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“Christabelle?”
“Oh for god’s sake.What?” I push away from the counter and stalkthrough the bathroom door, only to come to a screeching stop when I find the mafioso perched on the end of his bed, a hairbrush fisted in his palm, and his head tilted gently to the side.
“Um…” I look to the door leading into the hall. “I thought?—”
“You were worried about your hair.” He lifts his chin in a come-hither motion he probably thinks is sexy. “Sit down and I’ll help you brush it.”
A scoff escapes my throat without my conscious decision to make such a noise, and I give him my back and start toward the door. “I’m not your show-dog to groom, Felix Malone. In fact, I’m still your unwilling guest.”
“Isaid—” He bounds up faster than I expect of a man who weighs a solid two hundred and thirty, maybe two hundred and forty pounds, wraps his meaty palm around my wrist, and yanks me back so we clash together, the oxygen in my lungs bursting free of my lips in a grunt. “Sit,” he snarls, “the fuck down.”
Turning on his heels and dragging me back to the bed, he perches on the end, exactly where he was a moment ago, but he presses his palm to my shoulder and forces me down to kneel in front of him, facing the door. “You said you don’t like frizz,” he growls, though his tone is a direct contrast to the exceptionally gentle way he runs the brush through my hair.
If he was any other man, if this was any other time or place, I might purr.
But because he is Felix, the son of a rapist and murderer, I work to swallow the bile rising in my throat.
“I was thinking of cooking steak and making a salad.” He speaks casually as he slides the brush all the way to the ends of my hair, lifting the long locks and draping them over his knee so he’s not bending to reach where they nearly touch the floor. “Do you like steak, Christabelle?”
“Doesn’t matter what I like.” I clench my jaw and stare at the door. My way to freedom. My salvation. “I won’t eat.”
“You’ll be so rude as to refuse what I cook for you?”
I choke out an incredulous laugh that stuns me into turning andmeeting his eyes. “I threaten to shoot you, and you take no offense. But I say I won’t eat, and suddenly I’m rude?”
“People want to shoot me all the time, Darling.” He gives a fast wink, finishes it with a smile, then he turns my head and continues brushing. “But cooking for you is an act of service I expect to be appreciated.”
Like brushing my hair?
Like forcing me into the shower, even when I don’t want to go?
“So?” he presses. “Do you like steak?”
“I like a steak that is cooked well.”
“As in well done?” he clarifies. “Overcooked?”
“No, as in cooked with skill. I don’t wish to eat leather for dinner.”
“Well…” Another long stroke of the brush. “I will do my best to cook it to your liking. Wanna talk about what your problem is with my family yet?”
Adrenaline dumps into my blood, flooding my veins and making the sickness in my belly that much worse. “What?”
“You’ve been writing about us for weeks.” He snags on a tangle in my hair, but he massages the knot out without pulling. “Targeting my brothers even more than you’ve targeted me.” He releases my hair and leans forward, his face entering my peripherals on my right. “Some could assume you dislike them more than you dislike me, however, the cynic in me says you targeted themknowingI’m the guard you’d come up against.”
He pulls back again and goes back to brushing. “You worked hard to get my attention, Christabelle. Now you have it. How can I help you?”
“You can help me by letting me go.” I study my wrists, the raw, angry lines the cuffs have already carved into my skin. “And getting me antiseptic ointment.”
He sets the brush on the mattress, finished with it. But then he takes my long locks in his hands, splits them into three groups, and weaves them into a plait hanging straight down the middle of my back. “I’ll find you antiseptic when we get to the kitchen.”
“Is your brother still there?” I’m wearing a shirtonly. My face is bare. My hair is—well, it’s brushed now, but I don’t fool myself into thinking it looks nice.Why am I worried about my appearance in a moment like this?“And are your men going to be eating with us, too?”
“No.” He pushes up to stand, grabbing me under the arms and pulling me up with him until my shoulder blades touch his chest, and his cock—which seems to be perpetually hard—skims across my backside. “My men are posted outside. My brother is somewhere else.”
He steps out from behind me, but he takes my hand and brings me along whether I want to come or not. “No one will bother us tonight. Though if you try to run while I’m working hard to make your dinner, my men will bring you back.”
He leads me through his bedroom door and into the hall, then as we start down the stairs, he looks back my way and curls his lips. “They won’t be gentle with you. So I suggest you stick close to me.”
