He was just going to have to keep those strong, supple, knowing hands to himself. I hoped I was strong enough to resist him—my track record already wasn’t very good. I did have morals. I wanted sex to be about love, regardless if I had completely lost my mind… or whatever the hell was going on. I wanted to love, not just fuck. Even if just thinking about what happened, and the thought of it happening again, had my pussy throbbing and moistening at the image.
Damn him.
As if he knew I’d been thinking about him, the door opened and he came in, carrying a big load of firewood in his arms and a plastic grocery he must have gotten from the truck bag dangling from one hand. “Here,” he said, placing the bag onto the table, then dropping the firewood by the hearth. “There’s some salami and cheese in there you can cut for us.” He disappeared outside again before I had a chance to tell him, “I’m not your slave. Captive yes, but not a slave!” So, when he returned, the bag was still on the table untouched.
“Did you not hear me?” he asked authoritatively when he returned.
“I heard you fine. I just don’t like the way you demanded me to do it, and I’m not going to do whatever you tell me. Captive or not. Plus, I’m not hungry.”
He looked at me with a clench of his jaw that instantly made my stomach fall, but instead of saying or doing anything, he went to build the fire instead.
He didn’t say anything more, but quickly and efficiently cut up some cheese and salami and had it displayed on a paper plate in minutes. And as averse as I was at the idea of eating, I had to admit that the meat and cheese looked delicious.
“So, tell me something, Aria,” he casually said, popping a piece of cheese into his mouth as he wrapped up the leftover, uncut food. “You’re too old to still be living with your father. You’re an adult. So why are you?”
“You clearly know my father and what that means.” I raised my eyebrows as I studied his face. “Do you really find that shocking?”
“You’ve never wanted to leave? To live your own life?” His eyes pinned me where I sat. “Have you never met anyone to love? To start a life with? No man ready to marry you?”
If he truly lived the mob lifestyle, then why was he asking this question? He should know. Only true way to leave my father’s watch was by marrying someone of his choice.
“Why do you ask?”
He shrugged. “Just small talk, princess. Getting to know you.”
“I don’t want you to get to know me.”
“Too bad.” He looked over at me and smiled. “Do I need to remind you that I make the rules here?”
I crossed my arms and looked away. It took all my might to not tell the man to go fuck himself. But I was wiser than that. I knew exactly where that would land me.
Although the words burned my tongue.
It was an acceptable assumption that, at my age, daughter of the mob boss, I would be engaged for business reasons alone, however. And maybe that is what he was getting at with his question. “I’m not engaged to be married. There’s no one in my life, and no, there is no one my father has felt is suitable for his princess.” I sneered as I said the last word, hating that every single time he had called me princess, he had been spot on. I was nothing but a spoiled, kept, and sheltered mafia princess who had never even been in a cabin of this condition before.
He nodded as if my answer were satisfactory to him. He was only fucking over my father by kidnapping me. Not involving anyone else.
7
Matthew
“Well, I guess that’s good, considering what we did earlier. I would have hated to steal from another man.” I regretted it as soon as I spoke, but I couldn’t take the words back.
Her face immediately became shuttered, those bright eyes dimmed, and as she hugged herself for warmth, she avoided looking at me, and that was the last thing I wanted. She was the strangest, most intriguing woman I had met in a long time, if ever, and I wanted to know more about her, not less. And as I watched her more closely than I had before, I noticed that she was shaking.
Without another word, I stalked over to the bed where she was sitting, grabbed a hold of the edge of it and pulled it over in front of the fire, then reached into a bag that had yet to be opened and pulled out a blanket, forcibly wrapping her up in it and hauling her to lie down on the bed, molding her to me spoon fashion with her closest to the fire.