Fine in Lingerie (Lingerie 11)

“You won’t.” His confidence didn’t miss a beat.

“You’re so sure about that?”

“You live in a beautiful mansion with anything you could possibly want, and you have a sexy man to bed you every night. Where exactly are you going to go?”

If I didn’t have someone so important in my life, I would probably stay. “You make a good argument.”

He kissed my shoulder again, his scruff rubbing against my arm. “I’ve changed the security system. It’s activated by my thumbprint now. So unless you cut my finger off, you don’t have a chance.”

I knew he wouldn’t be stupid enough to trust me completely.

“By the way, you probably shouldn’t be in the pool with a cut like that.”

I shrugged. “I’ve been through worse.”

He gave me an affectionate look, as if he admired me. “I’m impressed you cut that tracker out of your ankle. That took balls.”

“I don’t have balls, so it took guts.”

“Yes.” He smiled. “Guts. A lot of them.”

“It hurt like a bitch.”

“If you weren’t careful, that could have been bad.”

“The adrenaline outweighed the fear.” I sipped my drink. “How did you know I was going to escape that night anyway?”

“If the tracker deviates from the average body temperature, I get a notification. The second you carved that thing out of your body, I knew. And my cars are designed with a specific security system, so it’ll only turn on with my thumbprint. You can’t even hot-wire it.”

I never had a chance. The only possibility of getting out of there was by killing him.

He watched my reaction. “Sorry, sweetheart. I feel bad for letting you think you really had a chance.”

“Even if I knew otherwise, I still would have tried.”

His affection only deepened. “I know. For some reason, I admire you more.”

Carter was a regular guy in life, not a psychopath like Egor. When he made comments like that, I could see the goodness behind his eyes. He showed affection instead of hatred, gave sexy caresses instead of slaps across the face. Never was he violent with me. He detained me when he had to, but that was only to get me under control. “Then why don’t you let me go?”

Instantly, the tenderness in his eyes evaporated. He broke eye contact, sighed, and the comfortable companionship was gone. As if he was annoyed by the question, he pulled away from me.

“Did you ever consider letting me go and, you know, asking me out on a date? You know I would say yes.” I watched his expression even though he wouldn’t meet my gaze. This was the part of our relationship that I still didn’t understand. If he didn’t possess the kind of cruelty that Egor did, why didn’t he let me go? He continued to keep me—even though it made no sense.

“I’ll take to out to dinner if that’s what you want.”

“If you pick me up at my house and drop me off when we’re done.”

He rubbed the back of his neck, getting drops of water in his hair.

“Carter.”

He wouldn’t look at me.

“Carter.” I grabbed his chin and pressed a kiss to his lips. Instantly, he softened. He took a breath when he felt me, and the muscles in his neck relaxed as he turned my way. He didn’t give in to my command, but he gave in to my affection. I pulled away, my fingers still on his hard chin. “You aren’t this man. We both know you aren’t. Letting me go isn’t a sign of weakness. Letting me go and bedding me as a free woman is far more impressive.”

He looked at me, his eyes unblinking. “You’d want to still see me?”

Before I’d slept with him, my answer would have been no. But since the sex was so good and our chemistry was so hot, I knew I’d want to keep seeing him. I knew he was kind and compassionate, not a threat to me at all. I could forgive everything in the past if he gave me a new future. “Yes.”

He stared into my gaze, looking for the sincerity of my words.

“You know I’m not lying, Carter.” My hand ran up his chiseled forearm. “I doubt I’d want to see you forever. I doubt I’d want you to be my boyfriend or husband. But I wouldn’t mind hooking up for a while.” That was exactly what he wanted anyway, just hot sex with no strings attached. “So, there’s no reason to keep me. You can have what you want—and I can have what I want.” I hoped I would say the right thing to change his mind, to realize that keeping me as a prisoner wasn’t in his best interest anymore.

I must have said the wrong thing because he pulled away from the float and climbed back up the stairs. His bare ass was fit and tight, and the rest of physique moved like living stone. “I’ll make dinner tonight.” He grabbed the towel off the chair and dried himself off before he walked inside.