Isabelle’s date propositioned her.
“With Hunter having no clue who he is, it’s best for you to cut things short. My apartment door is unlocked.” Just as the elevator dings in the lobby of the building, our call disconnects.
I house my phone into my pocket before stepping closer to Isabelle. My thoughts are shut down, and my smarts are nowhere to be seen. Ensuring Isabelle’s date is aware she isnotavailable is theonlything on my mind.
With Isabelle’s retreating steps being half the length of mine, in a matter of seconds, I have her caged against the wall of her entryway. The scent I’ve been obsessed with since we shared a whiskey in the bar of an airport restaurant augments when I tilt her chin to the side so I can ravish the skin getting damper for every second I pin her to the wall with my crotch.
She moans on repeat when I lick, suck, and bite on the sensitive skin of her neck. I mark her as mine while fighting the urge to claim her with more than a love bite.
My battle intensifies when the heat of her pussy scorches my cock when I pull her closer to me by groping her ass. She’s wet, so not only am I disappointed when Hunter advises in my ear that her caller is three floors away, I’m downright fucking furious.
No one gets to smell Isabelle’s erotic scent but me, and if it weren’t for the giant hickey on her assuring me no man will get close to her tonight, I’d make sure her ‘date’ knew that with more than words.
I pull back when Hunter’s demands in my ear get angsty. He hates that he doesn’t know the identity of the man approaching even more than I hate the thought of leaving Isabelle alone with him.
“No more men in your apartment, Isabelle.”
Since Hunter is advising me that I don’t have time to ensure she knows my threat isn’t idle, I exit her apartment without so much of a backward glance.
When Hugo breaks through the emergency stairs, his large frame blocks me from taking in the blond gent’s face as well as it conceals me from his watch. I slip into Hugo’s apartment two doors down from Isabelle’s a nanosecond before her caller skirts past Hugo like he’s invisible, his mind clearly elsewhere.
I strive to determine his thoughts the instant I commence climbing down the emergency fire stairwell on the side of the building. “Send the footage from the corridor to my phone.”
“Boss—”
With my breaths jagged from kissing Isabelle senseless, my words come out snappier than intended. Serves Hunter right, though. I pay my staff well to do as told. “I wasn’t asking, Hunter. Send me the footage, then delete it from the servers.”
The sound of his fingers flying over his keyboard sound down the line as he replies with a grumble, “On it.”
36
Isabelle references me after the kiss she shared with her date, and she pulls back first, but no matter how many times I remind myself of this while watching the footage on repeat, I can’t not unhear the faintest of moans that escaped her lips when his tongue slid into her mouth.
She moaned for him.
A man not worthy of her time.
A man who isn’t me.
She. Moaned. For. Him!
Too angry to think rationally, I send my laptop flying across my office. Its sail ends when it crashes into the only solid wall, indenting the area Nikolai’s knife stabbed before sprinkling the floor beneath it with broken shards of plastic and metal.
After taking a second to breathe out some of my anger, I snatch up my phone from the desk and dial a frequently called number. Hunter answers two rings later. “His name is Brandon. Find him.”
“On it now, boss. Give me a second.”
Even though he can’t see me, I jerk up my chin before moving to the bar at the side of the large space to fill a glass with whiskey. My veins are bubbling with annoyance, and my palms are itching with an unbridled urge to take Isabelle over my knee and spank her until she submits to my every whim.
And the urge worsens when a signed classic lands at my feet with a thud two seconds before Isabelle’s enraged words. “You son of a bitch!”
While flexing my fingers against my cell phone, I pivot around to face her. Her eyes are filled with as much anarchy as mine, and the hickey I left in warning that she is a taken woman is dotted with tiny beads of sweat.
Ignoring Hunter’s request for me to remain calm, I tell him I’ll call him back before darting my eyes between the book Isabelle hooked at my back and her. I’m fuming mad, and the urge to use Isabelle as a crutch out of the deep hole worsens the longer I drink in the anger enveloping her.
Is she mad I marked her skin? Or angry it drove her ‘date’ away as intended.
While I house my untraceable cell into my trousers’ pocket, Isabelle announces the reason her blood is close to boiling. “This wasn’t an accident. Youmarkedme. Youbrandedme like some sort of…” She takes a moment to consider an objective. It isn’t one I’m happy with when she finalizes with, “Animal.”
