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“You’re okay,” I said, but it sounded more like a question.
“More than,” she said, her tone sleepy, exhausted.
I took the empty glass from her and set it on the nightstand, cradling her face in my hands. “I didn’t go too hard?” I lost myself there at the end, fully adopting the role she’d begged me to play.
“Not at all,” she said. “I love the way I can still feel you,” she said, her eyes heavy.
I kissed her again, happiness spreading through my chest at her declaration.
“I’ve never,” she said, shaking her head. “Never come like that before.”
“You gave over full control,” I said, smiling with pure male pride. “And you liked it.”
“Loved it,” she said. “Loved it.”
I love you.
The words were there, beating against my chest, desperate to be declared.
But I didn’t want her to feel bound to me any more than she was already. So, I swallowed them down, instead drawing her against my chest as we settled into bed.
She fell asleep first, fast and deep.
And as I laid there, still coming down from the high as I held her in my arms, I knew that I was so far gone. I’d never survive if she ever decided to leave.
CHAPTER 16
Serenity
Unknown: You want to know one of the disadvantages of having a traceable cell phone?
The blood ran cold in my veins as I read the text, and even though it was from an unknown number, I had no doubt who was on the other end of the line.
Unknown: You can be found. Pick up.
My hands trembled as the phone rang with the same unknown number, and I swiped it open, bringing it to my ear.
“Hello, daughter,” my father said without needing me to verbally answer.
“What do you want?” I glanced around the room, as if he might manifest at any minute.
I knew that wasn't possible. Gareth had gone to meet up with Dante, but he’d left me with a plethora of guards surrounding the house. If my father was on the grounds, I would’ve already heard gunfire.
I took a steadying breath at that realization.
“Now is that any way to talk to your father?” His tone held that same holier-than-thou air that had my muscle memory locking up, battling with my newly found strength as it tried to fall back into old habits.
“What do you want?” I was proud of myself for asking again and not submitting to that tone.
“It's funny, in the three years I sat in the billionaire’s game, I never once considered that Gareth may be gunning for you. He was always so careful, never really approaching you in a way that I would find suspicious. I have to give him credit, he was smart in that regard. But there are other ways in which he was stupid.”
Anger sizzled through me at the insult, but I bit down on the retort that built on my tongue. He wanted a reaction. I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction.
“He did a half-assed job at covering up where he got his money to buy that NFL team, and his pharmaceutical company. Obviously, it was clean enough for those outside our world not to notice, but to someone like me? Easy enough to find the proof.”
Bile swirled in my stomach.
“Your silence tells me everything. Now, this is what's going to happen. I'm going to send you a little snippet of video I have that proves how deep he was in his family’s Chicago business, and you're going to watch it.”
