I wouldn’t believe it. Not this time. I couldn’t.
“Did you?” There was hope in my eyes. I knew it, because it wavered in my question.
Theo looked at me like I was a curiosity. “What if I did?”
Below us, the ball continued without pause, lilting music and laughter taunting me. They were having a wonderful time, unaware that above them a girl was shattering.
“I don’t believe it,” I whispered. “It’s like before. You’re lying. It’s a misunderstanding.”
He took a breath and leaned against the wall, one shoulder propped. “I wondered how the Crowne sisters compared. Gemma tastes better, but you’re definitely more eager to please.”
My lips trembled.
I didn’t need to listen to this.
I turned to leave, but he gripped my bicep, spinning me flush against his naked body. When I struggled, he tangled one hand in my hair, the other at my lower back, anchoring me.
“You said you loved me, Abigail.” His words were taunting, not sweet. “Even if I betrayed you. How does that lie taste on your tongue?”
“Fuck you—”
He tugged my hair until our eyes locked. He looked demonic. Crazed. His eyes searched mine like a police dog going in for a kill.
“You said you would love me, Abigail.”
“Fuck you.”
“If you insist.” Then his lips were on mine.
Twenty-Eight
ABIGAIL
His lips were punishing and consoling, taking my pain and sorrow and twisting it into something sweet. I couldn’t escape our addicting ouroboros, and a moan threatened to escape me. The moment it left my lips, Theo broke our connection and shoved me to the bed.
The bed where my sister’s ball gown now lay beneath me.
I couldn’t see him; our ball gowns took up my vision. Fuck tulle. Seriously, fuck whoever invented it. He was a predator and I was his prey, trapped in the bushes of glittery and gauzy fabric, trying to find him.
“I’m not doing this here.”
I could’ve stood up, run out of the room and from this. Instead I made a weak proclamation even I wasn’t sure I believed. I heard a creak on the hardwood to my left.
“Where I fucked your sister, you mean?” Theo’s voice came at me from the right, low and amused. “She’s probably still on the sheets.”
“Stop.”
“Can you feel her?” His low voice took up all the space in the room until it was inside me, seeping cold amusement. “I fucked her bare before I put on the condom.”
“Stop.”
I was yanked by my right ankle, pulled roughly out of the tulle forest, into the eyes of Theo.
“Does it hurt?” he asked. “Does it fucking break you up inside?”
His eyes pierced me. The green in them fractured like cracked gemstones, furious emotion shining through. Naked he was so breathtaking. All sharp glistening edges—naked because of my sister. Three parallel scratch marks slid down his pec. He was mine. He was mine, and she’d marked him and he’d let her.
I found his eyes again, but they were too tender. I needed him to be cruel as betrayal’s knife twisted in my side.