AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“As I expected him to be,” the duke replies. I can hear the sneer in his tone. “No one can fool that fucker for long, not even me.” He scoffs. “There are moments when I’m proud of the bastard. He might not be my biological child, but he does owe me for teaching him all his wicked skills. His and Sade’s abilities are why we had to make this look like an affair.”
I can sense him staring at me, and I square my shoulders to keep from shuddering.
“It’s imperative that neither of those devils ever, and I mean ever, discovers what this is all about,” he says, his voice a warning. “What you’re actually doing for me.”
“Which is why we need to speed things up. It might be paranoia, but I have a feeling that Micah is watching me all the time, even now, and things will only get worse if he finds out I’m still seeing you.”
From the corner of my eye, I see Romano arch an eyebrow. “He gave you an ultimatum? How romantic. For you and me, I mean.”
A hand creeps up my knee, and a knot lodges in my throat. My thighs stiffen, but that only earns me a pleased groan from the man wrapped in expensive fabric next to me. Somehow, his suit enhances his aura of evil, his lean body deceiving with regard to the force packed inside it. Romano Royales might be a whole bunch of disgusting things wrapped into one with a ribbon on it, but he was already a Heathen King when he married Annabelle to get access to her money. That means he already possessed the deadliest skills a man can possess. He’s right when he says Annabelle’s boys owe it all to him. I have to walk on eggshells around him and ensure I’ve served my purpose before falling off his radar. That way, he might actually let me slip away, and he might even keep Micah from ever finding me again.
I wonder if I should negotiate my freedom with him instead of just vanishing into thin air and having to look over my shoulder for the rest of my life.
“You know, our affair must not be fake,” he says before I can think of a way to broach the subject I want to talk about. The sound of him licking his lips makes my mouth twist, but I manage to keep a straight face.
He wants an affair with me, and by now, I’ve learned that what Duke Romano Royales wants, Duke Romano Royales gets—except the death of his two stepsons, the only two bastards that are harder than him.
There goes my negotiation for my freedom.
“I didn’t think you’d mix business with pleasure. You’re a businessman. You’re better than that.”
“Oh, I’m not mixing them,” he says, his touch feather-light as it glides up my thigh, his fingers bridging the gap between them. My stomach knots and bile hits my palate, but I can’t show it, or he’ll do even worse. The bastard likes it if a woman feels violated when he breaks into her personal space—another little something I learned about him in all the time we’ve been meeting. “One will come after the other.”
My head snaps up at him, and my face manages to arrest his eyes.
“Another reason to get this over with as soon as possible. Getting the business out of the way, I mean.”
“It doesn’t work that way. Meetings have already been set. The routes to get messages through to the right people are convoluted, and we can never use the same messengers twice. Some of them must be removed as soon as they deliver to ensure that the secret doesn’t come to light, so we have to find other avenues of communication.”
I hate few things more than having to look into Romano’s face, but now that he just admitted he kills people just because they represent a minor risk, it makes me want to puke all over his silky designer suit. I refuse to think what he’ll do with me. Rape me and then kill me? Or maybe he’ll just do both at the same time.
Seems like flight really is the only option.
“Besides, I know you’re not in a rush to get to the pleasure part with me, Eva.” He leans closer over the console between us, his sickening scent and the vacant look in his eyes giving me the jitters. “Your muscles tense and your skin puckers whenever I breathe close to you, and we both know it’s not for good reasons.” A smile lifts the corners of his mouth. They stretch up too far, making him resemble one of those gruesome posters advertising horror movies.
“I never told you, but I love it when that happens,” he says in an eerie voice. No one knows we’re here. He could do his thing with me right now. He probably would if he didn’t still need me to function. “You put on a good show but not good enough to fool me. Not when I’m sitting close enough at the Vanguard to scent the hormones in your sweat. You despise me. Your insides twist whenever I run my fingers through your hair or stroke your skin. But Micah was too far to pick up these small hints. He’s also too smart for his own good, so he’ll never believe you’re not sleeping with me unless you tell him the truth. But that’s not an option, is it?” He laughs, satisfied by my predicament. “The truth is the only thing that can set you free, but it’s also what would blow you to pieces.” Then lower, sicker, like he can smell my fear, and it makes him horny. “You’re completely at my mercy, pretty, cold Eva. Your life is clay for me to model in my hands.”
The air in the car has turned thick with his lust, and his hand has moved dangerously close to my panties under my suit skirt, while the other one moves up to wrap around the nape of my neck. From the corner of my eye, I can make out the tent rising in his lap, and I know he’ll push my head down for a blow job any second now.
I’m so fucking scared that I can’t move, my jaw so tight it hurts.
“Come on, Eva,” he says. “We both knew we’d get here eventually.”
“We did,” I murmur. “But not before the job is done.” I keep my chin high, not because I can hold my own, but because I’m petrified, my back glued to the passenger seat. “What you’re asking of me isn’t a walk in the park, you know. It’s serious business that I’ll need to be completely focused on, and raping me won’t do anything to improve my focus. If anything, it will jeopardize the mission.”
Seconds tick by, and I swear to God, they feel like an eternity.
Finally, Romano straightens in his seat, his hands slipping off of my leg and the back of my neck before he places one on the steering wheel and one on his boner. He squeezes through his pants.
“All you’re doing is buying yourself more time, but you will end up with my dick in your mouth sooner or later, pretty Eva.” He licks his lips before giving me a grin that he knows has my skin crawling. “Sooner or later, you will be mine, and I’ll take my time with every hole in your body. I’ll use every one of them until you’re spoiled goods for any other man.”
Although this is the first time he’s used such crude words, everything in his attitude has been saying it all this time.
I don’t understand how so many women can find Romano charming, handsome even. His presence can totally command a room with those streaks of white snaking through his dark hair, swept back to reveal his high forehead. He makes the ladies swoon. Still, it doesn’t take a world of people skills to read the kind of person he is. I saw through him from the moment we first met six months ago. If anyone lets his outward charm fool them, it’s only because they choose to for social and financial advantage.
“I’ll see what I can do to move up the meeting with the Morningstars,” he says.
“I can contact their people if you want me to,” I blurt out. “There needn’t be any more casualties. I can do it in person if—”
