Her hand feels so dainty in mine, soft and smooth. It takes great strength to stop myself from stroking the top of her hand with my thumb, but I manage.
Together we head up the stairs, and I ignore how perfect her hand feels in mine. It’s stupid to even consider her being anything to me. I just locked her in a cold basement for a week straight for defying me. If she feels anything for me, it’s going to be hate.
When we reach the table, I release her hand. She slides into her seat, and I follow, doing the same across from her. A symbolic feeling of normality washes over me, having her sit and eat with me. I guess I wasn’t aware how much I’d grown used to having her here.
Fallon doesn’t even blink. She picks up her fork and practically inhales her food. I eat just as fast and by the time she is done, I’m finishing up as well. She moves to pick up the plates, stepping right into her duties from before, but I shake my head, stopping her.
“No. We can clean up later. I want you to go take a bath.”
“Okay… are you going to come too?” she asks, almost like she is scared I will.
I shake my head. “Not this time. I have something to do before my friend gets here.”
“Your friend?” She sounds astonished.
“Yes, someone I trust and work with,” I explain. She looks unsure and nervous about someone coming over. I’m guessing more so at the mention of him working with me. Fallon isn’t stupid. She must have figured out by now what kind of work I do, which means my work associates are just as bad as me.
I gesture for her to lead the way, and she hesitantly does. I’d have given her a shower, but doing so would’ve made her comfortable, and the point of being in the basement was the opposite.
As she walks up the stairs ahead of me, I notice how thin her legs are. Did she lose weight while in the basement? She never finished her meals when I brought her food, but I didn’t think anything of it until now.
She strips out of her panties and my sweater and eagerly heads for the bathroom.
While she is in the tub, I sit on the bed, going over the plan in my head. When I asked him for a favor a week ago, I wasn’t really sure what I was going to do.
Now I do, and though I don’t particularly want to do this, I have to. I need to know who she planned to call, who she risked her own life for because if I was anyone else. If she had been sold to any other fucker at that auction, she’d have been killed for doing that.
It’s not like I can use my standard interrogation techniques on her. Her skin is thick, and even when afraid, she can manage to keep her secrets locked down. I need to go one step further. I need to cross that line, whether I want to or not.
I already know I’m an asshole for what I’m going to do to her. I’ve battled with myself all week over if I really wanted to follow through with it, but I have to know what she’s hiding, what was worthy of tossing everything away.
Thinking about the private investigator, there is the possibility of her working for someone, that she was planted at the auction for a reason, but that’s a far stretch. I’m apprehensive to believe that there isn’t more to the story.
It’s more likely she has a boyfriend that she’s afraid to tell me about. That possibility is both plausible and infuriating—the thought of another man touching her, putting his hands on what’s mine. I shake my head to rattle the thought away, but it sticks.
I’ve never been possessive over a woman before, but when it comes to Fallon, I will kill anyone who threatens to take her away from me. I know it. Feel it with every beat of my heart. No matter what happens, she will be mine till I say otherwise.
From my spot on the edge of the bed, I can see right into the bathroom. Fallon grabs a towel and starts to wrap it around her body, but before she can fully cover herself, I’ve gotten a view of her wet, slick body. My cock, of course, hardens to steel.
I’ve missed that, having her close to me, her whimpers of pleasure, of being inside of her. If she hadn’t fucked it all up, everything would still be the same, and I wouldn’t be preparing to hurt her.
Fallon steps into the bedroom, the towel wrapped securely around her body. Her long blonde hair is dripping wet, and my eyes latch onto a drop of water that glistens against her collarbone. My mind goes straight to licking that drop of water off her skin, to spreading her thighs and feasting on her clit, to sliding deep inside…