it, Alexis.”
His deep voice drapes over me. I swallow.
“I don’t know what—”
Gabriel brings his palm over my ass and I yelp. The pain skitters away and pleasure seeps in its place.
“Don’t play coy,” he warns, circling a digit over my entrance.
I want him so badly that I can feel it in my bones, a deep ache between my legs that, if left unquenched, will surely kill me. Surely.
So I swallow hard and I say the two simple words that I know will forever be my undoing.
“I’m yours.”
Gabriel growls deep in his throat and the next thing I know his cock is filling me, stretching me wide. I cry out in ecstasy. He rears back and slams into me again and again. And after only a few thrusts I break into a million pieces, pleasure flooding under my skin.
Gabriel has only just begun. He hauls me back by my wrists, slamming up into me with wild abandon. My body tenses with the crest of another orgasm and I am powerless to do anything other than let it blast over me as he rams home over and over.
The force of my climax sends me flying out of my skin. I curse as I careen back to earth, falling, falling, falling …
Gabriel grunts and swears, anchoring his hips against mine as he pulses inside of me. He collapses against me, limbs shaking as we both catch our breath.
Now what? I wonder. All the things I know about Gabriel, the tiny shards of horror, come back. Shame rolls hot and thick in my belly and I am desperate for him to leave. I don’t want to cuddle, and the only kind of pillow talk I can picture us having will inevitably end with me yelling at him.
Gabriel shifts away from me and returns a second later. He grasps my wrists and cuts them free, and I shuffle around until I’m seated with my back against the headboard. I massage my sore wrists.
Gabriel gets off the bed and I watch him put on clothes in the darkness. I open my mouth to speak, but the words stick in my throat.
He goes to the door, and his smooth voice coils around me in the shadows. “It’s good to have you back.”
And then he’s gone.
I flop onto my back and stare at the ceiling, wondering what the hell is wrong with me. Within the first twenty-four hours of being Gabriel’s prisoner for the second time, I’ve already hopped enthusiastically back into bed with him. When God made me, he must have inserted a passion for snack foods in my brain where other people were given self-control.
I sigh and get out of bed. I go to the bathroom and then pop through the door connecting to the nursery. The room glows with the dim golden light of the nightlight, and I creep across the floor to the crib to check on Harry.
He’s fast asleep, clutching a teddy bear I’ve never seen before. Curious, I extricate the bear from his grip and turn it over in my hands. There are words stitched into the paw and I narrow my eyes, struggling to read them.
With love, from Dad.
Gabriel must have brought the toy in here on his way to fuck me senseless. Seeing it makes me realize that Gabriel’s love for Harry is genuine. It’s not a trick or a manipulation.
But what about me?
I lower the teddy back into the crib and Harry grasps it, pulling it close. My heart twists.
I wonder what Gabriel meant when he said the situation with my father was more complicated than I presumed. I can’t imagine any situation in which I would be okay with him having killed my father, but maybe I should at least listen to him.
The one thing I can’t do, however, is believe him. Twenty-four hours and I can already feel myself slipping back into his grip, letting his familiar warmth ease away my doubts and worries. I can’t let that happen.
The last time I was in the mansion, I was looking for a story. I have found that story in the purple heroin crisis, and I owe a duty to myself and to the city to use my time here as an opportunity to learn everything I can about how Gabriel fits into it.
So that’s what I’ll do.
What I must not do? Let myself fall for him. Again.
8
Alexis
The first bands of morning light filter through the blinds and splay across the bed, where I lie tangled in the sheets.