Liars and Liaisons by Sav R. Miller
17
I’m not movedby flowers. Or nature in general. I meant what I said to Violet.
What moves me is the shades of her. The pale pink of her cheeks, slowly morphing into a furious, dark blush. The bronze of her skin, glittering in the overhead sunlight, and her ruby-red lips curving into an angry frown.
I’ve never known so many hues could blossom on a single person, and I constantly find myself unable to remember colors when they aren’t in relation to her. Everything is gray, or it’s Violet—there is no other option.
“Did you hire me to be your plaything?” she asks, curling her little fists at her sides. “You said nanny originally—that your family would end up saddling you with someone if you didn’t do it first. Was that even true?”
I bite back a laugh. “It’s a little late to be asking that, don’t you think?”
“No one’s come to check on you.”
Not true. She just hasn’t been around when Nathaniel and Harrison have been. The latter doesn’t come inside typically, resigning himself to ensuring I am at least alive before taking off, and the former only comes when there’s something in it for him.
Since the party the other night, I haven’t heard from him at all. Which is how I prefer it, but something still seems off about his absence. Especially given his vehement denial of accountability where Sydney Scott is concerned.
Though I can’t be all that surprised. Narcissists never see themselves at fault.
“Does it matter?” I shrug, unbothered by her ire. “You’re here regardless. Might as well make the most of it.”
“Can’t you give me something normal to do?” Her doe eyes turn pleading. “Why keep toying with me when I can actually contribute in some way?”
I don’t say anything. She doesn’t know what she’s already done, what doors were opened the second she threw herself at me at that gala.
The music that throttled my bones, erupting from my fingertips after I left her in the bathroom days ago. How my body ached for something other than notations and tunes for the first time in decades and the song that wrote itself to the memory of her face softening at climax.
Technically speaking, I could leave her alone. Give her some busywork and keep my distance. I spent the last few days doing just that, playing through dozens of sheets of music until my hands cramped. Either way, Nathaniel will balk when he learns of her presence here. I don’t need to do much of anything. It’ll get under his skin when he learns she’s in my grasp.
But that isn’t enough for me.
Not when I know what inspiration the little vixen can unlock. The potential her very essence emanates.
I’ve never had a muse before, but I know better than to let her escape now that she’s here.
So, I don’t acquiesce to her request, though she asks for so little. Instead, I shrug. “Contribute by taking your clothes off.”
Her nostrils flare, and she flexes her fists. When a smirk breaks free on my face, crimson floods her cheeks.
“You’re an asshole.”
Who’d have thought such a sweet, seemingly innocent girl would have such red-hot fire burning in her lungs?
“I’d be careful, using those vulgar words in my presence,” I say in a dark voice, taking a single step in her direction. The lake beyond is quiet, carrying my words across its surface. “Unless you want me to drop to my knees and make you scream far, far worse.”
She hooks her thumbs in the hem of her ugly T-shirt and rips it off over her head, revealing a silken yellow bra. “And a pervert.”
“Want a demonstration?”
With a disgruntled screech, she shimmies out of her pants. Her phone clatters to the ground, forgotten by her feet. A second later, she throws her jeans at my face, and I catch the denim before it slams into me. Then, she’s just standing there in her little black thong and that bright-ass bra, and I swear I’ve never seen anything more enticing in my entire goddamn life.
She looks so soft and pliant. The picture of succulence that I’m desperate to sink my teeth into.
I won’t. Yet. But I do want something.
“All of it,” I say, nodding at the remaining garments.
“No.”
My brows shoot up. “Denying me?”
“If you want to see the rest, you can pay, like you did before.”
Desire swells in my chest, pushing up into my throat and constricting air there. “And if I wish for more?”
Her eyes narrow. “Like what?”
“More than what I got the other day.”
Unease skates across her features. Her breaths grow shallow, and she casts a quick, nervous glance at the water, perhaps contemplating if death would be a more viable option.
It wouldn’t. I’d drag her corpse out and bring her back, just to keep terrorizing her.
Since she secretly likes the fear anyway.
She swallows, her throat bobbing with the effort.
My teeth grind together with the movement.
“You want to touch?” she breathes. Just barely.
I shake my head. “I want to taste.”
