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“If I can’t change your mind,” he repeated, but there was something about his tone that sent a warning chill dancing along my skin. “But I will change your mind, Katherine. I have no doubt that by the end of the week, possibly sooner, I’ll be between your legs and you’ll be gasping my name.”
I sucked in an embarrassed breath, glancing around quickly to see if anyone had caught what he’d said. “I said no sex,” I said with a sharp hiss. “Absolutely no sex. No touching, no sucking, kissing or licking...nothing.”
His knowing chuckle undid me, and I suffered an intense need to run far and fast. It was as if he could sense that my heart rate tripled when he was around, that my skin heated and my toes curled inside my shoes against my will.
My attraction to him was mortifying. My dignity cringed and wailed, Remember how he destroyed you without skipping a beat? Do you want to be tied to him for the rest of your life? Afraid of when he’ll, no doubt, do it again?
God, no. Then suck it up, buttercup, and get ready to win at all costs. I swallowed the lump stuck in my throat but held my ground. “No sex,” I growled.
“Fine.” He sighed but then added with a silky whisper against the shell of my ear, “But I promise I won’t think less of you in the morning if you change your mind.”
A tremble rattled my knees. Was I afraid that he was right? That it wouldn’t take much for me to crumple beneath his touch if I so much as gave him one single opportunity? That if I did let him in, I’d willingly bare my neck for the slaughter as I sank into the pleasure that I knew he could wring from my body? Okay, maybe that part was a little dramatic, but my life was on the line. And as much as I hated to admit it, sex with Luca had been pretty good. Okay, spectacular.
True story—after one particularly long and exquisite orgasm, I temporarily went deaf. Yeah, that had done wonders for Luca’s already healthy ego when I’d shared that phenomenon with him.
But no one had been able to deliver that kind of pleasure since, so I knew Luca had some skill.
Immaterial, I reminded myself when I started to drift. I didn’t want to live my life as a Donato Stepford wife. I knew that for certain, and no amount of stellar sex was going to change that fact.
I just had to keep my eye on the prize—my freedom—and everything would work out in my favor.
I could handle seven days.
Lifting my chin, I held Luca’s stare, reiterating my terms. “In writing, please.”
There went that damnable smile again as he said, “I’ll have my lawyer draft something immediately.”
And I wasn’t sure if I’d just made a very big mistake.
CHAPTER FOUR
Luca
TRUE TO MY WORD, I had a draft contract, simple and concise, emailed to me within an hour of checking into the roach motel passing itself off as a hostel. As Katherine perused the wording with the diligence of a woman signing away her soul to the devil, I wondered how quickly she would notice that the single bed in the room was quite small.
If she thought I was going to sleep on the floor, she was nuts. I’d seen toilets in third-world countries cleaner than this dingy, faded linoleum, and I wasn’t touching it with my bare feet, much less my backside.
“Everything in order?” I asked.
A subtle frown pulled on her forehead as she double-checked everything. Her frown deepened as she regarded me with irritation. “The bedroom clause? I told you no sex.”
“Are you saying you can’t sleep beside me without tearing off my clothes and having your wicked way with me?”
“Please—” she rolled her eyes “—you know I won’t have a problem, but you, on the other hand... I don’t believe you can keep your hands to yourself.”
Oh, sweet Katherine, you’re going to beg for my hands—and tongue—by the time I’m through with you. “I guess we’ll have to see,” I said with a small shrug. “Anything else?”
The indecision as she vacillated between refusing to sign and going forward was intriguing. I think of the many things I enjoyed about Katherine, it was her stubborn refusal to simply do as she was told. Maybe I was tired of people always jumping when I barked. I wouldn’t put it past Katherine to rip up the contract out of spite.
Finally, she signed her name with flourish, chewing her plump bottom lip as she finished. “There. Done. You get one week and then I’m gone.”
“So the contract says,” I agreed, causing her to cast a suspicious look my way. I smiled. “Now that the legalities are out of the way...shall we discuss the schedule?”
Katherine drew a deep breath and exhaled with a nod. “Might as well.”
“We can do this one of two ways. You can take all your days consecutively or we can trade off. Which do you prefer?”
“I prefer not having you in my space at all,” she answered with a perfunctory smile. “But seeing as I just agreed to this ridiculous game, we’ll switch off.”
“Excellent,” I said, already ready to vacate this trash bin. I would have the penthouse suite booked at the most exclusive hotel in the city for tomorrow. At the very least, I’d get a decent shower, which I knew wasn’t going to happen here. “On to the second order of business...as you can see, the bed is quite small.”
“I wasn’t counting on company,” Katherine said, but she could already see where I was heading. “I guess you’ll have to sleep on the floor.”
“You and I both know that’s not going to happen.”
“The contract says one bedroom, not one bed,” she pointed out. “So, technically, if we’re still in the same room...it doesn’t mean that we have to be in the same bed.”
“You can take the floor if you like, but I’m taking the bed,” I said, enjoying how her upper lip wrinkled in subtle distaste for the same reasons mine did. “But if you’re amenable to sharing the bed, I’m not opposed to it.”
“I don’t mind sleeping on the floor,” she bluffed.
“Excellent. Then it’s settled. Maybe we can get an extra blanket for you. San Francisco is quite chilly at night.”
Especially in January.
“You would make me sleep on the floor?” Katherine asked.
“Of course not. You’re the one insisting on sleeping on the floor.”
“I am not,” she refuted, scowling a little. “You are by not being a gentleman.”
At that I laughed. “Have I ever been accused of being a gentleman?”
Katherine opened her mouth but stopped short. I would give anything for a window into that overactive brain of hers. What memory had popped in before she ignored it? I would ask if I thought she might admit it, but I wasn’t going to waste the energy. Not yet, anyway. “Fine,” she agreed through gritted teeth. “But I swear to God, if you touch me...”
I waved away her threat. “Sweetheart, I promise I won’t touch you...until you beg for it.”
Katherine flushed red but managed a haughty “Like that’s ever going to happen” before she left me alone in the room, supposedly to use the communal toilet. I cracked a grin at imagining how Katherine would shriek at the bathroom conditions. She talked a good game, but she was out of her element. As much as she wanted to play the hippie flower child, she was just as accustomed to wealth as me. I doubted the “charm” of her accommodations would last long.
Perusing the small room, I chuckled at the memories of Europe—young, dumb and full of come, as they say—me and my buddies traipsing through London, Athens, Paris in one long, endless summer of debauchery.
All those foreign, exotic women—I limited myself to nothing. Curvy, thin, short, tall, thick. And wild, shy and timid—I enjoyed the smorgasbord of female options and learned a few things, too.
We often joked it was a miracle we’d escaped alive with our cocks intact. Although Ryin had caught a particularly nasty infection that’d required a stringent round of antibiotics—but at least it’d
been curable.
And speaking of debauchery...
I grabbed my cell and dialed my friend Dillon Buchanan.
He surprised me with a quick answer. “Fucking A, Luca Donato? What are you doing? Are you in town?”
“I am, and I’m looking for a little entertainment. You and your brothers still own that club?”
