Page 13 of My Sweet Poison
Releasing her, I stroked my jaw.
There wasn’t a single person in my life who would have had the balls to slap me like this slip of a woman just had. The corner of my mouth lifted. “Monster? I’ve been called worse.”
The handcuffs around her left wrist rattled when she raised her arm to jab me in the chest. “You won’t get away with this. There is a video. It will prove I’m innocent.”
I tilted my head to the side.
Indignation and fear gave her cheeks a charming flush, which only highlighted her pale, creamy skin.
My gaze narrowed. “Will it?”
“Yes, it will. I’ll tell everyone what I know.”
I ran the backs of my knuckles over her cheek, relishing the warmth of her skin. “And not one person in this town will listen to you. Sorry, babygirl, haven’t you learned you cannot win against a Worthington? There is no point in fighting. I own this town, and that means I own you.”
Her brow furrowed as she cast her gaze downward, but not before I observed something shuttered in her eyes. As if a shadowed nightmare had crept into the present to block the light. I knew soul-crippling pain when I saw it. I should. I glimpsed it every morning in the mirror.
Someone had hurt her. Badly.
My brother perhaps. I knew he’d never played fair…because neither did I.
For one brief, unwelcome moment, I saw myself clearly—not as a man protecting his family’s reputation, but as a man destroying a woman who had done nothing wrong.
The thought lasted exactly as long as I allowed it to.
I was a Worthington. Worthingtons didn’t flinch and they didn’t second-guess. My father had taught me that before I was old enough to understand what it cost. By the time I did, it was too late to be anyone else.
She stepped back, breaking our connection. “I’m not your babygirl.”
I grabbed her by the chin, forcing her head back. “I’ll call you whatever I damn well please. Your life is in my hands now.”
We were both breathing hard, close enough the heat of her breath brushed the skin of my throat.
Some primal force drove me to seize her mouth. I needed to know if her lips tasted as sweet as they looked. I swallowed her shocked gasp, feeding on her oxygen as my hand wrapped around her jaw, keeping her head steady for my assault. My tongue dueled with hers as I placed my other hand on her hip and pulled her closer.
Her mouth was warm and honey drenched.
I slammed her against the book stacks, pressing into her soft flesh. At first, her response was innocent and trusting, her tongue hesitantly brushing against mine.
At first.
She wrenched her mouth away from mine, turning her head to the side and straightening her elbows to hold me at arm’s length.
Without saying a word, I stared at her bruised and swollen lips, trying to master my own unanticipated reaction to her.
Lifting her arm, she swiped the back of her right hand across her mouth. “I don’t want your Judas kiss.”
Something inside of me snapped.
How did I dare associate this woman with words like sweet and innocent?
I was a fucking Worthington.
She was nothing to me. A pawn. A thing to be used.
My hand whipped out, closing around her neck again.
Her eyes widened and she grabbed my wrist. The cheap stainless steel of her handcuffs rattled against the expensive platinum of my Rolex watch.
