AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Fine, we’ll work out a custody deal but that’s detail for later. For now, I need to know if you’re willing to do this. Marry me. Have my child. If you won’t do it for me, do it for Cara. What do you say?”
She pushes her plate away. “I’m not hungry anymore.”
“Answer the question. Will you do this?”
She pauses, her brow furrowing. “You didn’t kill my dogs?”
“Giovanni gunned them down same as he’ll do to you. You marry me and you get the best possible revenge on him for what he did.”
She looks at me, her eyes narrowed. “I think you’re telling the truth.” She thinks for a moment before nodding slowly. “All right, God help me, I’ll do it.”
Twenty-Four
Aurora
* * *
I’m still thinking about what I said. It’s been hours. I’m in bed and I still can’t believe I agreed to it.
I’m going to marry him. A man I barely know. Not only that, but the man who killed my family. He says he didn’t kill my dogs but who knows if he’s telling the truth. He looked honest but so do most good liars.
I decided, when I said yes, that I would keep him happy for now. Let him think I’m just giving in.
I’m going to speak to his brother as soon as I can, get his side of the story. Then I’ll make my own mind up. If Nico wants to keep me away from Giovanni that can only be because he doesn’t want me to speak to him. All that bullshit about my life being in danger doesn’t scare me.
There’s only one thing that really scares me and it’s the thing that’s stopping me from going to sleep, keeping me wide awake in bed way past midnight, long into the darkest hours of the night.
I can’t stop thinking about how I felt when he made his offer. Marry him and give him a child.
I should have hated him. Scratch that. I did hate him. Still do. But what about how I reacted? What about the excitement that flashed through me when he suggested that? The thrill that’s still there inside me, no matter how much I wish it would go away.
I don’t want it to be true. I want him to have killed my dogs. That made it easy to hate him. Accept he’s telling the truth and it makes it much harder to ignore the feelings I get whenever I look at him.
It’s why he gets me so mad. I hate the way he makes me feel. I don’t want to walk into a room and have my breath taken away by the sheer dominating force of him. The face that could grace the cover of any fashion magazine. The body that I remember only too well.
It’s been more than half a year since we had sex but I can still picture the feel of him inside me, the way his body crushed mine. I close my eyes to settle to sleep and he’s here, above me, making me feel so safe, sliding into me, bringing me to an effortless orgasm before coming inside me.
Only a few hours ago I brought a gun here to kill him. Now I’m going to marry him?
There must be something broken inside me. Maybe it’s misplaced grief. Maybe it’s madness. Whatever it is, I don’t understand it. I want him but I hate him. I need him dead but I’m going to marry him. I came here to wipe him out and now I’m laid in bed with a closet full of designer clothes and his word that we can divorce once he takes over his family.
Is he telling the truth about any of it?
I get up and go to the bathroom. My bedroom’s no longer locked but there’s nowhere to go to get out of here. He has guards throughout the house and they watch me whenever I step out of my room. I think about running but I can tell they’re all armed. I’ve no doubt I’ll be locked in again if I try .
I sit on the toilet and put my head in my hands. I’m getting a dull ache in my temple. I need to speak to the other people around here, find out if he’s telling the truth. Maybe I can track his brother down, get his side of things.
Once I’m back in bed, I try to sleep but once again I’m wired. It’s thinking about him. The hatred and anger bubble up in me but they’re mixed with lust. It’s two sides of the same coin and I’d do anything to make these feelings go away.
I close my eyes and this time I see him naked. He’s walking toward me, telling me to spread my legs.
I lay back, shuffling under the blankets. My hand slides down my body as I picture that one night we had together. I want to hate him but my body has other ideas. It’s heating up in a way I know all too well.
I pull off my night things, leaving me naked and yearning for him to be in me. I don’t want to feel this way but I can’t ignore it any longer.
I reach between my legs, stroking myself gently, trying to ease the throbbing ache coming from my clit as I recall the way his tongue slid over me.
The bedroom door opens without warning. I almost fall out of bed trying to move my hand away from between my legs. I sit up in time to find Nico closing the door behind him. He looks at me and he knows what I was doing. I can tell. My cheeks burn with embarrassment in the dark. “You could have knocked,” I snap at him.
