“My brother would have a problem with that.”
“He can go fuck himself.”
His palm slipped through the side slit and stroked me. My senses leaped to life at the hands roaming my curves, though I could’ve thrown myself off