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‘So you convinced him, huh?’ Murphy said bitterly. ‘What a fucking waste of my time.’ He turned on me. ‘Should’ve just shot you when I had the chance, huh?’
I tried to pull my arm away, but his fingers were like a death grip, my skin underneath each one turning white.
‘What’d you tell him, huh?’ Murphy demanded, shaking me as he addressed Dornan. ‘What lie did you come up with this time, D?’
Dornan cocked the hammer on his gun. In the quiet, the metallic sound echoed off the walls.
‘Mind your own business,’ Dornan ground out. ‘Or I’ll decorate the wall with your fucking skull.’
Murphy scowled, letting go of me and storming out. Dornan kicked the door shut behind him, and it slammed forcefully in his wake.
‘Feel free to breathe now,’ Dornan said, holstering his gun. I realised I’d been holding my breath, and I let it out in a loud whoosh.
We studied each other across the room. Something passed between us . . . something that made me want to cry, because his father was about to sell me. The same father whose men had killed my boyfriend, the love of my life.
Part of me demanded that I look away. That I break this stare, stop whatever was happening between us.
‘You didn’t come back,’ I said quietly. And now, it was too late. Maybe it had always been too late.
He smiled. ‘Been busy.’
I nodded.
‘You look pretty,’ he said, his voice a little strained.
And I suddenly remembered why. Damn.
‘Apparently, I’m for sale. Murphy says he’d buy me,’ I said numbly. ‘What about you? Would you buy me, Dornan?’
His smile returned. I didn’t flinch as he stepped towards me. He leaned down, his lips at my ear. The next words that came from his mouth would define my very existence.
‘Baby,’ he whispered, ‘I already did.’
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
DORNAN
In the back of his mind, during the three days since he’d last seen Mariana, he’d been turning over a plan of what life might look like if he were fortunate enough to stop his father from selling the girl. He’d been holding onto an apartment in Santa Monica, a bachelor pad he’d won in a double-or-nothing game of poker five years ago, for a situation just like this. He’d managed to keep the apartment a secret from almost everyone, especially Celia, and he fucking loved it. It was a place of refuge, the calm away from whatever was brewing at the clubhouse or his own house. Even Bella didn’t know it existed — it was much more preferable to throw her over a table at the clubhouse when they did the dirty.
The last few days he had subjected the club whores to things he had never done before. He had hurt them, made them bleed, and he had liked it. But it had barely scratched the itch that was his desire for the curvy Colombian woman. If anything, it had made the itch worse. Impossible to scratch.
A tiny part of him was a little disturbed by the dark ideas that assaulted him on an hourly basis. He was slipping, losing control over his own thoughts, and he knew she was going to haunt his every waking moment until he could drive himself into that soft, wet spot between her legs.
He had this perverse fantasy that once she was with him he would be able to enact all the wicked fantasies he’d been imagining. He’d be able to stretch her out, restrain her limbs until they ached, and fuck her until she begged him to stop.
Not that he would.
He saw the power he could wield over her, and part of him lusted for it.
He didn’t let her pack any of her things — he didn’t want her wearing the cheap, gaudy shit Murphy had loaded her up with. He would buy plainer clothes, blacks and blues that would go beautifully with her light caramel skin. And with her black and blue bruises, if she didn’t obey him.
He was kind of hoping she wouldn’t obey him. Because he didn’t just want to hurt her. No, that would be too brutal.
He wanted to hurt her, and for her to enjoy the pain, and then he wanted to soothe her, over and over again.
Then again, maybe she would be a terrible prisoner. Maybe he would end up fucking her and killing her, dumping her body in the ocean, weighted with concrete. It was a possibility he’d prepared himself for. He’d never raped a woman, but he’d killed one. Several, in fact. And he had steeled himself for the potential shit storm that might be unleashed when he brought Mariana into his unforgiving world.
The ride to his Santa Monica apartment was exhilarating, an emotion that he rarely felt anymore. At any moment, he expected to see his father’s sleek Mercedes fly past, cut him off, and demand the girl be returned to the tiny little room underneath Emilio’s lavish compound. He’d ridden fast for that very reason, fast and hard, and he’d fantasised about Ana while her slender fingers curled around his waist, gripping him tightly.
