laughed mockingly. “Has anyone ever told you that your manipulation schemes need more polish?” I stood and stared out the large bay window as lights filled the night sky. “I won’t give her up today.”
“What about tomorrow?”
“What about next week?” I sighed. “It doesn’t matter because she’s one to keep.”
“Because last time that worked out so well for your fat—”
“We all have our things we don’t talk about, Troy. Don’t make me fucking kill you. I’m wearing my favorite tie.”
Footsteps sounded. “This isn’t over, D. I’ll be back. Don’t underestimate my love for you. Or my need to possess something dear to you. It didn’t go well last time and won’t go well this time. Remember how the game works… In the end, the ones you care for suffer.”
“And who’d you pick this time?”
“Like you don’t know.”
“Twenty-seven, blue eyes, reddish-brown hair, has a dimple on her right cheek, father owns two shipping companies, one little brother, married, one older sister, divorced, drives a Maserati and just can’t stop waiting for her prince to come, does that sound about right?”
He started slowly clapping. “So you did your research.”
“You have yours. I have mine. Why the question, Troy? Truly?”
He was silent for a few seconds. “Maybe I’m just greedy.”
I laughed. “There is no maybe, Troy. You are a greedy fuck. I’m warning you now—back off. This one’s…” I refused to say different. Instead, I shrugged then glared. “Mine to break.”
“If you can,” he said hauntingly. “If you can. She’s been with you how many weeks now? Over a month, right?”
A shiver ran down my spine as I watched him leave, like a foreboding sensation of dread and fear wasn’t something I was used to feeling.
Until her.
Until now.
Until my Juliet.
Fuck me.
Juliet
“Shhh…” His voice filled my dreams, rolling over me in waves as a warm ocean breeze kicked in, making me doubt my sanity. I sucked in a sharp breath and jerked awake.
My achy wrists were now tied up again; the ugly pieces of rope were cutting into my skin, marring me, provoking me, and worst of all, reminding me of whose I was.
And what he would eventually do.
I clenched my legs together or at least tried to. They were both tied up as well.
Why?
He undid the ties, and I slept in his arms. Why, even when he was cruel, I wanted his name to fall from my lips, so even if I cursed him to hell, I knew whose name I was screaming? The blindfold had fallen down toward my nose while a fire roared in the corner, and blackness overtook the rest of my surroundings. Maybe on purpose, maybe because my villain thrived in the dark. Whatever it was, I was at least alone, able to breathe, to think.
Suddenly, the door opened, and I stilled as footsteps sounded.
A voice I didn’t recognize whispered in my ear, “One day, you’ll know what it’s like to serve at my mercy. Today. Is not that day.”
He left me shaking until the door opened again what felt like hours later. I tensed, assuming it was the terrifying stranger only to have the blindfold pulled from my face and my villain’s dark eyes searching mine.
“Where?”
“What?”
“Where!” he demanded an answer.
I didn’t understand. “What? What!” I tried to scramble back as he grabbed my wrists and stared at them, his eyes roaming from the rope toward my face, down my body, and back up.
Trembling, I waited for him to talk. His lips pressed down into a hard, gorgeous line of cruelty I wish I could say was more terror than beauty.
“Where,” he repeated again slowly, his lips almost moving in a slow-motion cadence. “Did he touch you?”
“Who?”
He grabbed me harder, almost painfully squeezing my soft skin where the rope had burned against my skin. “The man who was in here, where did he fucking touch you?”
“Nowhere!” I yelled, a hot tear sliding down my cheek and colliding with my wrists, with his hands joining us together in my pain, his horror. “H-he came in and said something about me being his. I was kind of out of it, then he left—he left!”
“Motherfucker!” My captor jerked back, and his eyes dripped with hatred as he paced the room. Back and forth, he walked across the wood floor until he finally stopped and looked over his shoulder. “I’ll untie you.”
“What? Why?”
His nostrils flared. “You’ll know soon enough.”
Already I could see the erection in his slacks. The way he tried to adjust himself, move out of the light. He left for maybe