Philippa Campbell had captured Malcolm Graphm. The thing that seems impossible.
“Riley?” For a minute he looked like he wanted to clean her up himself, but then Clark held out the cloth. “Are you all right?” He sounded concerned, nervous. “Do you want some water?”
Don’t you dare cry, she told herself. You owe him that, at least.
She took the washcloth, stalling. “I’m okay.”
Riley knew how to reject someone. To make it clear they didn’t stand a chance with her. She worked in a sports bar in South Philly. It was kinder to be ruthless, to cut to the heart of the issue, leave no ambiguity, so the worst part could be over as quickly as possible.
Come on, she told herself. You know what you have to do. How to do it.
The cruelest thing you could say to someone was the cruelest thing they said to themself.
“You knew, didn’t you”—she made her voice steady—“on some level, that Patrick had lied in Cádiz.”
Clark froze.
“What?”
Was that the manipulation he’d accused her of? If she hadn’t earned the insult before, it would be harder to argue after tonight.
Riley had forgotten—had willfully let herself forget—that the double-edged sword of making Clark her villain would cut both ways.
“You pay too close attention.” She sat up, crossing her arm across her tacky chest. “You wouldn’t have missed something that big. Your gut would have told you to investigate, to help.”
“You’re truly unbelievable.” There was genuine incredulity in Clark’s tone, though he’d managed to shutter his face. It was the kind of thing he might have said to her as a compliment ten minutes ago, along with all the other lust-induced nonsense he’d spilled against her skin. No one would mistake the meaning now.
An end to enemies.
She swallowed against the lump in her throat. “Do you think on some level you wanted to see him fail? To lose your father’s trust? Break his heart? So that you could finally know what it felt like to be the favorite?”
He’d schooled his features into a mask of coolness, but he wasn’t particularly good at holding his temper. His eyes flashed with mounting fury. “Is everything a game to you?”
Riley turned away, running the washcloth over herself, quick and perfunctory. She’d shower and apply salve when she got back to the inn, could whisper sweet nothings to herself as she fell asleep. Riley pulled back on his sweater. She wasn’t going to voluntarily fight topless. She found his sweats under the bed, stepped into them despite the mortifyingly damp inseam.
Clark was beautiful in his anger, clenched fists and steel jaw.
He’d been mean to her earlier because she’d asked him to. This was so different.
Riley brought her hand to his cheek, the skin burning hot under her palm. She traced her thumb over his lips, those lips that had kissed and caressed her, that had brought her such lethal temptation.
He closed his eyes, practically vibrating with the effort it took to hold himself still under her palm.
Come on, she urged herself. Finish it.
He’d given her all the tools. All she had to do was make it official. Make him hate her.
“But it didn’t work, did it?” she whispered, unable to speak the words even a decibel louder. “You’re still not good enough.”
The harsh bark of his laughter rang in her ears as he pulled away, pacing for the entrance to the camper and opening the door. Outside, the storm had exhausted itself, stalled to a slow pitter-patter.
Clark walked out and into the darkness, leaving Riley alone in his home.
This time when she cried, he wasn’t there to dry her tears.
If through her terrible treatment, Riley managed to drive Clark away—the curse wouldn’t be the only thing she’d broken tonight.
Chapter Fifteen
Clark couldn’t get the taste of Riley out of his mouth.
He’d been so foolish. So bloody eager. Desperate enough for her after prolonged exposure, all that frustrated wanting, that he’d ignored every warning sign. Told himself it was just sex. Nothing to get worked up over.
It was pathetic the way she’d made an absolute mug of him. In his bed, he might have been the one on top, but Riley had him eating out of the palm of her hand.
He’d expected her to strike against him, just not like that. Not then.
Riley had gotten close to him only long enough to find his weakest spots, waiting for the perfect opportunity to go in for the kill.
It was even more humiliating, somehow, that he’d tried his hand at deceiving her only last week and failed so spectacularly. Apparently six months of moody reflection and self-flagellation had taught Clark nothing about betrayal. Riley hadn’t slipped past his defenses; he’d lowered them for her willingly, practically fell over himself to do her bidding.
Hadn’t he been drawn to her—a moth to a flame—the first night they’d met? Was it any wonder, then, that in trying to touch her he’d gotten burned?
At least now he was well and truly done. Clark should thank her for knocking some sense into him. Under no circumstances would he allow himself to go near Riley Rhodes again. If that meant abandoning his camper in the middle of a terrible storm, so be it. His entire home smelled of her anyway. Of them. It would take days to air out.
Instead of finding somewhere dry to sleep, he’d gone back to the castle and worked, shivering through the last howls of the rain. The survey grounded him. Demanded exertion, concentration. With tools in hand, all that mattered was completing the assignment. Clark labored until his body mirrored his emotions—wrung out, used.
When he’d finally gone back to the camper after dawn, it was empty except for the full kind of silence that came after a violent storm. He yanked a comb through his hair until he looked like a man who didn’t know the word ravished. Shaved with savage precision. Cinched his tool belt and relaced his boots.
Clark wasn’t born yesterday. He understood casual sex. It wasn’t like he thought Riley was his girlfriend or something because she let him put his mouth on her. But he certainly believed that when you got naked with someone, you should treat them with respect. Part of that unspoken covenant meant not throwing their worst insecurities in their face before the come had even dried.
His face heated. Clark knew he had a filthy mouth in bed, but that was different. He could let himself go carnal, unfiltered in the heat of the moment, when blood abandoned his brain for more urgent demands. Riley brought it out in him like no other partner, daring him at every turn to show her how base he could be. He found her responses—equal parts yielding and resistance—singularly addictive.
But he couldn’t have let her into his bed without a considerable degree of trust. That offering mattered—to him, at least—when they’d done nothing since they met but break faith with each other. He’d thought that if nothing else, their interaction last night had been honest. To know she could lie so well about something so raw only made him fear her more.
No one had ever seen him as clearly as Riley. Frankly, he’d never wanted them to. All the effort he put into controlling his temper, keeping up appearances, hadn’t stopped her from finding his weak spots.
Clark loved being a little bit mean to her in bed—it made both of them hot. But last night, after, when she’d gone for his throat, he’d seen how desperately she wanted him to fight back and declined to give her the satisfaction. He didn’t understand what had changed. Why she’d turned on him so suddenly. Had she confused the boundaries between bedplay and real life?