“No, you can take the rest of the evening off,” I say. “I’m sure you want to see your family.”
He bows at the waist, a practice he has continued even after I told him it wasn’t necessary. Jenkins is a stickler for professional conduct.
“Thank you, sir.”
I walk through my mansion, past the art hanging from the walls, over the fur rugs, past the marble statues – made in the Roman style – and finally up the stairs and down the hallway that will take me to Aida’s room. I don’t even pretend that I have to think about where I’m going to go.
It’s her.
It can only be her.
I feel my manhood getting harder the closer I get to her room, tension moving with savage intensity through every part of me.
I pause outside her bedroom door when I hear it, the soft singing voice of an angel, the same singing that ushered from between her fuck-me-now lips when I made her squirt in the ensuite.
I stop and lean in closer, letting the sound drift over me, unable to stop my lips from twitching into something like a smile.
It’s so easy to imagine her singing that way to our children, standing over a newborn’s crib with her body still curvy and juicy from childbirth, ready to be taken and impregnated again.
Again.
Because I’m sure she’s already pregnant.
Her body was too willing to take every inch of me not to be. She was desperate for my seed. She fucking shivered for it, the sexy little thing.
I imagine her clutching the edge of the crib and leaning down, singing my son or daughter to sleep, her smile so bright I can’t help but mirror it, feeling unashamedly happy for the first time in my life.
She can gift that to me, I sense.
Happiness like I’ve never felt before.
She cuts off when Jackal starts sniffing around at the bottom of the door, the Great Dane making loud huffing noises as he tries to greet me.
“What is it, boy?” Aida calls from the other side of the door.
I fucking love when she sounds like that, all perky and confused like she doesn’t know that any moment I’m going to surge in there and savage her like the personal slut she is.
But just mine.
Always mine.
I open the door slowly, trying to tame my breathing.
But that swiftly becomes a fool’s errand when I see that she’s wearing the pajama shorts and tank top I ordered for her. The shorts tuck right up her ass and her pussy, marking her flesh right there for the taking. Her breasts are braless, her nipples as perky as a dream through the material of the tank top.
“Aida,” I snarl. “You better not have—”
“I changed into this when I came back to my room,” she assures me, with one of her sassy grins. “Don’t worry. I wore a cardboard box any time I left my room. Okay? Happy now?”
I rush across the room and bring my hand to her throat, tenderly, a lover’s kiss of a touch.
She gasps as I caress the soft skin of her neck, and then slide my hand down her side, over her hip, and grab myself a big fistful of her thigh.
I squeeze until she whimpers and I can see that lust dancing across her bright eyes.
“Not in front of Jackal,” she moans. “That’s just weird.”
“I’d never do anything like that in front of him,” I growl. “But I can have him gone in a second. Then I’ll be free to take you like the personal fuck goddess you are.”
“W-wait,” she whimpers. “I’ve …”
“You’ve what?” I snap.
“I’ve got something to tell you,” she breathes. “Before we go on. I think it’s only fair after all that craziness you shared with me earlier.”
With an effort – there’s something compelling in the seriousness of her expression – I step back.
If I don’t, I’ll keep grabbing those thick fleshy thighs until she’s quivering and creaming for me.
“Well?” I snap. “What is it?”
“Do you think maybe we can go somewhere else? For a walk or for dinner or something?”
“You’re stalling,” I tell her.
“Maybe,” she says firmly, staring at me with a bravery I’ve never seen before, from anyone.
“Fine,” I smirk. “But only because I fucking love when you sass me like that.”
I need a woman with some fire. I don’t want weak children.
Soon, I’ll tell her this, tell her what her destiny really is.
But right now I’m damn curious about what she’s got to tell me.
“We’ll have dinner on the balcony,” I say. “Get changed into the green dress with the emeralds. Wear the matching heels. And don’t even think about wearing tights, Aida. I need to see those legs. And if you dream of putting on panties, I’m going to bend you over and take that tight asshole with more than my thumb this time. Get changed. Now.”
Without waiting for an answer, I turn and stride from the room, Jackal following close behind.
Chapter Thirteen
Aida
When he said the balcony, I didn’t realize that his sprawling estate had several.
Eventually – after I’ve been wandering around for a while – I end up in the library, turning in a circle and gazing up in wonder at the majesty of the room.
The mansion has four floors, and this library covers all of them. The bookshelves reach higher and higher until it seems like they disappear in the mood lighting at the top of the room. Everything glows softly and warmly with fire-like light, rows, and rows of books reminding me of the library in a fairytale I read as a girl, but I forget the title now. Reading desks are dotted here and there with lamps of their own.
The floor is marble and patterned, the giant surface of it dotted with flares of color here and there which, combined, make up a series of battle scenes, vivid flourishes of blood, spears, metal glinting tips of weapons.
I gape at the enormity of the room.
It seems like a place that shouldn’t be able to exist in someone’s home.
“Does this look like the balcony?” Arturo says from the entrance, his voice echoing so it sounds like it comes from all around me, attacking me from every direction.
My heart stills for a moment as my gaze snaps to him, his face clean shaven again now, his dark eyes hard, his dark blue suit hugging his hulking frame closely.
Jackal isn’t with him anymore.
I think about blurting it now, what I was going to tell him.
I’ve been having these crazy fantasies …
But the words won’t come out.
For some reason, I feel like I have to tell him. Maybe it has something to do with what he told me about Dad and the dead bodies, the message on the wall, the fact that they were friends. I’ve been going over it all day, trying to bring it into some sort of order. I don’t know where my allegiances lie anymore, and knowing how Arturo feels about my crazy fantasies will make things clearer cut.
But as he strides across the room, his footsteps echoing around me, I realize that I can’t force the words out.
He has that look on his face, savage, unhinged. He’s closed the door behind him.
We’re alone.
“You didn’t say which balcony.”
“Watch your mouth, Aida,” he growls.