I should be annoyed considering the effort I went through to cover it, but instead I’m just turned on. There’s a part of me that likes the fact that he knows exactly where the bruises are that he left on me. It’s the same part that likes knowing he wants to see those same bruises—and that he wants others to see them, too, no matter what he says.
The final chorus rings through the ballroom and never in my life have I been so grateful that a song is almost over. I’m trying to stay aloof here, trying not to let him know just how turned on he makes me, even after everything that’s happened. But the longer he holds me, the harder it is for me to fake it. The harder it is for me to keep my body under control.
So much for bringing him to his knees. At this point, I’m almost ready to drop to mine and to hell with anything that’s come before or will come after.
But just as Natalie croons the last lyrics, Ian whirls me around so that my back is to his front. It’s definitely his favorite position when we’re together and I fight the newest wave of arousal it brings on as I try to decide if I’m going to let him get away with holding me like this. Before I can make a decision, he loops one arm around the top of my shoulders and another around my hips even as he propels me toward the closest set of doors.
We make it there in seconds and he pushes the doors open, leads me onto one of the twelve small pocket balconies that surround the ballroom.
I’ve deliberately kept the lights off out here, choosing instead to string twinkle lights across the ceiling and through the wrought-iron railings. The result is fairy-like and sophisticated, light enough for people not to stumble around and dark enough to grant privacy to any guests who find their way outside.
Once the doors close behind us, I wait for Ian to make a move even though I’m still deciding how I’m going to respond. Am I going to be magnanimous or am I going to make him suffer? Am I going to let him kiss me or am I going to make him work for it? My panties might be damp, but I felt his very long, very hard cock pressed against me when we danced. I’m not the only one who’s aroused here.
I’ve just about decided to go the suffering route—at least until I get some kind of explanation for why he all but kicked me out of his hotel room this morning—but he doesn’t reach for me. Instead, he moves me forward, out of the shadows, and doesn’t stop until we’re looking out over the grounds of the estate.
We’re on the east side of the ballroom, though, which means the grounds we are looking over are the same ones that were ravaged this morning by Jensen and his crew. I try not to look at the lit path that used to be my rose trail, try not to look at the belladonna plants that have replaced them.
I’m afraid if I do I’ll freak out and tumble down the rabbit hole again. I’m barely holding on as it is and the last thing I want right now is to lose it in front of Ian. I may be fucking him, but that doesn’t mean I trust him. Not after what happened in his hotel room this morning—and not when he’s writing an article about me. He might not be a typical journalist, but in my opinion, that only makes him more dangerous, not less. He sees too much, knows too much about the dark side of human nature.
And so I turn away from the gardens, choosing to face him instead of the desecrated mess below me. Sleeping with him might have been a mistake, but at least I remember every second of it. I know it’s real and, right now, that’s all that matters.
Always take the devil you know.
The phrase comes to me fully formed, and I swear I can hear her saying it. Celeste Warren. The Belladonna. In preparation for the role I watched hours upon hours of interview footage with her in various stages of her life. She was a smart woman and a beautiful one, and she dominated any room she was put in.
She controlled everyone around her with her beauty and her ice-cold intelligence and the fact that she could run circles around them verbally. Many a reporter had tried to pin her down on one subject or another through the years, but she’d never let them trap her. She’d always had some joke or glib adage to get her out of sticky situations—and that was one of them. Always take the devil you know.
It had worked for her, too, it had all worked for her. The whole package. Right up until she took that fateful interview with Ian and her whole carefully constructed pack of lies fell like dominoes around her.
And Ian wonders why I’m wary around him? Why I dance around his questions instead of giving him the direct answers he wants? He’s so good at reading people, at seeing below the surface to who they really are, that I can’t help being terrified he’ll do the same to me. And then where will I be? My public persona is at least as carefully crafted as the Belladonna’s ever was. And my house of cards so much more delicately balanced.