AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I creep back into the bedroom and can’t help but stare at the lump in the bed. In all the years since I bought this place, I’ve never had a woman here. When the need for a tight wet hole got too much, I would fuck one of the girls at the strip clubs we owned quick and dirty. There was never a reason to take things slow with them, but it’s different with Snow. She’s going to beg for my cock, I know she is, but the longer I have to wait for those words to fall from her lips, the harder it is to control myself around her.
As quickly and quietly as I can, I dress in a pair of black sweatpants and a matching sweater before crossing to the bed where Snow is burrowed into my pillow. My lips twitch into a smile, her consciousness is at a constant battle with what her subconscious wants, but even in her sleep she seeks me out.
I drop a kiss to her cheek and quickly jot a note on the pad on the bedside table to let her know where I’ve gone. She doesn’t need to know what I’m doing, but while she’s learning to trust me it’s best I’m as open and honest with her as I can be.
When I turn back to the door, I can’t bear another glance at the bed. My body screams at me to return to her warmth, but business has always come first, and now that I’m in bed with the Saint James family, both metaphorically and literally, I need to play their game until they trust me.
The cold Chicago air whips off Lake Michigan and surrounds me, causing me to shiver. It’s cold as fucking shit out here, and more than ever I wish I was home with Snow, her sweet body pressed against mine as she snores softly beside me.
I’ve been out of the house for two hours and I’ve already checked the camera in my room three times. The pull to Snow only grows stronger every day I have her in my grasp, and now that I’ve allowed myself a taste of her, my need is only going to grow stronger.
“Did you find anything?” Everett asks, tearing my attention away from my phone. We’ve been at this for far too long, but they won’t call it. Whoever pulled this job is a professional. They haven’t left so much as a fucking cigarette butt, which is perhaps the most suspicious part of this whole thing. The docks are full of smokers. In my experience, there’s something about this type of work that breeds smokers, and for there not to be one discarded cigarette for a mile, they must have had one hell of a clean-up crew.
“Not a fucking thing.”
He eyes me warily, watching me for the telltale signs of a lie, but he’s not going to find anything. Even if I were behind this, I’ve been besting Everett since we were kids, and that’s not likely to change now. But I’m not, and this loss of shipment impacts me just as much as it does them. If there’s a new player in town, it means we both have something to worry about.
“Anything on the cameras?”
He shakes his head. “Nothing. They hacked into the feed and had old footage playing over and over which is why our security team didn’t pick anything up.”
“Anyone you know of with that kind of access?”
“Only you,” he replies pointedly, the accusation in the words obvious. He’s not trying to hide his disdain for me or my involvement with his family, but he’s barking up the wrong tree.
I sigh, slipping my phone back into the pocket of my sweatpants. The sun is poking out of the horizon, the slightest bit of natural light streaming across the docks. It won’t be long before Snow wakes up without me there, but there’s not a lot I can do about that right now. “I fired everyone who worked for the Russo family before the hit. My team is so depleted there’s no way we could pull off a job of this size and to this extent in the time they did,” I tell him honestly. “I’m afraid with all likelihood this is much worse than you have allowed yourself to consider. There’s a new player in town, and they’re taking our alliance as an invitation to start making moves.”
29
Snow
Consciousness returns to me slowly, the thick sheets wrapped around my body allowing me to hide from the world for longer than I normally would, and Elijah’s woodsy scent brings me a comfort I can never allow him to know about.
It only takes a few seconds for me to realize he’s not here, and with each moment that passes the shame creeps back in like a parasite seeping into every pore. He used me and then he left. I’m nothing more to him than a whore who will eventually bear his children, and that thought is depressing as hell.
Sounds down the hallway draw me from my self-sabotaging mind. There’s no clock in here, but by the way the sun lays low on the horizon it can’t be much later than seven and Mrs. Chambers was here late last night, only leaving when she showed Doc out.
Curiosity gets the better of me and I slip out from between the sheets and pad to the doors across from the bed. I can only assume one of them is the bathroom and the other the closet, but who knows with Elijah, one could very well be a dungeon he intends to lock me in when he doesn’t get his own way.
I check the door on the left first and find the bathroom. When my eyes lock with my own in the mirror, I cringe at the sight before me. I never go to sleep with makeup on, and perhaps with the madness of the evening I assumed I had cried so much it wasn’t necessary, but staring at myself with flecks of black under my eyes, the shadows of tear tracks down my pale cheeks, and dried saliva around my mouth from Elijah’s rough treatment tells me that wasn't the case.
My jaw aches from taking his huge cock and I can only imagine when the time comes for him to force himself into my unwilling body, my pussy will feel just as tender afterward.
The space is dark and masculine, with all the surfaces a gray concrete that matches my captor. Cold. Unfeeling. Hard.
I don’t allow myself to linger for long, quickly stepping into the shower and washing my hair and body as fast as I can while trying to ignore the fact I now smell like Elijah, and every time I move today it will be his scent that overpowers me. As if being stuck in this house isn’t reminder enough of the man who holds my future like cards in his hands, now I have to smell like him as well.
Rationally I realize I could have gone back to the room where all my favorite things are stocked up and smell like myself, that I’m leaning into the victim complex I’ve always played to my advantage, but I ignore that voice. I deserve to throw myself a pity party, after all, I’m mourning the loss of my life as I know it.
Once I’ve cleaned last night away from my skin, spending extra time scrubbing as if it can wipe me clean of the memories, I pad out into Elijah’s room and look around at the dark walls and abstract art. He would like bullshit like this. The things no one else understands would be the ones Elijah Russo finds fascinating.
I don’t allow myself to linger for long, searching for the clothes I was wearing last night and coming up empty aside for the fluffy robe folded over the back of the chair by the window. I slip my arms into it quickly and take off toward the sounds I heard when I woke up.
The dim light filters through open doors as I pad down the hallway with my arms wrapped tightly around myself. Although I’ve come to see some of this house’s charm, it’s also creepy as hell at times. Every time I’ve gone looking for clues like a cat burglar, I’ve always ended up back in my room with the blankets wrapped around my neck waiting for the monster that doesn’t exist to come and get me.
As I wander up the hallway, I find the kitchen light on, and I hold my breath as I duck my head in. Is it likely that there’s someone in the house that could harm me? No, the likelihood of Elijah having anything less than a state-of-the-art security system doesn’t seem high. But is that fact calming to my paranoid mind who in the last week has been kidnapped and held hostage, and held at gunpoint by a masked man intent to kill me? Absolutely not.
“Miss Saint James, I didn’t expect you to be up so early,” a voice penetrates the quiet room, and my breath halts in my lungs. I should have stayed in bed, at least there I was safe, or I could pretend to be.
