Chapter Nine
The crowd falls quiet, attuned to us in a matter of seconds.
Not because he spoke to me. That earned me resentful glances or mild curiosity. What brings the room to a halt is my disobedience, as if I’ve disrupted the entire flow of the party by fighting back. The beat of the music still thrums around us, heavy vibrations on the taut crowd.
I can hear the jangle of iron chains from someone shackled to the corner, eyelids heavy as they watch me, hips still thrust upward in a gyration never completed. I can hear the slick sound of skin against skin as the tangle on the fallen-over armchair twist to look at me. A cold giggle from one of the girls who’d been dancing near Damon before he came over.
God, even the silence here is hedonistic and cruel.
“I’m listening,” he says, co
