Lust & Lies Box Set-Sexual Awakenings, Excess, Predator & Prey

I straightened my dress as Damien smirked down at me. “You don’t strike me as the indecisive type.”

“I’m not,” I snapped as I tried to gather myself. I weighed my options as Damien patiently stood next to me, confusion covering his handsome face. “I’m suddenly thirsty again.” I saw irritation flash through his eyes briefly before he extended his elbow. “Tonight is about you, right?”

“Thank you.”

He gave me a sideways glance as we walked back toward the bar. “I have a good feeling you’re worth the wait.”

Seated on the same stool I’d recently occupied, the curious bartender passed out a repeat of drinks while I did a horrible fucking job of not looking in Daniello’s direction. He was seated on the couch as he had been a few short months ago, surrounded by the men he’d come with, and didn’t once glance my way. My heart pounded as Damien’s fingers trailed casually across my skin while I sipped my wine at a snail’s pace. I heard Daniello’s laugh bellow out in the night air, and the bartender noticed his arrival. A playful “I remember you” smile graced her lips as she sauntered over and took drink orders. Daniello dismissed her without a second glance, and I couldn’t help the slight satisfaction that lay in my gut as she stomped away, forgotten.

But then again, I was walking a mile in her shoes.

Damien, too transfixed with seduction and the cock that pulsed in his pants, was completely ignorant to my shift in attention. The man I longed for was feet away, and I was fuming at his indifference toward me.

It was punishment. But why? I obviously meant nothing. And if that were the case, message received.

I inched toward Damien as he turned my way, encasing my legs between his, and leaned in. “Now you’re just fucking with me,” he whispered before pushing the hair away from my neck. It was at that moment I finally caught the eyes of my lover. “Fuck you,” I mouthed as I moved to stand. It was a game. I was a game. Emotional involvement was for fucking fools, and I’d played one long enough. I snapped and gripped Damien by the arm before I leaned in with a promise, my lips ghosting against his skin. “I’ll be right back.”

I made my way to the ladies’ room and paced the floor as I tried to rationalize my anger.

Sex is not love. Sex is not love. Sex is not love. Sex is not love, Taylor! And I was a fool, again.

I checked my appearance and fixed my lipstick before I stormed out of the bathroom. When I returned to the bar, Damien was gone, and so was Daniello.

I raced to the penthouse, my blood boiling as I rode up the elevator. With my keycard in hand, I stalked toward the door when the elevator opened behind me.

Turning on my heel, ready for war, I began to pale when I saw the man who greeted me.

His face was twisted with anger while his eyes scoured me.

Rage.

Jealousy.

And more painfully, disgust.

My galloping heart kept my tongue still. The current in the air pierced my insides with the precision of a sharp knife. Daniello to

ok a single step out of the elevator and froze. Fully lit by the hall light and dressed in a fitted suit and tie, his beauty was only amplified by his anger. I ached to go to him. Touch him. Slap him.

Cold eyes had my flesh crawling with anticipation. The sick idea crept over me that I wanted him this way, in this state. I wanted his anger, if only to solidify my suspicion. He had to have felt something. Because I was practiced at the art of playing immune to emotion, and with Daniello, those emotions now ricocheted between us and felt like daggers as they buried themselves deep.

“I’m not happy with our arrangement.”

His hands fisted at his sides repeatedly, as if he was trying to figure out what to do before he punched the button behind him and the door reopened.

“So that’s it? You’re just going to leave?” I took angry strides toward him.

His voice was venom. “I need to be away from you, Taylor.”

I shook my head and scoffed indignantly. “Well, that’s nothing new, now, is it, you bastard! How long have you been here? How often do you do this?! Leave me here waiting for you to play with your friends!” Daniello stood his ground as I reached him and pushed his chest. “This is not who I am! I wait for no man!”

Daniello gripped the flesh of my upper arms, picked me up, and carried me as if I was weightless as he growled, “You would let another man touch you, fuck you?!” His voice was evidence of the deceit he felt as his eyes pierced me. Anger rolled off him as he slammed me flat against the door of the penthouse and smashed his palm against it while he cornered me. “You want to be fucked, Taylor, but he would not have satisfied you. I am inside you. You want me. You need my cock. Your thirst is not for him. You fool yourself. You make me a fool.” He tore the fabric off my shoulder with a vicious swipe of his hand, exposing a breast. He kept our eyes locked, green to brown. “You let him touch you.” He grasped my dress in annoyance.

Rip.

Rip.

My shredded dress hung at my waist as he tore himself from the frame of the door before he pounded his fist to his chest. “You reduce yourself to being some faceless man’s whore when you are my fucking sun!”