me, winningly, taking me for a fool. “I could do with my phone back, the one you took from me so I can message them. They’ll worry, otherwise. They might go to the police.”
“You can have your phone back. Tomorrow. In this study, be here at ten am, and you can call Suzy. I’ll be here too. You can tell her how busy you are, but what an amazing opportunity this is, and for the next couple of weeks you’ll be working flat out as part of my team.”
“Do you think she’s going to buy that?” She crosses her arms, and my eyes automatically go to her tits.
She’s not in the swimsuit any longer, more’s the pity, but the t-shirt she’s wearing does a good enough job of showing me their outline.
“You’re staring at my chest.”
“It’s an impressive chest,” I say.
“Do you always stare at women’s breasts like some Neanderthal?”
I love her spark. I shouldn’t. I should want her to be compliant, the way most of my girlfriends are. Liza wasn’t, but she was more of the passive-aggressive, pouty, whining variety of non-obedience, whereas Cassie is fiery. It’s a weird juxtaposition, what with her moments of deep submissiveness, general sunny personality, and willingness to please. I kind of like using my assholeness to bring out her feisty side.
Most of my past women have been compliant because they didn’t care, and they liked being fucked and getting expensive gifts, so they didn’t cause any trouble in order to keep the party going. Cassie though? She’s different. She’d be a delightfully bratty sub, and I’d need to punish her a lot. Not that I’m into the lifestyle. I don’t like formal shit when it comes to sex, or contracts and the like. I’d rather just see what develops, but with Cassie? It goes deeper than the sex. She’s a mess that I want to sort out. A problem I want to solve.
“I own your ass for the foreseeable. I can look at your tits as blatantly as I like. I don’t owe you a damn thing, Cassie. Not even politeness.” I push, wondering if she’ll snap again. Wondering if I will.
She’s raging; I can see it. I bet she’s itching to slap me again. I wish she would. It’s like foreplay of the best kind.
There’s a dark, dark part of me itching to simply take her, whether she wants me to or not. I bet I could make her come even if she didn’t want me to. I won’t, though. Not even I’m that much of an asshole. To take a person’s body and use it against them is the worst crime one can commit. I know because I know a soldier who was raped by a gang of men while held prisoner. He told me one night, after far too many glasses of vodka, that he was defective. Turns out they’d made him come, and he couldn’t live with it. He killed himself five weeks later. We found him hanging from the rafters in the barrack room.
So no, as much as a sinister part of me might want to push Cassie as far as I can, I won’t do that to her. It would obliterate her sunshine, and that would be a crime against humanity. It would tarnish my soul forever.
If I take her, it will be because she wants it and can admit to it.
She turns on her heel smartly and leaves the room, giving me the finger as a parting gift.
I laugh and close the door behind her.
Even when she’s trying to be insulting, she makes me smile.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Cassie
After two more days stuck inside my room, hiding from the human tornado that is Konstantin, I’m itching to explore. Tomorrow is the day Konstantin is not going to be here, as he and Vasily are heading off to collect two protection dogs.
It means Denis will oversee things so far as guarding Liza and myself goes, and Derek will oversee the staff and house. I’m going to take the chance for a good look around, safe in the knowledge I won’t bump into Konstantin.
The only place I go every day is the pool to swim, and it’s been mercifully quiet. The outdoor pool is not quiet. I can see it from one of the upper landing windows, and Michael is often around it with a woman I presume is his bride-to-be, a beautiful girl with dark hair and large dark brown eyes. She’s gorgeous and also pregnant, like the repulsive Liza.