Page 25 of Ruthless Sin
She doesn’t let go.
When dinner finally ends, she stands before I can push my chair back.
She lets go of my sleeve.
The place at my wrist where her hand lived is instantly cold.
She walks out of the dining room on bare feet, taking the same steps in reverse. She doesn’t look back once.
The family stays seated, the silence dropping over the plates.
Cassia’s voice is a whisper. “Go.”
I take a beat. Two.
I’m still hard, and the second I stand, anyone with a sightline sees exactly what she’s been doing to me all night.
I push the oak chair back and stand up.
Nobody looks.
None of the Santoro women look at the front of my pants.
I snatch my jacket off the wood, folding the dark fabric over the front of my body, and walk out of the dining room.
I follow her up the stairs, keeping six feet of distance behind her heels. Not closer. I don’t let myself narrow the gap.
She stops right outside her door.
She doesn’t turn the handle.
She turns her body to face me.
The hallway is dark. Her face is half-lit, her skin pale and clean. She isn’t flushed. Her breathing hasn’t changed by a single beat.
She looks at me.
I look at her.
Six feet of open hallway between our chests.
I keep the jacket locked over my lap.
Her eyes drop to the jacket folded across me and rest there for one full breath before climbing back to my face. She knew it at the dining table. She knows it now in the dark.
She doesn’t look away.
She holds my eyes and her face is still and her breathing hasn’t changed and she is looking at me the way a woman looks at a man when she wants him to know she sees exactly what she’s doing to him and she is not sorry about it.
My jaw goes tight. My hand on the jacket goes white.
Fucking hell.
She lets the silence hold for one more beat.
Slowly, she places her own left hand over her right wrist, touching the exact spot. She holds two fingers against the bone.
Then she lets go.
