But the things we want aren’t always the things we need. Vaughn needed a reminder that he didn’t rule the world—a nice, generous dose of reality check. Most of all, he needed to learn a thing or two about intimacy.

“Finally wrapping those lips around my cock?” he taunted, his voice thick with lust, strained.

We still hadn’t broached the subject of our last conversation, in which I’d told him to take a hike. He seemed to have forgotten all about it. That was unlike observant, sharp-witted Vaughn. Not even asking what I was doing in a sexy nightgown? Why I wanted to chain him to my bed? Why the change of heart?

Your heart has nothing to do with this, I scolded myself. You’re just teaching him a lesson.

My sculpture—partly salvaged, but mostly ruined, with just the face remaining perfectly intact—was covered by a simple beige cloth in the corner of my room. Funny, I felt just as torn as it was.

I shrugged at Vaughn’s question. “Only one way to find out, right?”

I took his hand in mine. His arm was heavy with muscle, but lax, ready to cooperate, and a thrill shot through my lower belly, exploding in my heart.

Locking his first wrist against the headboard, I leaned down to him, my breasts pressed against his mouth through my nightgown. I worked his other wrist, my body humming with sweet ache. Vaughn didn’t try to touch me. He seemed enchanted, following my every move through heavy-lidded eyes.

You poor sod.

“Don’t worry, Good Girl. I’ll give you pointers. It’s not that hard to give head.”

“Suppose it’s going to be a lesson for both of us,” I said cheerfully, standing up and turning my back to him.

I waltzed toward my door, my heart beating so fast I could feel it in my throat. The atmosphere in the room changed and thickened with danger and anticipation.

I doubt you’ll call me Good Girl after tonight, Spencer.

“Where are you going? Get your ass back here.”

His tone held a threatening edge. But there was nothing he could do to me from his position, chained to my metal headboard. That was the beauty of the entire situation—his complete lack of power.

I flung the door open, stepping aside. Pope walked in—perfect timing—still wearing his gray, stained slacks and a dirty white shirt. He smelled of paint fumes, varnish, and labor.

“Spencer, mate. Fancy seeing you in a compromising position.” He wiped his face clean of sweat.

I looked back, watching Vaughn twist on my mattress, his arms locked above his head. He tugged, moving the bed an inch. Even though he didn’t wince, I knew the handcuffs must have cut into his wrists.

“Go eat cow shit, Pope.”

“Oh, I think I’ll settle for Lenny. She seems much more edible. Not to mention sanitary.” He snapped his fingers, pointing his index at Vaughn with an easy wink.

Vaughn’s eyes expanded, zinging with rage. It was the first time he’d looked genuinely disturbed. Stifling a giggle, I walked over to my drafting table, perching my bum at its edge and curling my fingers around its sides. Pope advanced toward me, peeling his dirty shirt off and throwing it onto the floor mid-stride.

“What the fuck is this?” Vaughn seethed from his spot on my bed, tugging at the handcuffs again.

It was the same bed he’d approached when I was weak and young and scared. The tables had turned, just like I’d promised they would.

And whaddya know? Spencer didn’t like the view from that angle.

Pope stopped about a foot from me, waiting for further instructions, his muscled back to Vaughn. We’d talked about this before my birthday. This was what I wanted. My present. Payback. I wanted Vaughn’s heart to bleed the way mine had that final day of school.

I wanted him to feel like someone had clawed his soul out and dumped it onto the floor, left for the throng to step on with each laugh, taunt, and hoot.

I turned my face to my enemy, businesslike.

“Told you there would be consequences. You let Arabella give you head in front of everyone the last day of school. You flew to Indiana for your neighbor’s proposal, taking her with you, knowing word would spread and get to me, that I would know you took my bully, my tormentor, with you. Then you brought her here. And now she is having an affair with my father—my only family, aside from Poppy and Harry. That really did it, Vaughn. You play with fire, you get burned.”

God or not.

I wanted to awaken something in him, something human and feral and shameful. Need. Carnal lust.

He was a virgin, even if he wouldn’t explicitly admit it. And I didn’t know why, but sex disgusted him. Intimacy frightened him. Yet for some insane, screwed-up reason, I wanted him to be my first. I knew Vaughn was incapable of falling in love, but I wanted to steal pieces of him. His time. His talent. His words. His smiles. And yes, his virginity, too. I was a thief of everything Vaughn Spencer.

He was stunningly untouchable. A demi-god. Unreal.

“You were weak,” Vaughn sneered, his voice dry and calm, his biceps bulging beside his head, highlighting his proud posture, even in this position. “I made you strong. I made you resilient. I made you one of us. Now you take no one’s bullshit—not even mine. All in the span of one year. By the time I was done, you no longer needed the black hair and Goth bullshit. Everyone feared and respected you. I took away from my power and gave it to you, because every time you disrespected me, challenged me, it weakened me. I worked hard so you’d stand up for yourself. I saved you, Astalis, and not for the first time.”

There was a beat of silence.

What did he mean? When else had he saved me?

I knew he actually believed his backward logic, that every time he was cruel or offhand with me, he excused it by thinking he was toughening me up.

I smiled. “Well, Master, I think you did too good a job. Turns out I, too, am partial to public sex displays.”

“We weren’t together then,” he snapped before I’d managed to pronounce the last vowel.

He was right. We weren’t. But I’d still felt like he belonged to me no less than he’d claimed I belonged to him.

“We aren’t together now,” I retorted.

He laughed, like this was all a big joke. “Get real.”

“Now’s not the time to get real. Now’s the time to get even.”

With that, I grabbed Pope’s face and brought it to mine. Our breaths mingled, sweet and warm. His arm circled my waist, his fingers fanning in mock possessiveness over my lower back. His other arm snaked between us, cupping my face.

“No,” Vaughn growled from the bed, his pitch feral.

Pope put his lips to mine, kissing me softly, slipping his tongue into my mouth at an angle Vaughn could see.

Truly, the hottest thing about our kiss was knowing he was watching—not that Pope wasn’t a good kisser, but I barely felt his presence in the room. Revenge was sweet and pungent, and it made me throb between my legs.

I’d nearly died watching Arabella service Vaughn. But I couldn’t deny, a part of it had turned me on, too.

“Don’t you dare fucking take this where I think you’re about to, Good Girl. I will kill your little prodigy friend and won’t even bother to leave ashes for his family to scatter around his hometown of Cuntville.”

It broke my heart that until this day, Vaughn hadn’t experienced true, raw jealousy. He thought he hated me, but he couldn’t let me go. He always sought me out. It drove him crazy when I was away, and annoyed the hell out of him when I was too close. His feelings toward me had a word, and I was going to teach him. Even if it was the last thing I did.