I don’t stay at Crimson, not when her scent is on my skin, and the sounds of her pleasure haunting my every thought. My phone buzzed a few minutes ago letting me know she was home safe. Fucking her, tasting her, that wasn’t part of the plan tonight. Getting under her skin, getting her needy and wet and ready was, but I had planned on making her wait.
So much for my own control.
I step out of the house, dressed only in a pair of suit trousers seeing as I gave Eleanor my shirt and jacket when the car pulls up to the house. Josh, the guy who took Eleanor home rolls down his window and leans over to get something from the passenger seat before he holds it out to me.
Eleanor’s mask, “She asked me to give this to you.”
I take it, turning it around in my hand.
FUCK YOU.
I suck my tongue against my teeth, nostrils flaring. I had planned to give her a bit of space, let her gather her thoughts after what had just happened, but she wants to play with fire.
I tuck the mask into my pocket and climb in the back of the car, “Take me back to the penthouse.”
He complies. I’ll give her tonight, one night, a few hours before I’m back at her side.
I feel my mouth tug up as I go through all the things I’m going to do to her. What she’s going to let me do.
Back at the penthouse I tell Josh to take the rest of the night off and head up, cold, tired and slightly pissed off with myself.
“Get it out your system?” Isobel says from the kitchen, a glass of red wine in front of her. She takes a long look at me and then turns, grabs another glass and pours me one.
“We’re not talking about Eleanor.”
I accept the glass of wine and down half of it, “That’s a seven hundred pound bottle of wine!” Isobel screeches, “You’re supposed to savor it!”
“Who pays seven hundred pounds for a bottle of wine?”
She huffs, annoyed.
“I’m going to bed.” I tell her, leaving the half glass on the counter, “show yourself out.”
“King, wait!”
I pause in the threshold, “I’m sorry.”
I sigh, looking over my shoulder to where my sister runs the tip of her finger around the rim of the glass, “I’ve been a dick to you, but you’re not the enemy.”
“What’s going on, Belle?”
“I just expected it to be over by now, after we got back from the US, I had hoped it would be over. Wren –” Alexander Silver’s wife, “is settling the houses over in the US for us, and it’s all going according to plan. They’ve left us the Syndicate, and we’ve done nothing.”
“Not nothing, Isobel.” I tell her, “I’m in with Tobias, I have a way of getting the rest of the information and once we have that, we’ll strike. You’ll get who you need, and we’ll end this.”
“Why not strike Tobias now?” She presses, “You have him right there.”
“Because cutting down Tobias doesn’t solve the problem. There are two others like him, they’ll only continue, and we would have only taken out one head before another grows. All our hard work would have been for nothing, and your revenge would be wasted.”
“This Eleanor, she’s your in to get this information.”
I nod.
“You trust her?”
“She’ll only be given the bare minimum of information.” I tell her honestly.
“What does she get out of it?”
I think of her friend, Tate. The likelihood of finding her friend was slim. It will take us years to fully hunt down every house and ring owned by the Syndicate, and I couldn’t guarantee I’d get them all. We may take out the heads, but it doesn’t mean everything just goes away.
“She wants something in return.”
Isobel nods, “Please don’t let it go wrong, King. I need this.”
There was nothing to say, no words I could speak to make it better.
“Good night, Isobel.”
I leave her in the kitchen and head through to the bedroom, unbuttoning my trousers and leaving them on the floor.
I still smell Eleanor on my skin, embedded there, reminding me of what it had been like.
I had told myself once would have been enough to satiate the burning need for her but once hadn’t been enough.
I needed more.