CHAPTER 6

Stephane POV::

My blood boils as I watch Aleen dance in the arms of that young boy. The audaciousness of his youth is alarming. He has his arms draped around her, too intimately for comfort. And what does Aleen do? She actually encourages it. Smiling. Seductively. I know she knows I am watching her. She has my undivided attention, even as I dance skillfully with Christine in my arms.

Aleen spares me a glance under her lashes from across the room and I feel electricity dance up my spine. That nymph. She knows what she is doing. She keeps her enchanting eyes on me, and she pulls in even closer to the boy. I see red. I lose my cool and yet manage to keep it. Fire lances through my bloodstream and I don't know what to do about it. I have no one to vent about it to.

"Are you okay, honey?" Christine's sweet breath teases my neck. It does nothing to me. Compared to how much her daughter's sizzling stare from across the room, in another man's arms, is doing to me. I feel like I could scream. I have never known quiet unrelenting frustration like this before. I want to bash that boy's head in. If for nothing, but for failing to realise how that he is playing with fire, dumbly dancing with my girl. My Aleen. She is mine. What we did upstairs, just moment ago sealed the deal.

"What?" I am faintly tugged to reality by Christine's tapping on my shoulder to draw my attention.

"I asked if you were alright. You have gotten tensed." She offers. I look down at her sweetly lined face. Thankfully, she looks nothing like her daughter. Maybe that is why I feel no remorse about what I did. What I am going to do. Because it is clear now that Aleen wants to play games. And she is playing with fire but I will let her realise that herself.

"Oh. It is nothing. Just some work stuff came to mind." I say, lying deftly. That makes me feel some remorse. Because I know it would be the first of many lies. Fuck. That is not who I am. But Aleen renders me bare. She strips me of my common sense and suddenly, I find that I don't recognise myself anymore. I just want her. Again. And again. And again.

She has awoken a desire within me that couldn't be satiated.

"Do you want to stop dancing? I don't mind. My feet are getting tired anyway." Christine offers me a way out in her usual sweet selfless manner.

"Alright darling. I want to go see about Aleen and this new boy she is dancing so provocatively with. If that's okay with you." I nod in their direction, fist clenched where she can't see them. They are now intertwined and the dance has gotten somewhat more heated.

"It is okay though I don't see why you must bother. She is an adult. She looks like she is having fun." Christine throws a distracted look at Aleen and continues walking away from the dance floor.

I remain there, weighing my options. Leaving the dance floor is out of the question. Not when Aleen's body in that sheer dress sways seductively, calling to me. In another man's arms. I feel a vein throb in my temple. I watch Christine get into conversation with some family friends gathered at the far end of the dance floor.

I make my choice. I stalk towards the couple. Her back is to me so it is the other guy's stupid face looking at me. Through the haze of my blind anger, I think it is a face I know. Considering the wedding was supposed to be an intimate one, he is likely Mike's family. Or from the bride. I can't tell but he is familiar to me. I shrug it off and I reach out to touch Aleen's lower back, she stiffens. They stop dancing. Slowly, Aleen turns around to glare at me.

"If you will excuse me, I think I would like to steal my daughter from you, young man." I say gently to the guy, ignoring Aleen's vitriolic glare. He glances between us, sensing the tension and reading it however he chooses to, he raises his hands up with a smile and nods, backing away.

"Can I have this dance?" I offer gentlemanly to Aleen whose icy glare has still not eased up.

"No." She says and turns away from me.

I grab her hand and pull her back so she collides into me, an enraged gasp escapes her lips and I can't hide my satisfied smirk as I feel her soft body yielding to me.

I swirl her so she is facing me and I grab her hips, my fingers sliding down her lower back, as low as I dared in the dim lights of the dance floor, everybody around us shimmers to nothing.

"Never turn away from me, Aleen." I growl low into her ears.

"What are you doing? Have you lost your mind?" Aleen hissed in my ear, her hot breath is a wicked balm to the relentless pounding of my heart.

"I should be asking you that question. Seeing as you chose to enrage me by dancing with some guy." I return the angered words. I feel my heart pounding hard in my chest.

"Wasn't that what you were doing too? Don't like a taste of your own medicine huh?" Aleen whispers into my ear, hisses more like and I don't hear the music again. We dance blindly on the floor, surrounded by friends and family and I know I am playing a dangerous game but I am too far in it, there is no release. No respite. She stirs me in ways I have never been moved.

"Don't play games with me, Aleen. You will regret it." I grunt under my breathe when another couple sashays close to us, my hand moves up her back so we don't look suspicious.

"You started it." She snaps. Her breath is hot and minty. I ache to kiss her.

I direct her through the dance, letting her swirl, she glares at me throughout the motion.

When I pull her in again and our bodies collide, she places her lips against my ear and my body stiffens in anticipation, "and I am not your daughter." She snaps.