Page 34 of Liberated By Sin
“Try your luck with the lady in the green dress over there. She’s been eyeing you for the past hour. You might just get lucky,” I teased, clapping his chest.
“Tell me now.” His accented voice vibrated against my ear as I turned away, intent on returning my attention back to Ivan, but fully taken by the man at my back. “How would you know that?”
Maybe it was the sudden intrusion, coupled with his closeness or the fact that he just called me out, but I thought I felt my heart stutter to a stop for a whole five seconds.
That’s new.
“If anyone asks for a private tonight, I’m open.”
Santino caught my elbow as I started for my dressing room. Alltraces of his flirtatious smile had vanished.
“I thought you didn’t accept those.”
“You thought wrong.”
His jaw ticked.
“I have to get ready. I’m on in a few.” My gaze drifted to where he held a firm grip, then back to his eyes.
I wasn’t in the business of asking men for permission to remove their hands from my person once they lost their minds and overstepped, but Santino…
Santino confused me, making me feel vulnerable in a way I wasn’t used to. I didn’t know how to process those sparks of emotion he awakened.
16
Asthe music swirled around me, cresting toward the finale of my performance, I dropped to my knees and crawled toward the edge of the stage, where Ivan Tarasov’s lidded gaze was locked on mine. Leaning forward, ass in the air like a fucking lioness in heat, I pumped my hips, thighs straddling the floor.
Two.
Three times.
His hands fisted as I slid closer, tongue curling the edges of my lips. My mind threatened to retrieve inside itself—I was too close, too open—but I had to see this through. I needed him to feel like the luckiest bastard in the building. The only one. Ivan needed to crave my mouth on his cock more than his next breath.
“Fuck, baby,” he growled as I turned and thrust against the stage one last time. The song faded, and the club erupted into hoots and crude catcalls.
Straightening, I threw a heated stare over my shoulder, catchinghim as he relaxed into his plush V.I.P. sofa and whispered into one of his lackey’s ears.
Slowly, I diverted my gaze, drawing his eyes with my own until I was out of sight, where I could finally release a steadying breath and wait for the invite—or rather, demand—I knew would follow.
The knob crashed into the adjacent wall of my dressing room when I burst through the door. I snatched a water bottle from my vanity and tipped my head, chugging down the cool liquid as I tempered the bloodlust coursing like fire through my veins.
Three days had me nearly frothing at the mouth to paint my hands red with his blood. I knew he’d be back. Men like him thought themselves gods. He’d have come here every day, chosen a different girl, violated and maimed her, all without care for repercussions, because his money and power had gifted him that false sense of invincibility his whole life.
But today, he’d learn a hard truth. Pity it would be a little too late.
“Amara.”
I whipped around to find Santino standing beneath the threshold. His expression was unreadable, but if the tension in his shoulders was anything to go by, something told me he wasn’t in the best of moods.
“Next time, knock.”
“The door was open.”
I was not in an argumentative mood, so I waited, allowing him to say his piece. But testing my patience seemed to be his favorite pastime lately. Huffing an exasperated breath, I returned to the mirror and touched up my lipstick, hoping my show of indifference was just as frustrating.
“Looks like you got your wish.”
“Let me guess. Tarasov?” I asked with feigned innocence.