The Wild Mustang & The Dancing Fairy: A Gorgeous Villain Prequel Novella by Saffron Kent (ereader for textbooks .txt) 📗

peek of your creamy, dancer legs in something like that. Just to see if I can catch a glimpse of something else too, in your thin white nightie.” He leans in another inch as he continues, “You don’t want me to do that, do you? You don’t want me to force my way into your room at night, while your brothers are sleeping down the hall somewhere just so I could look at you, at your tight little body, in your white nightie.”

I do.

I so do.

I want him to force his way inside my room just so he can look at me.

And as soon as this thought flashes through my mind, I shake my head. “No.”

“Yeah. Because let’s face it, I get a peek of you in that thing and I won’t be able to stop myself from taking it too far.”

“Too far.”

His eyes are glowing now. “Yeah, I get a peek of you in your nightie, I’ll be doing everything that I can to fucking touch it. To somehow push the hem up your thighs and or pull the straps down your shoulders, just so I can get my hands on your naked body. But again, you don’t want me to do that, do you, Fae?”

Oh God.

How is it that I feel both relieved and restless that he called me that? How is it that I’ve been waiting and waiting for him to call me by his name one more time?

It’s a wonder that I can still shake my head and say what he wants me to say when all I want to say is yes. Yes, yes, yes.

“No,” I whisper and arch my body, up and toward him as if offering him to touch it.

“Yeah, that’s what I thought. And why not?” he asks, the strings of his hoodie oscillating in front of me in a hypnotic rhythm. “Tell me why you don’t want me to touch you, to grope your fucking body like the villain that I am.”

I can’t remember.

I can’t remember anything right now.

But I guess all of this is so ingrained in my brain that I don’t even have to think about it, about the rivalry and soccer and hatred. My lips move on their own. “Because of my b-brothers.”

Satisfaction bursts over his features even as his jaw tightens for a second. “You wouldn’t want to betray them now, would you?”

“No.”

How many times have I said no now, I wonder?

And how many times have I wanted to say yes?

I’m a fool.

A fool, a fool, a fool.

But he makes it so easy. He makes it so easy to be stupid and reckless and thoughtless.

He makes it so easy to be foolish.

“Good.” He approves with a short nod. “So you’re going to be careful now, aren’t you? You’re going to wear your daisy fresh dresses and your ballet flats. You’re going to braid your hair like a good girl and you’re going to stop begging for my attention. You’re going to stop making me look at you.”

His words, almost snarled from his mouth and dripping in condescension, penetrate my drugged-up mind and make me frown. They make me stand a little taller in my stupid heels when he moves away from me.

And I tell him with as much authority as I can muster right now, “Then you have to stop watching me.”

Reed was in the process of taking another step back and dismissing me. But my words stop him. They make him frown. “What?”

Good.

I’m glad.

If he can give me ultimatums, then I can issue them too.

I raise my trembling chin and say, “You have to stop coming to my practice every day.”

Because that’s what he does.

He comes to my after-hours practice and he watches me dance.

Every day after school, when I practice in the auditorium because I still haven’t nailed down my routine, he comes in.

He sits in the third row, not too far away from the stage and not too close. I don’t know why. And he watches me spin and turn and leap around the stage with my wings on my back.

He watches me like he did the first night at the party.

All eager and intense and at the edge of his seat.

And I dance for him in the same way as well. All restless and excited.

After the pact I was afraid that he’d stop. I was afraid that he wouldn’t watch me dance anymore. But he didn’t and thank God for that.

Because somehow, I’ve gotten addicted to dancing for him.

Somehow, I’ve become addicted to the way he looks at me. Addicted to the way his shoulders seem to loosen up the longer I dance. How he sits back and sprawls out on the seat as if this is the best part of his day, me dancing for him.

So sometimes I dance for him just because he wants me to.

I abandon my practice, pick a song that I love and spin for him like the ballerina I am.

His ballerina.

But it’s stupid, isn’t it? And dangerous.

He’s right.

He’s the worst asshole of all, the biggest villain that my brothers have warned me about.

And I can’t betray my brothers – Ledger – no matter what my heart keeps telling me.

So this is the best course of action, staying away like we always have.

“And why’s that?” he challenges.

I press my hands harder on the Mustang. “Because you’re right. This is stupid. I never should’ve worn this stupid dress.”

Yeah, everything happened because of this stupid freaking dress.

If I wasn’t wearing this, then I’d be safely tucked away inside Tempest’s room, watching something silly on her laptop instead of standing out here in these torturous heels under his torturous scrutiny.

“Why did you then?”

“Because I wanted to see what it felt like…” I trail off when I realize what I was going to say.

Of course, he hones in on that and his features grow alert. “Felt like what?”

Well, I was stupid enough to bring it up, wasn’t I?

I can be stupid, stupid, stupid enough to finish it too.

What do I have to