The Proposal - Kitty Thomas Page 0,61
go down there now to make sure they don't secretly make their own private copy, but I can't bring myself to move from this spot where she exists in full color only a few yards away from me.
Livia isn't playing along, though. She's still wearing her cover up. She moves swiftly back toward the door, practically in a full run, reaching for the knob. Her face says she's sure that Dayne and I will save her, that we'll protect her from Soren. I put one hand up against the door to block her escape. Dayne and I exchange a glance, and I'm surprised to see he doesn't waver. I always thought he'd be the weak link.
Soren reaches her and drags her kicking and screaming back to the pool's edge, back to the spot in the best view of the cameras.
“I'm going in. Guard the door,” I say to Dayne.
“You know what Soren said.”
“I don't care. I want to be in there.”
“I want to be in there,” he says. It's clear the only reason he agreed to play bodyguard is that this was Soren's thing. He's not going to go along with me joining in while he's left out in the cold.
“I'll go in for a bit then I'll trade places with you,” I offer.
Dayne seems to consider this. “Soren won't like it.”
“Fuck Soren. I know he thinks he's the big bad alpha male but we've got to stand up for ourselves or he'll run right over us. Is that really the way you want to spend the rest of your life? Playing his butt monkey and needing to be allowed to fuck your own girl? We have contracts with her, too. We're just as in this as his royal highness in there.”
We all agreed we'd share her equally, but I know Soren has been establishing the pecking order, and if he thinks I'm going to just quietly go along with that, he's wrong.
Dayne lets out a sigh because he knows I'm right. “Go. I'll cover you.”
I slip my key card into the slot and go inside.
“I thought I told you to guard the door,” Soren says, his voice far colder than I expected this early in the game. But he doesn't like being told no. And our Livia is turning out not to be as obedient as Soren might have preferred. But I'm good with it. I like a little fire. I like the struggle.
“And I thought I told you I wasn't taking orders from you,” I say.
We stare each other down. If he thinks I'm looking away just because he's got a good solid thirty pounds of pure muscle on me, he doesn't know me as well as he thinks he does. I'll take this motherfucker to the mat for the next five decades if need be.
Livia practically flings herself on my mercy. I wrap my arms around her, feeling her warm soft skin pressed desperately against me. I place a gentle kiss to her forehead and stroke her hair. I'm not about to save her, but I'll let her believe it—for a moment at least. I enjoy this role as the hero, her savior from the evil villain, Soren.
He can play the big bad wolf all he wants to, as long as she runs to me for protection. I was the one who held him back the night of the proposal after all. In that moment when I'd put my hand on his shoulder to stop him, the gratitude in her eyes was so intoxicating that it was all I could do to keep my hands to myself when I drove her home. But I was a good boy. I didn't want to destroy the role she'd given me in her life. A part of me still doesn't.
For months I've fed on this hero worship from that single moment.
She thinks something similar is about to happen now, and a part of me hates that I'm not about to receive that same gratitude, that I may erase everything I've built. But the problem is, I'm just too greedy. I've had a taste of her. She's in my system. There are no brakes on this train anymore.
She begins to understand the true state of things as my hand slips underneath her coverup to slide inside her bikini bottoms, stroking her ass. She tries to struggle, but within a few moments she's grinding her tight little body against me, whimpering.
“Please, Sir,” she says to me, and I groan at that. I