Total pages in book: 105
Estimated words: 103124 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 516(@200wpm)___ 412(@250wpm)___ 344(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 103124 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 516(@200wpm)___ 412(@250wpm)___ 344(@300wpm)
“You need some time to think things over. This door is lockable from the outside. You’ll stay in here until I say otherwise.”
I sit up. “You’re locking me in here?”
“You making a run for the elevator every time I turn my back would be exhausting for us both, so yes, I’m locking you in here.”
I stand. “You can’t do that.”
“Oh, Bella, when are you going to understand that when it comes to you, I can do whatever I fucking like?”
He closes the door, and the lock clicks.
I race over and pound on the door. “This is fucking kidnapping and imprisonment, you asshole.”
“Probably not the worst thing I’m going to do today, so count yourself lucky,” he replies as he walks away. I hear his billion-dollar leather shoes disappear down the hallway.
Pressing my head to the door, I take in a deep breath to calm my racing heart and work out my next move.
I lift my head and spin around, scanning the room for a means to escape.
The room is stylishly flawless, a ridiculous thing to notice as I search for my way out of it, with a massive bed in the center of the room, a bookcase along one wall, and furniture along the other. Stretching the length of the other wall are floor-to-ceiling windows hidden behind gauzy curtains.
On the dresser is a statue of Hera, and it looks heavy enough to clonk Kidnapping Joe on the head when he comes back. But when I try to lift it, I can barely get it off the table. Feeling desperate, I search the drawers for something to pick the lock, but they’re empty, which seems sad because a beautiful room like this deserves to be loved by somebody. Yet it’s empty and void of any emotion or personality.
Just like Nico fucking De Kysa. Pretty on the outside, void on the inside.
A check of the bookcase nets me a pencil, but that’s about it.
Blowing out a huff of breath, a new plan forms in my mind.
Picking the lock isn’t going to happen with a pencil, and breaking out the window isn’t going to be an option. We’re thirty floors up over Manhattan, and unless I have spidey skills I didn’t know about, I can hardly scale the side of the building all the way down to the street.
No, there is only one way out of this room.
Compliance.
And if Nico fucking De Kysa wants compliance, then I’ll give it to him in spades.
14
Nico
Loosening my tie, I pull it off and throw it across the back of a dining chair, followed by my jacket.
I’m not going to lie. My body is still buzzing after my exchange with Bella by the elevator and how she struggled against me as I took her to her room. Seeing her on the bed looking up at me like that, fuck, it would’ve been too easy to give in to what I really wanted to do and make her whimper some more.
The need to have her was overwhelming.
When I think about the way she kissed me back, my body thrums and my cock throbs with a need that’s been there since the moment my lips took ownership of hers.
You’re getting into dangerous territory.
It’s been ten years since I last tasted her, and after just one drink from the poisonous chalice, I’m starting to think things I shouldn’t.
Like how good it felt to run my hands up her body and feel her tremble with equal amounts fear and desire.
How brutalizing her lips with my kiss made me harder than I have ever been, and how she drank it in thirstily, wanting more, wanting me.
How delicious her skin tasted as I slid my tongue across her throat and the soft moans that left her parted lips at the touch of my hard cock pressed against her.
How I want more.
How I want to make her pay.
How I want to bury my cock balls deep inside her perfect pussy.
None of which is a part of my plan.
I walk to the refrigerator and remove a bottle of water, twisting the top and gulping it down.
Nothing good can come of this, I remind myself.
The best thing I can do is wear the pain she gave me as armor whenever she’s nearby and let her see just how cold-hearted and brutal I can be.
Not that it will be hard. Now that the Irish are making a move to breach our borders, and Luca Bamcorda has his panties in a twist about my upcoming nuptials to an Isle Ciccula bride, it won’t be long before we’re at war once again.
And war brings out the demon in me.
If Bella doesn’t like me now, then she’ll like me even less when I’m leading a campaign against my rivals.
In my den, I focus on the computer screen displaying the live feed from the camera in the bedroom. This entire penthouse is rigged with cameras, inside and out, because I can’t afford not to know what happens in my home while I’m away.