I want to lick at that nipple. I want to bite and tease and suck at it. I’m lifting the shirt when Sophia finally reacts. She tears her mouth away from mine, a wild look in her eye. Her hand whips out and slaps me across the face. A loud buzzing sound rings in my ear, deafeningly loud for a second before fading away. I touch my fingers to my jaw, stretching it out.

Sophia just stands there, her nipples still peaked and showing through the T-shirt, her lips pouting and bruised from our kiss. “Don’t you…don’t you fucking dare do that again,” she whispers. Her whole body is shaking.

“Why? Because you’re so in love with Matthew?” I ask. I can still feel my pulse in every part of my body—some places more painfully than others. Her gaze flickers down to my very obvious hard-on, her eyes shining a little too brightly. I don’t even try and hide it.

“You have no right to…I’m not your possession, Rebel.”

“I know that.”

“Then why the hell did you just treat me like I was? Something that belonged to you that you could just take?”

I lean back against the wall, my breathing slowly returning to normal. I don’t respond right away. I let it sink in—what just happened. I let her replay it a couple of times in her head, so she can see how ridiculous she’s being. “I didn’t take anything from you, sugar. I offered it to you. And you picked up what I was putting down.”

“I did not!”

I laugh, undoing the top button of the shirt I’m still wearing from yesterday. “Don’t they teach you anything about body language in your psychology class, sugar? I know quite a bit about body language.” I push off from the wall, standing directly in front of her. Touching my fingers to the delicate, beautifully soft skin around her eyes, I say, “For instance, when someone’s attracted to you, their pupils dilate.” I can barely see her iris for the deep well of black in her eyes right now. I trace my fingers up the side of her ribcage, fighting back a wicked smile. “Their breathing becomes erratic. Plus, women’s nipples tend to tighten. That’s an obvious one, given I can see your perfect nipples through the shirt you’re wearing.”

“Screw you,” Soph whispers, stepping away from me. She turns her back, hiding herself from me.

“I’m betting you’d be ready for that, too,” I tell her. I move myself behind her, pressing my body up against her back. She goes utterly still again, seemingly at war with herself. Slowly, I reach up, brushing her hair away from her neck, and then I stoop down to graze my lips ever so slightly against her soft, sweet-smelling skin. “I’m betting if I were to slide my hand down the front of your panties…” I slide my hand around her, starting from her hip, heading in that direction. “I’m betting if I were to do that, I’d find that you were more than ready for me to screw you.” My fingertips are almost doing it, almost sliding down the front of her lacy white underwear when she slaps my hand away.

“Stop. Please, Rebel. Just stop. I can’t…I don’t know what the hell is happening right now.”

I tuck my hands into my pockets, smiling softly at her. “I can tell you what’s happening right now, what’s been happening for days, but you won’t want to hear it.”

“You don’t know me, Rebel.” She says the words harshly, and I can hear the fear in her voice. She’s afraid, because she already knows what I’m about to say, and she knows that it’s true.

“You’re attracted to me, despite everything, and I’m attracted to you. We want each other, Sophia. It’s the reason why you’re so terrified right now. And it’s part of the reason why I’m letting you go.”

I leave the room, my head too messed up to even be in the same room with her right now. She doesn’t say anything as I go. She doesn’t deny that what I’m saying is true.

******

When I come across Leah, she’s in the foyer refreshing the flowers, dressed from head to toe in the ridiculous maid’s uniform Louis insists all his female employees wear. She looks up, sees me charging down the stairs, and grins.

“Well if it ain’t the devil himself,” she says. She throws her arms around my neck and hugs me. Thank fuck my hard-on’s vanished is all I’m thinking as I hug her back.

“Looking good, little Leah.” She does look good. When I first brought her here, her bruises had healed and she was clean of the heroin she’d been addicted to, but she was still thin. Still quiet and withdrawn. Still broken on the inside. Now, with her hair a natural blonde and tied back in a neat ponytail, the dark purple circles under her eyes gone without a trace, she looks healthy. More importantly, she’s smiling. “Feelin’ good, big brother,” she replies, elbowing me in the ribs. I’m not her brother, of course. It’s just what she’s called me ever since Cade and I dragged her out of that dingy brothel in Seattle.

“You staying long?”

“Not if I can fucking help it.”

She pouts, hitting me lightly on the arm with the dying flowers she’s holding. “Carl says you got a girl here. Is that true?”

“For the moment. She’s not staying, though. I’ll be driving her back into town as soon as I’ve suffered through breakfast.”

“You pissed her off already?”

“Of course I have,” I say, laughing. I start walking, heading in the direction of the dining room, and Leah walks along with me. I throw an arm over her shoulder, making her chuckle.