Chapter 4

Juno

Caleb's words landed on my face, scalding hot.

A dangerous flame burned in his blue eyes. He was no longer the boy I could fluster with a single word. In this moment, he was a young beast truly awakened.

I watched the tension in his jaw, and something in my chest gave a small lurch. I realized I'd played with fire a little too long.

But I could not, would not, show weakness in front of a twenty-year-old boy. That was my instinct—as the older one, and as a woman surviving in this mansion.

I reached out, letting my fingertips glide down his chest, and taunted him in that sticky, flirtatious tone I did so well. "Wow, Caleb. You really do surprise me. But are you sure you've got the nerve? If your father pushed that door open right now, what do you think he'd do first—put a bullet in me, or break both your legs?"

His breath hitched, his chest heaving beneath my fingers.

I watched the fury swell in his eyes and knew I'd stoked the fire about as far as it would go. Any further, and it would surely burn me too.

"All right, I'm only teasing." I quit while I was ahead, withdrawing my hand and offering an apology utterly devoid of sincerity. "Sorry. I shouldn't have made fun of you. You're still a good boy—go on back to your room and change into some clean underwear. I need to check on breakfast in the kitchen."

With that, I turned sideways, meaning to slip through the gap between him and the wall.

But I'd underestimated the sheer explosiveness—and pride—of a young man.

I'd barely taken half a step when something clamped hard around my waist. Caleb's big hand seized me like an iron vise and threw me back. My spine slammed against the cold wall with a dull thud.

"You think you can stir me up and just walk away?" His voice dropped low, thick with something clenched behind his teeth.

His tall frame pressed down over me completely, wrapping me in his shadow. The scent of a young man crashed over me—faint mint body wash and raging hormones. He lowered his head, and that aggressive, striking face swelled fast in my vision.

He was going to kiss me.

The instant I understood that, my heart clenched violently. Teasing was one thing, but I could never let this cross into something real. That would cost me my life.

A second before our lips met, I wrenched my head aside. Caleb's scorching mouth grazed the corner of my lips and pressed hard against my cheek instead. His breath broke against my ear, hot enough to send a shudder through my whole body.

"Let go of me," I warned, keeping my voice down, both hands braced against his chest as I shoved.

"What? Scared now?" Instead of retreating, Caleb pressed in. One hand locked around my wrist and pinned it to the wall; the other still gripped my waist, hard enough to leave bruises on my skin.

"Caleb! Have you lost your mind? We're in the hallway!" I hissed, not daring to cry out, twisting my body in a desperate struggle.

"Weren't you the one who started this?" He laughed coldly and pressed closer still, leaving not a sliver of space between us.

We grappled like two cornered animals in that narrow corner. Today I'd worn a thin silk blouse—chosen to show off my figure in front of Leo—and it was never made to withstand this kind of rough handling.

In the middle of the struggle, I heard a sharp tearing of fabric.

Everything stopped at once. The air seemed to freeze solid in that instant.

The top buttons of my blouse had snapped clean off, the cloth sliding away to either side. Black lace lingerie lay exposed to the open air, a broad expanse of soft, pale skin startlingly bright in the dim hallway light.

Caleb went rigid.

Head bowed, his gaze nailed itself to my chest. Those blue eyes, moments ago brimming with rage, drowned fast in a thick haze of desire. His throat bobbed hard, and his breathing turned heavy and ragged, rasping like a bellows through the silent corridor.

At the end of the day, he was only twenty—a young man with hot blood and no restraint. The blunt visual shock left him utterly incapable of reacting. He stared, unabashed hunger written plain in his eyes.

Watching him like that, a flicker of vengeful satisfaction rose in me—but wariness won out. What sanity I had left told me I needed to shatter this dangerous spell of his immediately.

I made no move to cover myself. Instead I gave a cold laugh, my voice dripping with contempt and scorn.

"Seen enough?" I stared into his eyes, driving each word straight through him. "Look at you—so starved you'd take anything. How exactly does that make you different from your old man? Are all the Cavendish men just animals who think with what's below the belt? And here I thought you were above it all. Turns out you're nothing but a green boy who can't even leash his own appetite."

My words were a bucket of ice water—yet they didn't douse the fire in his eyes. They fed it.

Caleb was so furious he laughed. He didn't shove me away in wounded rage, the way I'd expected. He brought his face closer instead. The tip of his nose nearly touched mine, his gaze as dangerous as a predator sizing up its prey.

"Juno, that mouth of yours really is something," he murmured, his voice gone impossibly hoarse. "But the way I see it, that mouth is all you've got. Underneath it, you're scared to death—aren't you?"

He gave me no chance to fire back. Suddenly he released my wrist, cupped my face in both hands, and drove his hips forward hard.

I sucked in a sharp breath.

Through the thin fabric, I felt the change in his body with perfect clarity. That hard, burning thing was now pressed insistently between my thighs—stronger than what I'd felt in the liquor cabinet last night, and far harder to ignore.

"You—" My eyes went wide, my voice trembling beyond my control.

"Why so quiet all of a sudden?" Caleb's thumb brushed lightly over my lips, his eyes deep and feverish. That face of his, beautiful as some medieval nobleman's, was flushed now with desire and carried a lethal kind of pull.

The scent of a young man enveloped me completely. His strong, steady heartbeat pounded through his chest and into mine, again and again. I was on the verge of losing the ability to think at all.

This taut, overpowering pressure was something Leo—that old man—could never give me. My body betrayed my reason; my legs went weak against my will, and only the wall and his hold kept me from sliding to the floor. A tingling current shot up from the base of my spine, and I bit down hard on my lip, barely swallowing the moan rising in my throat.

The air in the hallway had turned thick and dangerous.

Caleb's gaze slid from my eyes to my lips. His head lowered, slow and certain, brimming with the resolve of a man who meant to have what he wanted.

And just as his lips were about to close over mine—

The turning of the master bedroom's door handle sounded abruptly at the far end of the quiet hall.

Then came Leo's heavy, dragging footsteps.

"Juno? Are you out there?" Leo's slightly hoarse voice carried down the corridor.

That voice struck like a thunderclap, jolting me instantly awake.