I’m like our father.
I pull up the camera, and of course, of course, they’re talking.
Adam is always fucking talking, and Holly is too curious for her own good. It pisses me off, even as I acknowledge that I created this situation. Maybe I even created it to force them to talk, because I’m a perverse son of a bitch.
“When men like us sell our souls to the devil, there’s nothing left to give to a woman.” Damn the man for telling the truth. There’s nothing left in my soul but darkness and violence. That’s what I’m showing her by taking her captive. She left because I couldn’t give her empty promises—now I’m showing her exactly why they would have been empty.
“Bullshit,” she says, her voice calm and clear over the speaker. “That’s an excuse men like you use to keep from feeling anything, because emotions are more scary than bullets.”
Soft laughter. “I see why Elijah likes you so much.”
“Yes,” she says, her voice dry. “He likes me so much he kidnapped me.”
“He’s trying to prove a point.”
“What point?”
“That he doesn’t deserve you.”
That’s the problem with making an enemy of a man you once called a friend. He knows me too well. Of course I don’t deserve Holly. Now she’ll finally see that.
They grow quiet after that.
Holly wanders the edges of her prison in much the same way she wandered the edges of the crypt under the French church. She’s a woman who always needs to test her boundaries. That’s one of the things I admire. And it’s one of the reasons we can never be together.
I’m a man who will always put cages around her.
In the back there are two cots with thin pallets on top. Ironically it’s more comfortable than the hard wooden pew that will be my mattress tonight.
She curls up on her side facing the wall, as if she knows I have a camera, as if she doesn’t want me to know she’s crying. I hear her sniffles anyway. Each one is a stake to the heart.
I leave the laptop running on the ground as I recline on the pew. Rafters weave an intricate pattern beneath the roof of the church. Evening light passes through dirt-smudged stained glass windows. Smudges of green and purple and pink wander across the plaster walls.
Dreams lap at my feet, a respite I haven’t had since I returned to the villa and discovered Holly missing. I haven’t been able to sleep. I’ve barely been able to eat.
Now she’s under my control again, and I can finally breathe.
When I open my eyes, night has fallen.
It looked almost pretty in the twilight, even derelict and abandoned. Now darkness encroaches on every surface. Now the church looks as vacant as the open eyes of a corpse.
A plastic bag waits for me at the end of the pew. I pick it up. There’s a few bottles of water inside. Some alcohol swabs and bandages.
I carry it downstairs.
Adam is already waiting by the bars, standing between me and Holly as if he can protect her from me. The idea makes me laugh; the sound echoes in the basement. I’m the one with the gun. He’s the one with a bullet in his chest.
“Are you going to be her knight in shining armor?” I ask, my voice casual.
He curls each fist around a bar. “Will you make me?”
I hold up the bag. “Supplies. Water. I even threw in a few candy bars.”
Holly appears behind Adam, her face drawn and pale. She puts her hands around her arms, but it doesn’t completely hide her shiver. Even with the heaters I had installed, it would be cold down here. “What do we have to do to get them?”
My voice becomes sardonic. “This is too easy. Aren’t you going to argue with me first? Aren’t you going to beg like you did in France? You beg so pretty, Holly.”
The taunts have the desired effect. She firms her lips. Anger flashes across her dark eyes. She even looks taller as her spine straightens. “You’re a bastard.”
“Is that any way to speak to your captor?”
“Go to hell.”
I make a tsk sound. “Your cellmate needs the bandages in this bag. So even if you aren’t thirsty, and I’m sure by now that you are, you might do it for him.”
“And what exactly do I have to do?”
“Kiss him, of course. My little brown-haired Barbie and Interpol Ken. What else will I do with you while I have you here in my pretend mansion?”
Hurt flashes over her face before she hides it behind anger. “You want to see me kiss him? You arranged this whole thing so you could get a little soft-core porn? Fine.”
That’s my only warning before she turns Adam around and lifts up on her toes. She presses her lips to his in a clumsy kiss, and jealousy surges inside my chest. She fought my kiss. She recoiled from it, but she’s kissing this man—and he’s kissing her back.
He may have a thing for London, but he has no problem kissing her sister. He cups the back of her head and leans over her. His lips tease hers, the motion at once sweet and explicit.
My stomach turns over. I hate the sight of them together. It feels wrong and dangerous, but I’m free-falling from a high altitude. The only way to go is down.
“Make her come.” My voice comes out hoarse.
Adam doesn’t even stop kissing her. He moans his assent. I watch Holly stiffen. She’s alarmed, but it will only make her hotter. She likes it when she fights.
I do, too. My mind may know this is wrong, but my body has no problem with the picture playing out in front of me. My hard cock presses against my suit.
He flips her around, and she grasps the bars to remain upright.
His hands roam her body, pinching her breasts, smoothing over her stomach. He cups her pussy over the cute little black skirt she wears.
Her eyes are wide as she watches me, and nothing, absolutely nothing can hide the lust that lurks in their depths. She likes this. She hates it. It fucking turns her on.
Adam murmurs in her ear. “See the way he watches you? He can’t look away. He wants his hands to be on your sweet body. He wants to feel how wet you are.”
Some small part of me recognizes that I’m losing my control of the situation, but most of me doesn’t care. She looks so fucking hot, her hips rocking forward, seeking more pressure from Adam, her head tilting back onto his shoulder.
I love watching this woman’s pleasure, even if another man gives it to her.
“No,” she moans.
“Yes,” I say, stepping forward, shoving my hand through the bars, gripping her chin so she’s forced to face me. “You came so hard this way. I think you like it rough, sweetheart.”
She shakes her head, but it’s useless, useless when she’s making those breathy little whimpers. Adam rubs her clit with the heel of his hand. It’s a crude way to make her come. Nothing like a good finger fuck. Nothing like licking her until she creams.
She’s not even undressed, but she humps his hand, desperate, hungry.
“Stop,” I say, my voice hard as steel.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Holly
The pressure disappears, and I want to cry. It felt so good, as if I were floating on a cloud. There were no bars, no cots. No bags of water bottles. Only pleasure.
Now it’s gone.