Page 10 of Beauty and the Daddy

A tattoo I haven't noticed before wraps his ribs—a serpent eating its own tail, with words in Italian curved inside:Il dolore è temporaneo, la morte è permanente.

I don't need Google Translate. The way he fights makes the meaning clear:Pain is temporary, death is permanent.

One man rushes him from behind.

Luca doesn't even look—just steps aside and drives an elbow back that drops the guy like God hitting the delete key.

My thighs clench.

My pulse goes nuclear.

And my brain—my traitorous, virginal brain—wonders what those hands would feel like on my skin.

If he'd be that controlled. That powerful. That devastating.

This is insane. He owns me.

I should be running, not standing here getting wet watching him commit casual violence in designer sweatpants.

My underwear is becoming a situation.

This is Stockholm Syndrome on fast-forward.

Three hours ago, I was a normal woman with normal problems. Now I'm pressed against bulletproof glass, fogging it with my breath, watching my captor fight like foreplay.

"Get it together, Belle," I whisper to myself.

But my body has gone rogue.

Twenty-six years of careful control, of waiting for the right guy, the right moment, and now my virginity is staging a coup.

Demanding to be sacrificed to a man who collects debts in human currency.

He looks up suddenly, directly at the window. At me.

Our eyes lock across the distance. He smiles—not his business smile from the office.

This is different. Predatory. Knowing.

Like he can smell my arousal from three floors down.

He knocks out his opponent without breaking eye contact.

I stumble back from the window, heart hammering, thighs trembling, every cell in my body screaming two different things:

Run.

Or let him catch you.

I tear my eyes away, but the damage is done.

The image of him and all that skin is burned into my retinas like I stared at the sun too long.

I should be mad at him. But somehow, I'm starting to wonder whether the beast really had a say in all this.

He asked for my father's most prized asset… how did he know that would be me?

Dad knew what he was doing. He knew where he was taking me today.