Page 167 of Depraved Boys

A long breath heaved out from his lips. “When some ruthless bastard plays games with a person’s hearts, they deserve their victim’s full retribution.”

“What happened with the Porsche?” I whispered.

“The brakes failed.”

My heart flip-flopped. “You’ve got to report—”

“I deserved it. And worse.”

“But she tried to kill you.”

“I didn’t put two and two together until today. It’s best left alone. She’ll be under investigation for the more recent things she did to you. I don’t want to press charges against her unless the police fail at making the other charges stick.”

I held my silence. If Ashley decided to hurt the boys who had played the game on her, I probably wouldn’t lift a finger to warn them.

Standing to his full height, Sebastian offered me his hand as though to ask if I wanted to stay or go.

I let him pull me out of the jeep and into his arms. He felt warm and strong and full of remorse. I walked alongside him around the back of the treehouse toward the stairs.

I asked, “What did you say when Miss Claymore confronted you about the game?”

“That I’d never meant for the game to go that far.”

“Did you ever love her?”

“Not like a girlfriend, no.” He ascended the stairs.

I took the stairs at his side. “A mother figure, then?”

He reared back and scowled. “No! A mentor.”

Leopold’s words floated up to the surface of my mind. Had Miss Claymore’s inner muscles really been that strong?

I shook off those thoughts. She was out of the picture now. Hopefully, getting fired and reported to the police would make her realize how far she had fallen into madness.

The interior of the treehouse was warm and welcoming as usual. I inhaled the soothing, menthol scent of burned pine cones and took in the four-poster bed constructed out of living branches.

This had been where a young Sebastian had seduced a much older woman and turned her reluctant love into a deadly obsession.

A cynical part of my brain, the one that had devoured Dangerous Liaisons in English and French and had absorbed Glenn Close’s and John Malkovich’s performance in the movie, asked myself a single question. What if the game wasn’t just to make me fall in love with Sebastian? What if this time, he wanted me to fall in love with him and his friends?

“Willow,” Sebastian placed both hands on my shoulders. “I’m not playing you.”

My gaze dropped down to the wooden floor. Ninety-nine percent of me believed in Sebastian, but I’d seen too much, experienced too much to trust him completely.

“If any part of you has reservations, I won’t push through them and try to convince you of my sincerity. But take a look at yourself. You’re beautiful, strong, loving, and have the kind of body that makes me cum without touching myself.”

My gaze flicked up to his eyes. His pupils were blown, and a fire blazed in them that made the butterflies in my stomach travel south.

He licked his lips, and I imagined them on my neck, my breasts, my belly, and between my legs. “Why would any man want to jeopardize that for the sake of a stupid game?”

My gaze dropped down to the tent in his pants, and heat flared in my core.

“Prove it,” I whispered.

“Prove my love?”

“Prove that you can climax just by looking at me.”