Chapter 249: You like it too, don’t you?

Lowering my head and instinctively pulling my knees up to my chest, I stared down at my feet and froze, because I wasn’t wearing any shoes. My sneakers had vanished. But something else shocked me even more: my injured foot, which had previously made normal walking impossible, was now tightly wrapped in a professional medical bandage.

"This...?" Faltering, I stared uncomprehendingly at the bandage, struggling to recall anything at all, but my memory was a gaping black hole.

What had they done to me while I was unconscious? Turning slowly toward Damian, I watched as he didn’t even deign to answer me, smoothly rolling down the car window and lighting a cigarette.

Resting his elbow on the edge of the door, he exhaled blue-gray smoke out into the partially open window. A sharp wind ruffled his dark hair, long strands repeatedly falling across his face to hide the predatory squint of his eyes, yet he didn’t even try to brush them away, as if such discomfort was nothing more than a minor annoyance to him.

"Dey carried you to a doctor, and the guy stitched up your little paw," the guy in the front seat said, glancing back slightly without taking his hands off the steering wheel, and gave me a cheerful wink that left me completely flustered, having no idea how to react.

"You were sleeping so soundly and snoring so loudly that when we were looking for you, we initially thought a crew of construction workers was sleeping there, not one little girl."

"I snored? Really?" Instantly, a scorching wave of shame burned across my cheeks, feeling as though it reached all the way to the tips of my ears.

Could I really have made sounds like that? To die of embarrassment—that was what I wanted most of all right now.

Casting a desperate glance at Damian, I expected to see mockery, but he continued staring coldly at the rushing streets outside, smoking as if our conversation didn’t concern him at all.

"Yes! And what’s more, even when they were stitching up your leg, right at the very end you kicked the doctor right on the nose with your heel, grumbled something annoyingly, turned away, and just kept right on snoring!" Matthias laughed loudly, yanking the steering wheel sharply as he rounded an intersection.

The car lurched so violently that, unable to keep my balance on the slick leather seat, I tumbled sideways with a muffled gasp—straight into Damian. Crashing shoulder-first into his rock-hard chest, I instantly tried to pull away, but my body seemed paralyzed by the searing contact.

"Poor older brother of mine. How on earth do you two even sleep together with concerts like that?" Matthias continued to tease, watching us through the rearview mirror with amusement.

"Fine; she’s keeping the monster under my bed away from me," Damian said in a completely level, emotionless voice, taking a slow drag from his cigarette, and this terrifying calmness sent a scratching shiver slithering down my spine.

"Ah, so that’s the kind of girlfriend you needed, after all. Though it looks more like she’s keeping your monster away from you," Matthias chuckled, easing off the gas.

Lifting my eyes, I watched through the windshield as the massive wrought-iron gates of an elite residential complex smoothly parted before the car’s hood, letting us into the secured grounds.

With every second spent beside Damian, breathing became increasingly difficult. Feeling his broad shoulder and heavy arm right next to me, I was literally burning with humiliating shame. In this unbearable situation, I wanted only one thing—to escape their intense scrutiny as quickly as possible, to hide and disappear.

Gritting my teeth until they creaked, I made another attempt to slide away from his radiating, burning body, trying to shift back toward the opposite door, but he wouldn’t let me go. Quite the opposite. He harshly dragged me even closer, pressing me flat against his side and wrapping an arm around my waist so tightly that my ribs groaned pitifully under the pressure.

His arm felt overwhelmingly heavy, and the very next second, with a dominant sweep of his fingers, he stroked my thigh right through the fabric of my jeans. From this brazen touch, my breath hitched entirely from the tension, and the skin beneath his palm flared with real fire, scorching away the last remnants of my thoughts.

Jerking back like a trapped bird caught in a snare, I planted my trembling palms against his hard side, trying with all my might to shove him away. Yet for some reason, it felt as though I were trying to move a mountain barehanded rather than a guy who seemed to have entirely lost any shred of shame.

Ignoring my pitiful attempts at resistance, the tips of his searingly hot fingers slid beneath the hem of my sweater, tracing my bare skin with a slow, terrifying tenderness.

Every motion he made felt like molten magma spilled across my skin.

"Damian..." I hissed, caught in a hellish mix of outrage and terror, and thrashed even harder, trying to claw my way out of the trap of his arms.

Yet he didn’t pay the slightest attention to my flailing. He didn’t even look. His flawless, chiseled profile remained utterly bored and detached, as if he were simply petting a stray cat instead of touching my body without my consent.

"Amelie, he’s probably completely exhausted you, poor thing, with his appetites," Matthias said with a mocking smirk, smoothly parking the car at the main entrance of the high-rise.

Shifting my stunned gaze from Damian, yet without relaxing my resistance for a single second, I looked at the fair-haired guy with genuine bewilderment.

In the rearview mirror, it was clearly visible that he was watching us intently at that moment, studying my reaction. His question sounded devilishly strange overall. It was as if he meant something completely different from what he was actually saying, testing the waters and trying to fish out some kind of reaction.

"But cut him a little slack. After all, this is his first long and serious relationship," Matthias continued, joking.

"Matthias, isn’t it time for you to go home? My girlfriend and I will figure out ourselves who will give whom what slack," hard, metallic-ringing notes in the Alpha’s voice swept over my skin like an electric shock, paralyzing my ability to resist.

His words burned, embedding themselves into my brain with a distorted, turned-inside-out reality.

"Girlfriend?" Turning sharply toward Damian, I locked my gaze—full of shock and anger—onto his face. "You...! How dare you?!"

I was choking with indignation because he was brazenly lying, weaving me into his sick game, the exit from which remained entirely unknown to me. I was a captive, a mere possession, collateral for my parents’ lives, and yet he sat there with an unperturbed expression, calling me his girlfriend? From this sick illusion, my throat constricted with fury.

"Oh, come on now, Hart, don’t be so shy," Matthias chuckled, finally killing the engine.

"Don’t tell my girlfriend what to do," Damian said with a devilish grin that bared his perfect teeth, leaning down close to my ear. "I really like it when she’s so sweetly shy."

And as if to confirm his horrifying words, his broad palm—still resting on my waist—wickedly slid even higher beneath my sweater. Searing my sensitive skin with his heat, his rough fingers brushed across my ribs, stopping just below my breasts and making me shudder at the wild, intense intimacy of the gesture.

"You like it too, don’t you, little bird?"