but he’ll never force you to do anything you don’t want to do. If you want to work, he’ll not stop you. Your future is still yours, even though your last name will be Haven.”
“How can you be so sure he won’t stop me?”
“Because I may be a monster, but I’m not a tyrant.” Creed’s voice comes from the doorway. In his hand, he’s got a white-knuckle grip on a bottle of bourbon, which swishes when he waves it toward me. “You can live your life as you see fit, as long as I’m the man you come home to at night. Like I said to you in the kitchen, I’m no cheater, and I expect the woman by my side to be the same.”
“Of course,” I respond. “I’m not asking to be with other men. I just don’t want to feel like I’m being locked away like a princess hidden in the shadows.”
Creed grins, and I can’t stop admiring how handsome he is. Granted, my father could’ve chosen worse. He could’ve forced me to marry the Don from the Familia in New York, an overweight fifty-year-old who looks like one of those scary trolls from Disney movies.
“I’m not someone who likes to lock my women up, unless we’re roleplaying,” he tells me. “Right, Mallory?”
“Good god, Creed. Can you for once act like a son?” she chastises. “I don’t want to know about your sexual proclivities.” She pushes to her feet. Turning to me for a moment, she says, “Don’t let him get to you. He may act like a monster, but he’s harmless.” The words are a whisper, hushed only for me to hear. I watch her leave, heading for the door where Creed is still leaning against the frame with one shoulder.
“Goodnight, Mother,” he says when she passes him, stopping just outside the doorway.
“Be good to her.” Their eyes are locked in a standoff, and I wonder what it means. Surely there’s more to whatever they’re not saying, which only seems to pique my interest more.
Once we’re alone again, Creed doesn’t enter the room. He doesn’t make a move toward me, and I wonder if he’s testing me. “What were you doing at the window?” he asks, lifting the bottle to his lips as he takes a long swallow of the alcohol.
“I wanted to see what was out there.”
He nods. “And you saw me with Genevieve,” he says, as if he knows I was spying on him. Well, not spying, just peeking. There’s nothing wrong with looking out the window, and it’s not my fault he was standing there.
“The redhead?” He nods. “Yes,” I answer. “She a friend?” My query earns me a grin. He has me, and he knows it. But I don’t admit anything more.
“Why?” I shrug. “Are you jealous, little mouse?” This time, he does enter the room, and my body trembles as I picture him closing the distance between us and touching me. My stomach somersaults when he sets the bottle on the cabinet near the door and unbuttons his shirt. Slowly, I watch as he takes off the cufflinks and drops them on the slick wooden top. The clink is the only sound in the room, and it’s deafening.
Once his shirt is completely loose, hanging from the waistband of his slacks, he glances at me, catching me looking at the smooth, chiseled flesh on display. His abs are dips and peaks of skin that make my fingertips tingle. I can’t see much more because his shirt is still hiding his body, but from what I can see, he’s built like an underwear model.
“Like the view, little mouse?” he tests, with a salacious grin.
Snapping my gaze away from his torso, I meet those dark eyes that hold me hostage. “What are you doing?”
“Getting changed before I go to bed,” he tells me, shrugging off the shirt, which offers me an unobstructed view of his body. Now I can see every muscle in his shoulders, his pecs, and the tapered middle that leads my gaze toward the thin, dark patch of hair sneaking under his belt.
The man is deliciously beautiful. There isn’t a mark, not even a scar on him. He looks far too perfect, far too handsome to be real. But he is. There is no doubt that Creed Haven is both my most illicit wet dream and my most terrifying nightmare.
13
Creed
Her eyes on me make me hard. Just being near her makes me hard. I can feel the heat of her gaze slowly