Colin angry, she’d already learned, was a very bad thing.
He put pressure on her neck with his hand, bringing her toward him and as he did this, he tilted her face up with his thumb on her jaw.
Then his head descended but he didn’t kiss her.
Instead, with his lips against hers, he said, “I’ve been trying to think of a suitable punishment for you breaking the rules. I paid fifty thousand pounds for this privilege, Sibyl. If you were an employee of mine, I’d sack you.”
“Okay,” she agreed shakily and perhaps a little foolishly. “Maybe you should sack me.”
“Then you’d have to pay back the fifty thousand pounds.”
Her eyes rounded in alarm. She’d already “anonymously” donated it to the Community Centre for the minibus.
He watched her expression closely.
“I didn’t think so.” His voice was smooth as silk but not in a good way.
“What are you going to do?” she asked, her voice so far from silky it was ludicrous.
His arm closed around her as his other hand caressed her cheek using the backs of his fingers. She felt a shudder go through her as he drew her against his hard body.
Once his arm was tight around her waist, her body pressed firmly against his, his lips still against hers and his eyes heavy-lidded, he said, “I’m going to f**k you on the dining room table.”
She jerked her head back, shock, fear, anger and hurt all at once coursing through her.
“No!” she cried.
“Oh yes,” he returned smoothly.
“No!” she repeated and started to struggle against him.
She couldn’t believe this, he wouldn’t be that cruel.
“Stop struggling,” he commanded.
“Colin, you can’t do this! You promised.”
“I can, I will and you’re going to let me. In fact, you’re going to beg me to do it in the end. I’ll see to that.”
This was a promise, a promise she was pretty certain he could keep and she felt panic and despair sear through her body.
“Colin, don’t do this!” she pleaded, feeling every bit of the years of Mags’s gently-bred empowerment of her girls flying out the window. “Please, don’t do this.”
“Maybe you should try tears, Sibyl. They won’t work but it might be amusing,” he taunted in an ugly voice.
Sibyl glared at him and she hated him in that moment and, in so doing, she felt fury rage through her system. She completely forgot her vow never to lose her temper again and she didn’t even consider counting to ten.
Therefore, she shouted, “Let go of me!” and very nearly wrenched herself free but his hand at her cheek dropped and his arm sliced around her, slamming her back against his body.
“I said, stop struggling,” he ground out.
“They’re little girls, Colin!” she yelled and he immediately stilled at her words but she was so angry, she didn’t notice. “They’re little girls and they needed me. I couldn’t run out on them. I would have, I promise you, at any other time, but they needed me.”
She pulled free of his now loosened arms and sucked air through her mouth, expelled it through her nose like a bull and she stared at him with all the hatred she felt for him at that moment.
“They needed me,” she repeated. “I picked them over you. I did it on purpose because they needed me more. So, okay, you want to f**k me on the dining room table, you want to make me beg for it? Do it! I understood the consequences. But you should know why!”
He was watching her and she was breathing heavily and this went on for longer then Sibyl could endure.
“Do it!” she shouted.
“What little girls, Sibyl?” he asked quietly and her body jolted at the words.
“I… what?”
Good goddess, she’d said too much.
Her stupid, stupid temper!
“Who are these girls who needed you?” he pressed.
She threw back her shoulders at the same time she tossed her hair off them and her guard immediately came up. She wouldn’t let him in, couldn’t let him in.
“They’re a part of my life, a part you’ve no place in, so it’s none of your goddamned business,” she informed him truthfully. “You didn’t pay your fifty thousand pounds for that privilege.”
Something flickered in his eyes at that pronouncement but she was too caught up in her fury to register it and nowhere near a place where she would allow herself to understand it.
“What are you waiting for?” she demanded.
To her stunned surprise he turned and walked back across the room. Once there, he picked up his glass and resumed his stance at the window.
She stood there for what seemed like an eternity, watching him, but he didn’t move, although the muscle in his jaw did.
Her fury started to drain out of her (though not entirely) and she stalked to the kitchen.
She was pulling food out of the fridge and cupboards to make dinner, just to have something to do while Colin considered her next torment. She might as well be fortified enough to suffer it.
Bran came through the cat door, looked at his bowl of food which was full of biscuits, his expression showing his distaste for this repast and looked at her. His meaning was clear.
“You aren’t getting any more wet food, you had some this morning,” she snapped at her cat.
Bran regarded her haughtily for a moment then, although cats couldn’t shrug, still it seemed Bran did so and then trotted out of the kitchen.
“Greedy little minx,” Sibyl muttered under her breath as she slammed a pot on the stove. “He’d weigh two stone if I didn’t dole out food like a prison warden.” She knew she sounded like a lunatic, muttering to herself, but she also didn’t care.
A movement at the doorway caught her eye and her head jerked up to see Colin leaning against the doorjamb watching her.
“What now?” Her words where sharp.
“Sibyl, a warning,” Colin replied softly. “You’ve had a reprieve, you should be careful with it.”
“Meaning?” she retorted.
“Meaning, if I were you, I wouldn’t push me,” he replied.
“No, I mean the reprieve,” she prompted.
“I promised not to take you on the table; I won’t take you on the table. That’s what I mean,” he explained.
Instantly, her eyes locked with his, Sibyl felt something in her shift.
It was slight and if she wasn’t in a heightened emotional state, she might have missed it.