“Come on, Penelope, we haven’t got all night,” Jeb says from behind me.
I ignore him. With a shaky breath, and my head held high, I finally focus on Zayn who is glaring at his uncle.
“Jeb, I need you to look at me,” I say to Zayn, barely holding onto my disgust for his part in this charade. There’s a firmness to my voice that’s sharp, lethal. To feel this way towards Zayn isn’t something I’m used to. Hurt and disappointment, yes, but never disgust. Feeling like this cuts me deeply, and I want to hurt him back.
Tonight, I’m going to do that.
He twists his torso, canting his head to look at me, but he doesn’t say a word. The speakers blast out Arsonist's Lullabye by Hozier, adding to the already oppressive atmosphere. The moaning around us intensifies. The fucking becomes even more frenzied, feeding into the sin and carnal pleasure that unravels at every table. It’s a cocktail of violence, passion, and brutal sex. Chairs fall to the floor, glasses smash and tables rock under the weight of rampant desire. The heat in the room rises and a light sheen of sweat spreads out over my skin. I don’t know whether the Breakers are enjoying this moment or if they’re as uncomfortable as I am. Either way, the tension rises with every second that passes and my skin prickles with apprehension.
I can’t back out now.
Blocking out everyone around us, I concentrate on Zayn. “Turn your chair around and face me,” I repeat, lowering my voice and softening those sharp edges just enough to give him pause.
“I don’t take orders from you,” he replies, the tone of his voice dark, glittering with challenge and lust. Behind us, Jeb sniggers. He’s fucking loving this. Screw him.
“I have something you want, and I can’t give it to you if you’re tucked beneath the table.”
“Fuck,” York grinds out, and I can hear the disbelief in his voice.
I ignore him. I ignore the heat of the Breakers’ stares. If this is going to work I’m going to need more than their eyes on me. I’m going to need the whole fucking warehouse to take note.
Zayn shifts his chair around to face me, his legs widening so that I can step into the space he makes. He leans back, his hands on his thighs, his fingers relaxed as he watches me.
I wait for his gaze to run up my body before resting on mine and swallow hard when I see the flash of pain he’s holding onto. It makes me hesitate. Could I have read him wrong? But just like hope, that look is fleeting, gone before I can even grab hold of it, tuck it inside my chest and let it grow.
“What is it that you think I want?” he asks, not taking his eyes off of me. His ebony irises bore into my skin, piercing flesh and bone, aiming right for my heart.
It’s now or never.
I have to keep Lena safe.
“This,” I whisper, then twist away from him, part my legs and bend at the waist, my dress riding up around my hips with the movement. My hands grab my ankles as I look up at him from between my calves. My hair falls in a shroud around my face as Zayn stares at the silky material of my black, lacy underwear that rides up my arse and wraps around my pussy lips, leaving little to the imagination.
His mouth parts and his teeth bite into his bottom lip. That chipped tooth I love leaving an indent.
He wants me.
And I’ve never wanted to kill someone more than right at this moment.
This bastard actually thinks I’m going to fuck him willingly.
Betrayal bleeds like acid into my veins, fuelling me with a rage that overwhelms me. I want to claw at his face. I want to rip him to shreds. I want to rip all of the Breakers to shreds just like they’ve done to me with their barbed comments and their cruelty over the past few weeks. Well, screw him. Screw them. This is as close to my pussy they’re ever going to get.
On the next beat, I straighten up. Twirling on the ball of my left foot, I spin around to face Zayn, my loose hair flaring around me as I move, lashing at my skin. My chest heaves, my face flushes with heat and my fingers curl into my palms. I’m aware that the skirt of my dress has hitched up to reveal the bottom of my arse cheeks, and the mound of my knicker-covered pussy, but I don’t pull it down.
Let them look. Let them all fucking look. If they didn’t see my emotions before, then they sure as fuck can’t mistake them now. My anger is a living, breathing beast that reveals itself in the baring of my teeth, the flaring of my nostrils, the narrowing of my eyes and the raggedness of my breath. Zayn’s gaze snaps up to meet mine just as the words of the song hang in the air around us, a heavy shroud of truth, precise in its timing. When I was a kid, I was fooled by the Breakers. I’d believed that they’d loved me. I’d believed they’d always have my back, would always fight in my corner. It was all lies. Now all I’m left with is this fire burning inside of me ready to eviscerate everything in its path.
“Pen…” Zayn murmurs, his fingers gripping hold of the material of his trousers tightly as I glare back at him.
Pressing back the bitter tears that threaten to fall, I lean over, rest my hands on Zayn’s shoulder and whisper into his ear. “You cannot take what isn’t freely given, Zayn Bernard. You fucking disappoint me.”
With that I place my bare foot on the chair between his open thighs and step up onto the table, kicking the glasses and bottles out of my way. I get a feeling of satisfaction as one of the goblets hits Jeb on the arm, before crashing to the floor. I’m going to pay for that, but right now I don’t give a shit. He jerks towards me, baring his teeth but Zayn holds his arm out, preventing him from getting close. I don’t get to think about that too much because with the next beat, I slam my left foot on the table and proceed to follow up with an angry time-step. I might have slowed down the step a little to compliment the beat of the song, but it still conveys the emotion I wish to get across. In bare feet it doesn’t have quite the same effect that it would have with tap shoes on, but when I glance down at York, I can see he’s beginning to understand. Thoughts whir behind his icy-blue eyes as he watches me intently.
In fact they’re all watching me.
If they wanted a show, they’re going to get one, just not the one they expected. Dance has saved me countless times before. I’ve no doubt in my mind that it’s going to do the same tonight.
It has to.
2
Zayn
Pen stands before me, a fucking goddess. Wild, beautiful, angry.
The glow of our masks, and the orange flames flickering in the oil barrels around the warehouse catches the auburn lights in her long dark hair and dusts her skin in a fiery glow.
Her wrath, her fire and fury, it all bleeds out of her, scalding me with a passion that is raw, powerful, and oxygen stealing.
I can’t fucking breathe.
She just bent over provocatively. Her shapely legs, her rounded arse and the slash of her knicker-covered pussy bared for me. I damn near fucking came in my pants like a teenage boy. I wanted to press my face against her slit and fuck her with my tongue. I wanted to do that so fucking bad. I’m hard for her. So fucking hard. I don’t doubt that everyone around this table is too.
But everything about this is wrong.
So fucking wrong.
When Jeb had asked me to stand in for him, I’d agreed because I knew that this warehouse would be filled with his enemies. I don’t think that there’s a crew here that the Skins haven’t clashed with over the last few years. Grim might think she has control of these fucking arseholes, but I know better. Any one of the gangsters here will take a hit for their crew just so they can take Jeb out and whilst I know he fucking deserves it, he’s still blood, he’s still the leader of the Skins. Besides, I took an oath— just like the rest of the Breakers did— one we can’t break. But this, I sure as fuck didn’t agree to this. It doesn’t take a goddamn genius to see why he invited Pen tonight. Now his words from earlier make sense.