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As I lay there holding her, I was struck by a sense of awe at how naturally she fit in my arms. It was as if she was always meant to be there.
I shook my head. I shouldn’t be letting myself feel these things, but with her in my arms, I felt a contentment that I’d never known before.
I swallowed hard.
She stirred awake and turned to face me, her eyes fluttering open to reveal those captivating depths that had ensnared me from the start. In those first moments of wakefulness, her gaze held a mix of vulnerability and inquiry, searching mine as if unsure of what the new day held for us, almost as if she didn’t know what to expect from me after the intensity of the previous few days.
The truth was, I didn’t either.
I didn’t say anything.
Leaning in, I just gave in and kissed her.
Her response was immediate, a soft yielding that melted into the tenderness of the moment, and I kissed her a bit harder and more possessively, and she molded to me like a vine wound around a tree.
“Good morning,” she breathed.
“Good morning, Maci-girl,” I answered. I moved to climb out of bed, but she nestled closer to me, and I couldn’t bring myself to pull away from her, at least not yet. She shifted against me, her expression one of curiosity as she leaned away from me just far enough to see my face.
“What are you going to do today? Plot your next bombing? Take over the world? Negotiate an unbreakable alliance with another shipping family?” she asked, a certain playfulness twinkling in her eyes.
The little minx was testing me, and it made my dick really fucking hard. I didn’t care if she could feel it either.
In fact, I liked that she probably could.
“Just because you figured that out yesterday, it doesn’t mean that anything will change, Maci-girl. You’re safe outside my world and that’s where you’re going to stay,” I chided, but I was still pretty fascinated over her figuring that out, even though it was the day after. She was smarter than I gave her credit for.
I wouldn’t make that mistake again.
“I know that they’re going to hit back after you sank their ships. What are they going to do in return? Have you started a war? How will it end?” she asked, lifting her chin and searching my gaze, and I was once again hit with pride about how intelligent she was.
Maybe she could be an asset in my world after all.
“How it ends all depends on how hard they hit me back,” I answered carefully. I was giving her just enough, but not too much. I wanted to watch as she figured it all out on her own once again.
“What are they going to do?” she pressed.
Her curiosity was endearing, and I found myself enjoying every second of it. In fact, I wanted to play into it a bit more, so I decided to test her.
I was going to enjoy this.
“Well how do you think they’ll hit back?” I asked, raising my eyebrow.
Her face scrunched up in thought, and it was the cutest thing I had ever seen. Her eyebrows drew together, and she glanced down, thinking, before her gaze popped back up to mine.
“Wouldn’t they just not hit back at all? I mean, you sent a clear enough message, I would think…” she tried, and I shook my head. Her brow furrowed once again.
“No, they have to do something in retaliation. It would destroy their reputation if they did nothing at all,” I answered patiently.
“Yeah. I guess you’re right… Well, I guess they wouldn’t want to hit back as hard as they could because that would escalate the war, but then they could try to hit back hard enough to save face.”
My pride in her reached a new level, and I decided to keep pushing her. How far could this go?
“What do you think they would do to achieve that?” I questioned, reaching for her and casually brushing a lock of hair out of her face and tucking it behind her ear.
“Maybe they’ll just kill a few of your guys but no one really important,” she guessed.
I smiled, unable to hide how stunned I was with how quickly she was learning. “Little miss crime lord, I’m not just going to let them kill my men. What kind of patriarch would that make me?”
