Authors: Red Garnier
Haley reached for the plush devil toy to spin it once again.
Silence befell as they all watched it twirl around and then stop, the tail to
Jason, the pitchfork to Haley.
Jason chuckled wickedly, his eyes narrowing at her. “Truth
or dare, babe?”
“Dare!” Haley shouted in a burst of enthusiasm.
“That’s what I’d hoped.” Jason took a swig of his beer and
watched her through lowered lashes for several long, endless seconds. “I want
you, Haley, very slowly…very gently…to pucker up those lips of yours…bend
down…and
kiss my ass
,
baby
!”
“Eeeew,” Haley said, her face contorted with disgust.
Everyone hooted with laughter until Haley stood up and
mumbled a curse on her way to where Jason was now standing, midway in the
process of dropping his pants.
“You are so gross, Jason,” Luella said, and yet out of sheer
morbid curiosity, she kept her eyes glued to his pale white buttocks as Haley
bent down to kiss them.
The moment Haley pressed her lips to his butt, Jason made a
lascivious face. “Oh yeah, yeah, lick it baby, suck it baby, yeah.” Haley
smacked her hand on the side of his ass to silence him.
Jason’s eyes widened. “Hey, I kinda liked that. Can you do
it again?”
“You’re so funny, Jason,” Haley said, all sarcasm as she
pulled away from him and headed to sit next to Luella, glowering the whole
time. Her cheeks were flushed and though she was scowling, there was an
indisputable spark of heat in the depths of her eyes.
“You can’t say you didn’t like it, Haley,” Jason said, the
image of solemnity as he zipped up his pants.
“I did not.” Haley brushed the back of her hand over her
lips to prove it, making Jason laugh.
“You did too.”
“If I get to dare you, you’re going to have to kiss mine!”
she threatened.
“Gee, I would love to.”
“Okay, let’s keep this shit moving,” Luella said, bored
already, since she was the kind of person who got extremely bored when she
wasn’t the center of attention. Before anyone could reply, she spun the devil
once more. Cleo swallowed hard when it stopped—the pitchfork staring her in the
face, the tail toward Sebastian.
A rope of fear stretched in her insides and coiled around
her heart like a noose.
She didn’t dare lift her gaze.
“Truth or dare, Cleo?” Sebastian’s voice was soft as the
breeze itself.
Every time he spoke her name she wondered why it should
sound like an indecent proposal. Everything about him, even the way he spoke, distressed
her somehow.
“Dare.” She didn’t think twice. It simply had to be dare. If
she opted for truth, he’d want to know private things, personal things, and
Cleo would rather die than confess anything about her life to her longtime
tormenter.
“Are you sure you want me to dare you, Cleo?”
His voice was low, and Cleo finally forced her gaze to meet
his. He was probably enjoying every second of this, the jerk. It seemed like he
lived only to taunt and tease her mercilessly, but she couldn’t let him know how
he affected her. She was certain that casual coolness was the smartest way to
go. “Of course. You don’t scare me, you big bully,” she teased, grateful for
the fact that she sounded more convincing than she felt.
His smile was wicked, as if he were enjoying a private
little joke. Which she next learned, he actually was.
“I dare you to let me fuck you any way I want to.”
Chapter Two
Cleo froze for a whole minute, uncertain if he was toying
with her or serious. His expression was unreadable, his jaw set firmly. Cleo
was certain she heard a thump when her heart dropped to her toes.
“
I
’
ll
fuck you Bas,” Luella instantly
volunteered.
Sebastian’s magnetic black eyes didn’t flicker from Cleo’s
face, now growing whiter by the second. “Thanks baby, but I want Cleo.”
At the moment, Cleo’s main mission in life was to not die of
asphyxiation. Her throat was closed and dry and she felt lightheaded and
nauseous from lack of oxygen. She drew in a small little breath while her mind
reeled with thoughts. Bad boy, mean-looking, cussing, drinking, whoring
Sebastian wanted
her
. He could have—no, he
had
had—every
available female, student
and
faculty, on the University of Miami
campus. Why he had chosen her as his little private sex toy, not the siren
Luella or the spirited Haley, was as inexplicable to Cleo as why her pulse had
quickened at his words.
“You’re…you’re joking,” Cleo said when she was finally able
to speak. And though she’d hoped it wouldn’t, her voice shook drastically. This
had
to be one of thousands of Sebastian’s demeaning, not-funny-at-all,
revolting little jokes.
“I’m very serious, Cleo.”
He said it so calmly, so casually, as if all he had to do
was ask and he’d have any woman for the taking. He didn’t seem to know for some
reason that Cleo was
not
his toy and that she was
not
a whore.
If Cleo wanted to hone her self-assertion skills, now was a
good time to do so.
She shook her head firmly, not caring if she was breaking
some unmentionable rule of this stupid, silly game. She was not going to
participate in anything like this,
especially
if it involved Sebastian
Russo. “No,” she said.
“No?”
“
No
,
Sebastian,” she repeated.
Sebastian looked only mildly concerned and with his eyes
still fixed on hers, commanded, “Hold her, guys.”
The guys obeyed him as if he were the boss of them, as if he
were the king and they his subjects, leaving Cleo completely speechless as
David clasped one of her wrists and Jason forced the other behind her back.
“What are you doing?” she screeched, fighting to free herself, only to have them
both none-too-gently lock her arms behind her. Jason winked at her, as if this
were all just fun and games. Jason thought
everything
was fun.
“It’s no use fighting, Cleo. You wanted a dare. You got it.”
Rising to his full six feet, two inches of intimidating body mass, Sebastian
crossed the circle toward her with a wide, pleased smile on his lips.
“No,” Cleo said, trying to break free from her captors. “No.
Let me go. This is not funny.”
“It’s not meant to be funny.” Sebastian’s voice was dry and
humorless.
Wide-eyed, she watched him approach, as big and dark as a
shroud of blackness. Cleo felt like a virgin girl about to be sacrificed to the
Lord of Hell. He walked toward her deliberately, slowly, as if he wanted to
punish her, make her suffer with every step he took. The lone diamond earring
he wore in his left ear sparkled blindingly in the lantern light. She wanted to
tear it away and fling it at him, see if she could wipe that infernal smirk off
his face. Her pulse drummed against her temple, making her head pound, nearly
deafening her.
“You’ve always been a chickenshit, haven’t you, Cleo?”
“No, Sebastian,” she said firmly, her eyes blazing as she
met his steely black gaze.
“Let her go, Bas, she doesn’t want you—but don’t worry.
I
do,” Cleo heard Luella say. Her voice sounded oddly distant, as if Luella
were speaking from somewhere else, somewhere far away.
Sebastian’s gaze bored into hers, bottomless and fierce. And
when he spoke, she knew his words were meant for her only. “Of course she wants
me. She’s always wanted me.”
“That’s not true!” Cleo cried.
David snorted beside her and Cleo whipped her face sideways
to look at him. “David?” she asked breathlessly.
David shook his head, smiling. “That’s bullshit, Cleo,” he
said.
Jason bent forward to look at her, his eyes sparkling with
mirth and lust. “Come on, Cleo baby. You’ve been at each other’s throats for
years. Give him a break and just admit it.”
“I won’t admit anything!” she cried, turning to Sebastian,
her chest heaving, her eyes shooting daggers at him. “I won’t take my clothes
off, Sebastian. I won’t do it.”
“That’s all right. I think I can dispense them without your
assistance.” With little effort he tore her cotton sundress, ripping the fabric
off her body as she cried out a protest and struggled to free herself. From
afar, Haley and Luella also protested, too drunk to think coherently or
understand the
real
issue here, instead shouting something about
expensive women’s clothes and how Sebastian ought to pay for that.
When Cleo almost yanked her shoulders out of their sockets
from her efforts, she stilled her arms and thrust her legs into the air,
kicking wildly, shrieking while Sebastian, deftly avoiding her blows, reached
for her panties and tore them off her like paper. Cleo cursed both him
and
his bitch of a mother and he seemed amused by that as he reached for her bra,
the last shred of cloth that covered her. The sound of the fabric tearing
echoed in the night, until a deathly silence befell and all they could hear
were the ragged sounds of Cleo’s breathing as she went completely still, fully
naked now, her body exposed to the sky and wind like an offering.
“Shit, will you look at the size of those tits!” Jason said
beside her.
Gasping for breath, Cleo fought to free herself once more.
“Let go of me!” she screeched.
The men yanked her arms farther behind her, their fingers
digging into the tender flesh of her wrists as they forcefully stilled her.
Sebastian’s eyes roved over her body in a silent caress that
heated the insides of her treacherous body like a forest fire running out of
control. Her body shook with wanting but Cleo knew better. The last time her
body begged for chocolates she’d given in—and ended up red and bloated with
allergies for weeks. She wasn’t about to listen to its demands now, not now
when it had
no
idea what was good for her.
“My God, you’re beautiful.” Sebastian choked on the words,
his gaze greedily absorbing every detail of her body. She could swear his eyes
touched her, for she could feel them brushing over her hot, fevered skin with
the gentleness of a feather.
Beside her, David and Jason looked at their leisure, their
gazes shining with lust at the sight of her ripe, round breasts.
“I could suck those babies forever,” Jason mumbled.
“Sebastian,” Cleo begged softly, her eyes pleading with his.
“Please don’t.”
Something flickered in his eyes, something dark and
haunting. “Save the begging for later, beautiful. And stand up so I can look my
fill.”
“No!” she squealed, even as she was hauled upright by her
captors.
Cleo felt her legs tremble beneath her and found she could
only remain on her feet because of David’s and Jason’s support. Sebastian
circled her, his eyes missing nothing. She yelped when he slapped a hand to her
buttock, bouncing her muscle with the hit and making her skin sting afterward.
“Hmm. Nice.”
He smacked her other buttock with a harsh slap and she bit
her lower lip to muffle the whimper that came. His finger dipped into the
crevice between her cheeks, up and down, slowly following the curve of her
rump, and Cleo swore she would faint.
Then Sebastian resumed his circling once again, his steps
painfully slow as he walked around her.
Cleo’s eyes landed on the plush red devil that lay untouched
on the sand a few feet away from her. It was as if the thing had possessed
them. That harmless little toy had turned this game into a nightmare.
“Look at me.”
Cleo gritted her teeth, refusing to look at Sebastian,
instead keeping her gaze fixed on the toy devil, the least menacing of the two.
At least
that
devil wasn’t a hypocrite. At least that devil carried its
pitchfork and tail and didn’t pretend to be something it wasn’t, while
Sebastian sometimes did, and it was cruel.
Cleo remembered many times—too many to forget, even though
she’d tried—when Sebastian had been good to her. He’d hugged her when she’d
missed an exam, kissed her temple oh-so softly. Studying had been of utmost
importance to Cleo and he’d occasionally let her cry about her college
tragedies in the comfort of his arms. And yet after every one of these surprising,
unexpected moments, he would transform in the blink of an eye and become…mean.
He would then mock her, tease her, sneer at her, making the memories of those
too-brief tender moments as painful as his taunts.
He’d even danced with her once. Sebastian despised dancing,
but he’d done so because she was the only girl at the party sitting down lonely
and with a lump in her throat…
When the song started, Cleo held Sebastion nearly at
arm’s length, keeping a safe distance between them, like she’d do with anyone
else. But he wasn’t anyone else. He was Sebastian Russo, and he immediately
protested, a low vibration rumbling in his chest as he grabbed her waist and
pulled her forward. “Please don’t, Bas,” Cleo said shakily, but he pressed her
to him anyway, despite the slight push of her palms at his shoulders.
He was taller by at least a head, and far bigger and
stronger. His grip was not in the least bit gentle and she shouldn’t have been
aroused by the harsh, possessive way he held her waist. But it did arouse her.
Uncomfortably, embarrassingly so.
Cleo kept her eyes averted, taking care to look at the
couples dancing beside them instead. Just being near him made her feel needy
and she had to check back the impulse to cling to his massive, hard male body
as it soothingly rocked against hers.
“Put your arms around me, Cleo,” she heard him say. His
voice, so near, so husky, moved her more than any love song ever could. It made
her sex tingle and for that disturbing feeling alone, she locked her arms
straight and pushed back slightly, needing to put more space between them.
Space to breathe.
“I’m fine, thank you,” she said, keeping her arms stiff
on his shoulders, her eyes roaming. “Thanks for dancing with me. I know you
didn’t really want to.”