A Scandal in the Headlines(21)

She had a sinking sensation then, as if she’d somehow strayed into quicksand and was moments away from being sucked under. Think, she ordered herself in a panic. Turn this around!

“And that’s all it takes?” She arched her brows high in disbelief. “I need only click my fingers and you’ll serve my every whim?”

“Of course.” The amusement on his ruthless face did nothing to ease the fierceness of it. And the lie on his lips was laced with laughter. “I am powerless in the face of your machinations, Elena.”

Her pulse was wild in her veins, and she felt like prey—like he was stalking her when he hadn’t moved. He only stood there, his hands thrust deep in his pockets, and she felt as if she was running hard and scared with his hot breath right there on the back of her neck—

“Somehow,” she managed to say, her voice cool and dry rather than panicked, though it cost her, “I have trouble seeing you as quite that submissive.”

“But this is what you want,” he replied in that soft, taunting way, his dark eyes alight. “Isn’t that why we’re here at all? You demanded it. I obeyed.”

Elena had to leave. Now. She had to shut this down before she betrayed herself, before she gave in to the need blazing through her. She would lock herself inside her room, ignore the emptiness and yearning inside of her, and pretend she was locking him out rather than keeping herself in. All she had to do was walk away from him.

She stood in a rush, aware she gave herself away with the speed of it, the total lack of grace. His hard mouth moved into that devastating curve that seemed to curl into the very core of her, making her soften. Ache. She couldn’t trust herself to stay, to try to act her way through this. She wanted to run for the door, but she made herself walk instead. As if she was making a simple choice to leave. As if she didn’t already feel pursued when he still hadn’t moved a muscle.

“I’m not going to chase you through the house, Elena.” His voice slid over her, dark and insinuating. Finding its way into her deepest, blackest, most secret corners, far away from any light. Deep into the places she pretended weren’t there. “Unless you ask nicely. Is that what you need? Permission to scream no at the top of your lungs and know I’ll take you, anyway? No responsibility, no regrets?”

The shudder that worked through her then was fierce and deep, involuntary, and she couldn’t pretend it had anything to do with revulsion. She felt weak. Weak and desperate. She had to stop walking, had to reach out and hold on to the wall near the wide, arching doorway. She had to fight to keep from revealing how tempted she was, how twisted that made her. She had to keep from confirming what he already seemed to know.

“I don’t—” she began desperately, but he sighed impatiently, cutting her off.

“No more lies. Not about this.”

Alessandro was leaning back against one of the windows when she turned to look at him again, but nothing about him was languid. She could see his coiled strength, his seething power. He was dressed all in white tonight, and should have looked relaxed. Casual. But he looked more to her like a warrior king, surveying the field of battle and entirely too confident of his own impending victory.

He smiled again, and she felt it bloom inside of her, almost like pain. That low, impossible almost-pain that never entirely left her and that pulsed now, bright and demanding and hungry. Between her legs. In the fullness of her breasts. Even behind her eyes.

“I didn’t realize you wanted to play games,” she said stiffly, because she had to say something, and she was rapidly forgetting all the reasons why she couldn’t simply throw herself at him and worry about it later.

“Of course you did.” Laughter lurked in his voice again, gleamed in those dark, knowing eyes. “You want to play them, too.”

“I don’t.” But what if she did? She flushed red hot, imagining.

You are truly shameless, a cold voice hissed inside her, condemning her anew.

Alessandro only crooked his index finger at her then, ordering her to come to him. To admit the things she wanted—to surrender herself to them. To him.

And she wanted that almost more than she could bear.

“No,” she said too loudly, and she knew she was talking to herself. To remind herself of who she was, before she did something else she’d bitterly regret.

He wasn’t safe, no matter how much that insane part of her insisted otherwise. He wasn’t. And she was too afraid that giving in to him, to this, would make her believe she could trust him with the truth. She couldn’t.

No matter how hard that was to remember.