Dangerous Designs Read Free Page A

feel. I didn’t want this to end.
    “You want the truth, Catriona?”
    “I…don’t know.” I didn’t know anything except what my body wanted—and it wanted him.
    “You have to decide.” He knew I was close to coming. I could see the satisfaction in his eyes. He held me close, moving slowly inside me, fingers digging in to remind me of my disobedience when my hips jerked.
    I closed my eyes and tried to escape, but there was only the truth: I was going to find out. I was. And it might as well be now. I felt myself fracturing, my body betraying me even as my mind accepted reality.
    “Yes.”
    “Yes?”
    “Tell me the truth.”
    “Good girl. Come for me first.” And he thrust into me again, mouth capturing mine as I came with a cry.
    I clenched around him, feeling him come inside me with a rush, and savored the satisfaction that he wanted me. He’d chosen me. He was taking me because he wanted me to be his good girl. Right now, with him gasping out my name, I didn’t doubt. I knew, and everything was perfect.
    For a single moment. Because when my eyes opened, I knew I would hear the truth.
    “Who did you send?” I wasn’t going to hide from it like a child.
    “I checked myself in,” he said simply. “I sent myself for testing.”
     

- Dominick -
     
    “ What ?” I felt her shock. Whatever secrets still lay behind those brown eyes—and I knew they were there—she could not hide the emotion that coursed through her. She had not known, and that, paradoxically, gave me hope.
    If she hadn’t known the truth, what would happen when she did?
    Nothing. I should send her away now, warn her of the danger she’d put herself in by betraying me. If I cared for her, even as a human being, I would send her away now so she wouldn’t get caught up in the rest.
    “Dominick…?” She was biting her lip, staring into her eyes. When I lifted her and set her back on the floor, turning away, I saw her face fall.
    I had to let her go. In a flash that let me see me far, far too deep into myself, I knew that I could. I had always done what I needed to do. This was no different, except that it was more important. I could give up hoping to know what secrets she had, even knowing I would always wonder.
    “You should go,” I told her.
    “What?” Her voice was uncertain.
    “You should go,” I repeated. “Don’t come back here.”
    “But—a moment ago you were going to tell me everything.” I could hear her desperation.
    “Catriona, do you know what I would ordinarily do to someone who violated my trust and went through my apartment?”
    She flinched; I didn’t need to see it. I felt it. There was a pause, and then she said, barely audible, “I don’t think that’s why you want me to go.”
    I looked around at her and she took a step backward. She was half dressed, trying to wrap the torn pieces of her blouse around her well enough that the coat would make everything seem normal. It should have been ridiculous. It wasn’t.
    “You don’t know the first thing that’s happening here.” I made my voice as brutal as I could. She had to understand. She had to leave. “You don’t understand anything. This is dangerous. Sebastian is dangerous.” I paused. “I’m dangerous. Do you see, Catriona?”
    “Did you think I wouldn’t know that by now?” She looked me dead in the eyes. “Tell me. Please, tell me. You went to have the tests run on you, yourself? Why?”
    And there was hope in her eyes. That was what broke me.
    Who else had ever even hoped that I might be a good person? I looked back out the window and took a moment to steady myself before I spoke again.
    “I trust this will remain between us?”

- Catriona -
     
    He didn’t speak on the car ride back to his apartment. He stared out the window and I tried to sit in silence as if I were not raging with impatience. As if I were not terrified to my core at what I was about to hear.
    I had made an agreement I wasn’t proud of. Should I tell him?
    I