Bait for a Gentleman novel Chapter 128

She straddled his lap, her dress bunched up around her thighs. Her knees pressed into the expensive leather seats as she slumped against him, totally boneless.

His hands remained clamped on her waist. He made no move to open the door.

Audrina waited for a moment, but he didn't speak, and he didn't move.

"Why aren't we getting out? How long are you going to hold me?" she asked.

Sebastian didn't answer.

Keeping one arm firmly secured around her waist, he raised his other hand, grasping her chin and forcing her face up just as she tried to bury herself back into his chest.

"Look at me."

Audrina was forced to meet his gaze. The dim lighting of the underground garage made his dark eyes look endlessly deep.

"You've been acting out the entire ride," he said softly. "When you were unbuttoning my shirt, did you think about how you were going to finish what you started?"

Audrina opened her mouth to argue, but the words died in her throat.

She had done it on purpose.

The whining, the touching, the bratty behavior—she just didn't want to have the conversation he was forcing.

Her alcohol tolerance was legendary; there was no way she was actually this drunk.

But she still stubbornly turned her face away, trying to pry his hand off. "I drank too much. Don't—"

Before she could finish the sentence, the arm around her waist snapped tight, yanking her forward. She crashed against his chest, their breaths instantly tangling together.

"Stop faking," Sebastian murmured ruthlessly.

His hand slipped to the back of her neck, pulling her down as his mouth crashed over hers.

He had held back for a month, and now he kissed her with a desperate, punishing intensity, as if he wanted to consume her entirely.

Audrina let out a muffled gasp, her hands pushing against his broad shoulders, but the sheer force of the kiss scrambled her senses, leaving her weak and utterly defenseless.

The air inside the car instantly skyrocketed in temperature.

Sebastian's hands began to roam.

Audrina immediately clamped down on his wrist, her voice trembling. "...We're in the car."

"So you know we're in the car," he replied, completely unfazed. "Then answer my question."

...She wrenched her head to the side, refusing to look at him, choosing death over surrender.

Methodically and with agonizing slowness, Sebastian began dismantling her defenses, exactly as he would systematically break down a complicated legal case.

It was a complete test of her stubbornness.

She tilted her head up, scowling weakly. "...Why do you have to keep asking?"

She was completely exhausted, practically shattered to pieces.

Sebastian didn't say anything.

The moonlight slipped through the crack in the curtains, illuminating her face.

She looked a little wronged, a little defiant, and carried a trace of spoiled arrogance she didn't even realize she had.

"Now I can answer your question," he murmured, his thumb absentmindedly stroking her ring finger.

The diamond engagement ring had been unceremoniously dumped on the corner of the nightstand, completely forgotten in the dark.

"What question?" she mumbled, her brain too hazy to keep up.

Sebastian thought back to the dimly lit corridor at Vantachi, when she had tilted her chin and teasingly asked, 'Trying to pursue me?' He hadn't had the chance to answer her then.

And now, his long fingers gently looped around a strand of her hair, slowly twirling it, then letting it fall.

He looked down into her eyes, his gaze impossibly deep.

"Audrina, is it really that hard to tell I'm pursuing you?"