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“Francesca is showering, so I thought I would give her some privacy.”
I fold my hands together and work my jaw back and forth. I expected her to come in here, raging, and here she is, docile as a doe in front of me, acting like we are best friends. I can’t afford to make friends, and I can’t have her here for the meeting. She was a way for me to get what I needed, and when I have things taken care of, she will be out of my life. Hopefully for good.
That’s what I want, isn’t it?
She can’t know the sensitive information we are going to discuss. Even if she thinks it pertains to Ruby. The truth is, I’ve still not found any trace of her. Not that names are even listed, but there’s no mention of anyone being taken at one of our clubs, which goes to show me it was definitely planned out and done to fuck with me. To show me he could do it if he didn’t like what I was doing.
“Then, go somewhere else—the library, the kitchen, hell, the gardens outside. Quit bothering me.”
“Is that the file?” She’s staring at the papers underneath my clasped hands. I shut the folder, glaring at her. “Does it have anything about Ruby in it?”
“Do you think my father would annotate in the margins where he kidnapped and sold the woman I was dating out from under me?”
She withdraws, looking away from me. “I thought—”
“You need to stop thinking. If I find her—” I stop at the stricken look on her face and then forge on. She needs to quit thinking that we will find her. “IfI find her, you will be the first to know. Otherwise, none of this is any of your business.”
“You seemed so idealistic, so different. I thought you might actually change things around here. In this life.”
“You don’t know anything about what this life is like.”
“I don’t? I’ve been chained to a chair, almost tortured, locked in a room, threatened by two different mob bosses, and then married—all in the span of a few weeks.”
“A mere drop in the ocean compared to what you could experience. Look, I’m doing this for your own good,” I say, and she snorts, clearly not believing me. “When you leave, you won’t be able to stay here, and the less you know, the better. You don’t simply ‘get out’ of this life. Why do you think I’m still here?”
“Because you want to be?” she asks, and I mull her words over.
Do I want to be here?
She stands, walking around the desk until she’s looming over me. I turn, like a man possessed, and spread my legs, inviting her to step inside. She does, and I fight the urge to smirk until she puts both of her hands on either side of me and leans down.
“I don’t think you want to leave. I think you want to continue in this life on your terms. There’s something so heady, so intoxicating about this life, don’t you think? The romance of danger at every turn. The way normal people fear and respect you. They don’t know you though. You have good intentions, but you let them be overshadowed by what’s expected of you. It’s why you threatened to murder me. I have no doubt you could do it, and I wouldn’t be able to stop you. But I think you wanted to see the fear in my eyes and know the control you had over me. Joke’s on you though. I don’t know that I have anything to live for anymore. My whole vendetta was against you and your family. I want my sister back. She’s the only one I have to live for. She’s the only one keeping me quiet about things now. I suggest she become a priority. I should become a priority.”
Her chest is heaving by the time she gets done vomiting her words all over me, and I reach for her neck, pulling her down and crushing her lips to mine. I need to shut her up. The way she got under my skin, peeling it back, has me reeling.
No other woman has met me match for match on my own turf. The scared little girl from a day ago is gone, and a fire-breathing dragon is standing in her place. I want her flames to consume me, make me burn. I want to be drowned in her smoky scent.
She wrenches herself back, her chest heaving even more now that I took all her oxygen, and she raises one arm, striking me across the face. The slap rings out in the room, and then there’s silence between us.
Then, she’s crawling on my lap, straddling me, pressing her own mouth to mine as she reaches for the hem of my shirt. I tangle my fingers in the strands of her hair, pulling her head back so I can bite my way down her throat. I feel the ridges of her windpipe underneath my tongue as I lick, tasting her. Her throat convulses as she tries to swallow. Her fingers slip under my shirt, finding my nipples, and they pinch, tightening the further I pull her head back.
My cock hardens underneath her, and the heat between us is palpable. Her nipples pebble behind her shirt, and I pull one into my mouth, the material still between us. It leaves a wet mark, blooming across the cotton, and I do it again. The peak taunts me, urging me to strip her shirt off and I almost do it.
But the door is opened again, and this time, Geo starts to enter. He takes one look at us—Wryn straddling me, my hand pulling her head back, my mouth near her chest—before his nostrils flare, and he backs out, shutting the door with a click.
“Doesn’t anyone knock around here?” Wryn whispers.
I smirk at her. “Like you did earlier?”
“Grumpy is such a cockblock,” she moans, rising up onto her knees on either side of me before stepping one foot back. “What did he want?”
“Wait … Grumpy?”
“It’s what I called him before I knew his name.”
“Ah. I don’t know what he wanted. Did you hear him say anything?”
She stands in front of me, her lips swollen, her neck blooming with red marks where my teeth scraped across her skin. She looks like heaven.
