A Girl Named Calamity (Alyria 1)

It felt as though fear was a real substance and it filled up my lungs, making it difficult to breathe. A cold sweat covered my skin. I tried to jump down again, but Weston held me tight.

I looked up into his eyes. “I’ll do anything you want . . . but please don’t make me do this.”

He smiled. “Ah, so that’s all it takes to get you to be compliant. Threaten to take you over the Glass Bridge.” I could barely understand what he was saying and what I said as we got closer and closer to my doom.

When we took the first full step onto the bridge, I was going to vomit. I imagined I would puke, and Gallant would slip on it, and we’d fall to our deaths. I was too overwhelmed to even chastise my imagination.

The hole was dark and so deep, I couldn’t see the bottom. All I would have to do was slide right off and to my death with my sideways position.

Please, fortune teller, anything but this.

All of a sudden, I was spun around so I faced Weston. The motion was so fast that I didn’t realize what happened until it was over. I wrapped my arms around him, and I didn’t think I had ever held onto something tighter. If I was going down, so was he.

“Don’t look,” he said while I buried my face into his chest. I imagined the glass breaking every few steps and only took comfort in believing Weston could probably fly.

He chuckled. “Sorry to break it—”

“You can fly if I say you can fly,” I mumbled against his chest.

After a few minutes, my breathing slowed down until it was in sync with Weston’s. I didn’t open my eyes until I heard the clop of Gallant’s hooves on the glass soften to the sound of soft earth. I took a deep breath and let go of Weston to stretch out my tense muscles.

Now that I wasn’t on the verge of death, I realized how close we actually were.

And it was close.

My eyes traveled up from his chest to his eyes. He wasn’t looking at me, and when I followed his gaze down, I noticed what he was focused on. If my dress were an inch shorter, he would have seen everything. Propriety had taught me that I should have excused myself immediately and fixed the indecency.

But I believed I was miles past that, considering my ankles showing in Alger would have been indecent. And I might have tried to burn my grandmother’s copy of The Ladies Book of Etiquette when I was seven. Triumph fluttered in my stomach as I looked at his eyes that were nowhere near my face.

“You’ll have it with many more women, Weston. Don’t try to make it into something special,” I mocked. His smoldering gaze locked onto mine.

I didn’t know how I would dismount Gallant without exposing something much more private than my ankles . . . But I only gave it a few seconds thought, because I had decided it was inevitable. Only because I loved to get under Weston’s skin. He deserved it after all he had put me through.

I tried to swing my leg around him, but he grabbed my thigh in a firm grip.

I was mesmerized while I looked at his tan, rough hand wrapped around the smooth skin of my upper thigh. I hated what this man had done to me . . . but I couldn’t stop my body from reacting to him. It was like standing on the road in front of a fast-moving carriage, knowing that it would hit you, but being enthralled by the horses’ silver harnesses.

Carnal thoughts ran through my head unwillingly. And he probably got some good images of him on top of me, those rough hands roaming everywhere on my body.

“Don’t play games with me,” he growled.

He believed I thought it on purpose.

That’s okay. We’ll go with that.

“You’re the only one here who plays games,” I said.

He gave me a dirty look before he grabbed my dress and tugged it down as far as he could. The movement only pulled me closer to him, and an image of him pushing me against a wall and kissing down my neck entered my mind while his hand traveled down my stomach and—

“Stop.”

The image disappeared, and I looked up into angry eyes.

That time might have been on purpose.

“Do you want to lose your virginity on the back of a fucking horse?”

He was bluffing. I knew he wouldn’t touch me like that. He had ample opportunities and never took advantage of them. I wouldn’t lie and say it didn’t sting just a little.