With an effort – there’s something compelling in the seriousness of her expression – I step back.
If I don’t, I’ll keep grabbing those thick fleshy thighs until she’s quivering and creaming for me.
“Well?” I snap. “What is it?”
“Do you think maybe we can go somewhere else? For a walk or for dinner or something?”
“You’re stalling,” I tell her.
“Maybe,” she says firmly, staring at me with a bravery I’ve never seen before, from anyone.
“Fine,” I smirk. “But only because I fucking love when you sass me like that.”
I need a woman with some fire. I don’t want weak children.
Soon, I’ll tell her this, tell her what her destiny really is.
But right now I’m damn curious about what she’s got to tell me.
“We’ll have dinner on the balcony,” I say. “Get changed into the green dress with the emeralds. Wear the matching heels. And don’t even think about wearing tights, Aida. I need to see those legs. And if you dream of putting on panties, I’m going to bend you over and take that tight asshole with more than my thumb this time. Get changed. Now.”
Without waiting for an answer, I turn and stride from the room, Jackal following close behind.
Chapter Thirteen
Aida
When he said the balcony, I didn’t realize that his sprawling estate had several.
Eventually – after I’ve been wandering around for a while – I end up in the library, turning in a circle and gazing up in wonder at the majesty of the room.
The mansion has four floors, and this library covers all of them. The bookshelves reach higher and higher until it seems like they disappear in the mood lighting at the top of the room. Everything glows softly and warmly with fire-like light, rows, and rows of books reminding me of the library in a fairytale I read as a girl, but I forget the title now. Reading desks are dotted here and there with lamps of their own.
The floor is marble and patterned, the giant surface of it dotted with flares of color here and there which, combined, make up a series of battle scenes, vivid flourishes of blood, spears, metal glinting tips of weapons.
I gape at the enormity of the room.
It seems like a place that shouldn’t be able to exist in someone’s home.
“Does this look like the balcony?” Arturo says from the entrance, his voice echoing so it sounds like it comes from all around me, attacking me from every direction.
My heart stills for a moment as my gaze snaps to him, his face clean shaven again now, his dark eyes hard, his dark blue suit hugging his hulking frame closely.
Jackal isn’t with him anymore.
I think about blurting it now, what I was going to tell him.
I’ve been having these crazy fantasies …
But the words won’t come out.
For some reason, I feel like I have to tell him. Maybe it has something to do with what he told me about Dad and the dead bodies, the message on the wall, the fact that they were friends. I’ve been going over it all day, trying to bring it into some sort of order. I don’t know where my allegiances lie anymore, and knowing how Arturo feels about my crazy fantasies will make things clearer cut.
But as he strides across the room, his footsteps echoing around me, I realize that I can’t force the words out.
He has that look on his face, savage, unhinged. He’s closed the door behind him.
We’re alone.
“You didn’t say which balcony.”
“Watch your mouth, Aida,” he growls.
A wave of fierceness rises inside of me when I see the way his lips twist, his eyes narrow.
He thinks he’s going to dominate me again.
But in all the fantasies I’ve had in my life – and there are many – I’m not always the submissive one.
I don’t always bow and do what I’m told.
“Wait,” I snap, when he’s so close I can smell the musky manliness of him.
He pauses, smirking as though a prized pet has just performed a new trick. The look sends sizzling desire through me, my clit aching, my bare pussy already getting wet, my inner thighs tickling with the wetness.
“Wait?” he says. “Are you in charge now, Aida?”
“I want to be,” I breathe. “Let me try, Arturo.”
“What about dinner?” he mocks lightly. “I thought you were hungry.”
“Oh, I’m hungry,” I say.
Hungry to be in charge. Hungry to take some sort of control over this whirring mess.
“Come over here,” I say, reaching out and taking the blaring heat of his hand, his passion burning through every inch of his hard muscled skin.
I walk over to the nearest desk and chairs, and then grab a chair and turn it so it’s facing the open marble floor area. My heart thumps and a million voices scream that I’m making a fool out of myself, that I need to stop.