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“Arturo,” I chide, unable to keep the moan from my voice. “This is serious. It’s not about … that.”
He darts his hand across the table and grips my face, softly, in his hand. Then he strokes his thumb along my lips, first my lower and then my upper. He keeps the burning darkness of his gaze fixated on me.
“Wherever we are, whatever we’re doing, I’ll never stop fantasizing about fucking you,” he growls. “Now suck, Aida. Prove to me that you’ll always be my obedient girl. Just mine. Just. Mine.”
He slips his thumb into my mouth. It tastes of him, musky, consuming. I grab his wrist and suck, keeping my eyes wide open, staring at him as I bob my mouth up and down.
The corners of his mouth twitch and then he withdraws his hand.
“See,” he taunts. “You’re too horny to say no.”
“Okay,” I gasp, squeezing my thighs, torturing my pussy. “But we still need to figure this thing out. What if I contact Dad and ask him to meet with us? He’ll have to agree to that, won’t he?”
He pauses, considering.
“Yes, I think he would,” he says. “But if you tell him I’m going to be there, he might refuse—”
“No,” I say. “He won’t. He can’t. Whatever else he is, he’s a good father, Arturo. I just hope he’s …”
“A good man, too?” he finishes for me.
I nod, biting my lip. “Yeah, exactly.”
“So do I, Aida,” he says. “We were so close growing up. It seems we’ve got a couple of difficult conversations to have. First, we’ve got to figure out just what the hell is going on between our Families, and then I’m going to drop the bombshell on him that I’ve claimed his daughter, and that you want to be claimed, that, actually, you’re gagging for me every second of every day.”
I giggle, loving how he can do that, make me go from anxious and scared to carefree and light-feeling in a heartbeat.
“I am not gagging for it,” I say, shooting him a playful look. “In fact, I’ve just been going along with this for …”
I trail off.
Arturo smirks.
“You’re too damn cute, Aida,” he laughs. “You were about to say you were just going along with this because you’re my prisoner.”
“Mind reader.”
“But you couldn’t, could you? Because you know we’re in too deep together for you to lie to me.”
“How do you do that?” I laugh.
“Do what?”
“Look at me and just know what I’m thinking?”
He reaches across the table and cups my cheek, sending warm sizzling tendrils through me. He tucks some hair behind my ear and lets out a growling sigh, the same noise I imagine an alpha lion makes when nuzzling its mate.
“I know you,” he says. “The first time I saw you, I felt like I’d known you my whole life. I feel like I’ve been cold and distant with every single woman who’s ever tried to be with me because they weren’t you. All my forty-one years, Aida, nobody was ever good enough. Nobody was even close. Because they weren’t you. You’re everything to me. I think that’s why.”
I blink and more tears slide down my cheeks, warm, tickling.
“They’re happy,” I moan, reaching up and grabbing his hand firmly, never wanting to let go.
“I know,” he says fiercely.
Ah, yes, of course, he does.
The sun finally sets, the world turning dark, but our little corner of the estate is blazing hot and bright, and my heart is burning even hotter.
All my life, I’ve never belonged. I’ve always been the odd one out, the outsider looking in.
But now I finally feel as if I’ve slid into place.
I just hope telling Dad doesn’t ruin everything.
Chapter Sixteen
Aida
Nerves swirl around me as I sit in the passenger seat of the car, Arturo deftly handling the wheel as he drives us out of his estate and down the country road.
It’s been two days since our date on the balcony, probably – no, definitely – the best two days of my life.
It took that long for Arturo and Dad to agree on a place to meet, both of them suspicious that the other one was going to try something.
In the end, we’ve settled for a warehouse at the Docks, the place the fighting Pits used to be held.
Several cars follow us as we drive out of the metal gates.
My heart thumps as though it’s powered by the engine, my thoughts flooded with all the ways this meeting could go wrong.
But it needs to happen.
I need to know if Dad killed those men, and Arturo needs to know if Dad is aware of this government agency, the one that ordered his second-in-command – and his and Dad’s old friend – to kidnap me. Elmo is still missing.
Maybe Dad killed him, a bitter voice whispers. Maybe he’s been killing people your whole life.
