AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Is that your plan? You’re going to hurt me just so you can see my blood?”
“This wasn’t intentional,” I said, nodding toward her arm. “But I can hurt you now whenever I like—because you are mine.”
She stiffened at my words, keeping her eyes on me, waiting to see what I was going to do to her.
As I cradled her slender arm in my large hands, I felt a desire to stroke her, to run my fingers over the sensitive skin on the inside of her wrist, up her delicate forearm, to the crease inside her elbow, and then let my fingers explore the rest of her.
Holding on to her arm, I looked up into her eyes and saw her swallow hard.
Gripping her arm in one hand, I used my other hand to open the medical kit I had grabbed on the way to my seat—Alessio had ensured that all the jets on standby were equipped with several such kits.
I found myself reluctant to clean up her wound, to wipe away her blood. I liked the look of her perfection being spoiled. I liked to see that she could be hurt.
I got the antiseptic out of the medical kit. Juliana hissed as I applied it to the open skin, and she tried to pull her arm back.
“Keep still. I need to clean this to stop it from getting infected,” I said severely, as I held her arm firmly in place.
I kept my eyes on her arm and focused on the task at hand. I could feel her eyes watching me. Once I had cleaned the wound, I applied a dressing. “That should do for now.”
Juliana pulled her hand away and rubbed at her temples.
Her head was obviously troubling her. I watched her and then handed her a bottle of water. “Here. Drink this. It will get rid of the headache faster.”
“I wouldn’t have a headache in the first place if you hadn’t drugged me,” she snapped at me.
I clenched my jaw. She was playing with fire.
Thankfully she said no more—my tolerance was by now at an all-time low. She slowly drank the water and then closed her eyes again, turning her face toward the window, either to sleep or to ignore me.
A little while later the seatbelt sign came on as we encountered turbulence. I reached across Juliana who looked as though she had drifted off again. She jumped when she felt my arm across her and startled awake. “Don’t touch me.”
I pulled my hand away. “You need to put your seatbelt on. We’ve hit turbulence.”
When Juliana didn’t fasten her seat belt, I felt annoyance rise up in me that she had just ignored my instruction. If she couldn’t obey even a simple command like putting on her seatbelt, she was going to make things extremely difficult for herself in the days to come.
“Put your seatbelt on. Now,” I ordered.
“Why?”
“Because it will keep you safe.”
“Are you kidding me? Today I’ve been shot at, drugged, and kidnapped, and you’re worried about a fucking seatbelt?”
I didn’t have the patience to deal with her right now. “Do it. Or I’ll do it for you.”
With her mouth set in a rigid line, she buckled up her seatbelt. I guess she thought that preferable to having my hands near her.
Satisfied, I got up and went to talk to Alessio.
Debi seemed a bit less upset now. Danio had been trying to take her mind off what had happened today. Right now, she was curled up against his side, with his arm around her, and they were laughing at something on his phone. Those two were as close as two siblings could be. As the two youngest siblings they had gravitated toward each other, especially after Camillo was initiated and had gotten busy working with Alessio and me.
Danio was still in school like Debi, so they naturally spent a lot of time together. He was keen to be initiated into the Fratellanza, but we would wait until he was sixteen, like we had with Camillo.
Danio looked earnestly at Debi. “You know I would never let anything happen to you, right?”
“I know,” replied Debi. And with that she threw her arms around his neck. “I love you, Danio.”
He hugged her back. “Yeah, ditto.”
