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“Wouldn’t you?” he retorts.
I frown, my brows pulled tightly together. “Did you kill my father?”
Smirking, he comes to me once again. This time, he extends his hand to me. I take it and rise to my feet.
Standing so close to me that I’m forced to look up, he tilts his face as if he’s considering my question. All the while, he holds on to my hand, his thumb rubbing little circles on my palm.
“I didn’t touch Thomas,” he finally replies, but I sense there’s more to that answer. So much more.
“Regardless,” I say. “He’s dead. Even if he did something to your sister, revenge would be a moot point.”
“Would it? Or could I do something that would have him rolling in his grave?”
“What could you do?”
Arran leans in further, his mouth just inches from mine. His gaze drops to my lips and the sudden hunger in his expression has me sucking in a breath. “I can think of a few things I could do to you.”
His nearness affects me. I’m not stupid enough to deny the fact that I’m insanely attracted to him. I can’t control my response to him any more than I could control the effect of fire on my skin. In fact, the reaction is quite similar.
I’m sweating. Practically melting. Every part of my body that’s making contact with him burns. Flames lick the inside of my belly as his clean male scent invades my nostrils, and my blood rushes white-hot to every part of me made for sex.
“Dumb is trying to hide evidence. Smart is using it to your advantage.” I heard Daddy say to a colleague after they won the case for a woman who killed her husband in self-defense. The other man wanted to hide the fact that she’d been abused. Daddy knew it was the only thing that would set her free.
What he said stuck with me. I held on to it, thinking I’d use it someday to defend someone like that woman. I’m using it to protect myself instead.
I allow Arran to see what he does to me. Let him see the quickening of my breaths, the rise and fall of my breasts as they graze his chest. I do nothing to shield the flush in my cheeks or even the slight tremble caused by the fear that he’ll hurt me.
In fact, I embrace all those things because I’m a smart girl and I know what it’s going to take to get a man like him to give me what I need.
“You’re going to fuck me,” I say, inflecting submission into my tone.
Lifting his free hand, he touches the skin of my arm, trailing his fingertips over my shoulder and collar, then around to the back of my neck. I shiver at the contact, and he smiles, seemingly pleased.
He brings his lips to my ear and whispers, “I’m going to do more than fuck you, Skye. I’m going to make you beg me to fuck you. I’m going to make you come on my fingers and in my mouth, and when I fuck you, it will be because you ask me to. Then it will beyouwho betrays your father.Youwho curses him to hell for what he’s done. And the best part is, you’ll do it willingly because you’d rather save yourself than remain true to him. Won’t you?”
“Yes.” My hands fist just out of sight, and I bite back what I really want to say. That I will let him do whatever he wants, but not for me. For Maisie.
“But do me a favor. Drop the bullshit timid act. I don’t buy it.”
I stiffen at his words. “What?”
Pulling away from me only far enough to peer intensely into my eyes, he grins. A terrifyingly beautiful grin that is so sure of what he’s just said. “Ah, there’s that defiance.”
“It’s not in my nature to be submissive,” I admit, hoping that one truth will be enough to have him stop searching for more.
“And that, Skye, is what will make it so much more fun. Because when you ask me to fuck you, you’re going to mean it. I’ll know if you don’t.” He smiles again, but it vanishes as he takes in my features and says, “You are so beautiful.” His tone is soft and alluring, but something darkens in the depths of his blue eyes, and I wonder if it angers him that he finds me pretty.
“Are you going to hurt me?” is the only thing I have left to ask.
“Only if you want me to.” He runs the back of his hand over my cheek. “Let’s get you showered.”
Grabbing my wrist, he spins on his heel and tugs me through the house to a bedroom on the second floor. Judging by the grandeur of the suite, which has a king-size mahogany sleigh bed fit for royalty and large, bulky furniture, I’d say it’s his room. It reeks of wealth and power and overbearing masculinity.
It’s on the tip of my tongue to tell him the space could benefit from a bouquet of flowers or a damned frilly pillow when he takes me into the bathroom and I’m left speechless.
The complete opposite of the darkness of his bedroom, the bath is light and airy. A long white marble counter floats on one wall. There is no tub; however, it does have one of the largest glass-enclosed showers I’ve seen in my life, with not one, but two showerheads and a waterfall spout on the ceiling.
Fluffy towels are rolled up and stacked on a teak bench, and on a table located inside the shower are perhaps the only flowers in the entire home.
