Page 162 of The Enslaved Duet

I blinked at him and bit my lip. “I’m leaving.”

Fury darkened his face so savagely, he looked more monster than man.

“You will absolutelynot.”

I gritted my teeth against the intractable demand in his voice and began to hum under my breath as I slid off the bed and quickly donned my thick rust-coloured sweater and silky oyster beige skirt.

“You will uncuff me in the next two minutes, Cosima, or I will make you very dearly sorry for your disobedience,” he promised darkly.

I hummed louder, ignoring the way my pulse raced like prey sprinting away from its predator. I continued to shoot him quick, short glances as I dressed just to reassure myself he was still sturdily locked to the bed.

His eyes blazed with rage so bright it made my belly quiver.

“Hear this,topolina,” he said, his voice so low, so filled with the gravel dredged up from the bottom of his stony core that I could barely discern the words. “If you think locking me up will stop me from reclaiming you, you are pitifully, sorely mistaken. We have things to discuss, you and I, things I hoped to bring into the light this morning. But if you insist on beingfoolish…” The word slapped me across the face, but I continued to tug on my knee-high boots as if I didn’t feel his scorn like a handprint on my cheek. “The next time I find you, I’ll cuffyouto each leg of the bed and beat your pussy until you cry every single one of the tears your body has to offer me, and then I will fuck your sore, ravaged pussy and smear my cum in the cuts across your arse. Then, when you are wrecked beyond thought or further feeling, I’ll bundle you up in my arms and hold you there until youbloody well listen to what I have to say,” he roared.

But I was already hastily dragging my suitcase to the door, wrestling it open, and hesitating in the doorway to take one last thirsty look at the lord in my bed. He was sitting upright, the large muscles in his arms coiled rope under golden skin as he strained against the cuffs, his abdominals so clearly defined they looked like a checkboard just waiting for my tongue and fingers to make a game of it.

My mouth went dry at the sight of him. He was sexy and regal somehow even bound, a lion you knew was seconds away from breaking free and devouring you whole.

“Please,” I told him with quiet desperation. “Don’t come for me again. I don’t want a half-life with you. I don’t want to be your secret or your slave. I’m tired of existing in the dark, dismissed to your shadows. I know now that I deserve the light, and I swear, Xan, even though I can’t handle this—you—if you come for me, I might cave, and I will nevereverbe satisfied with what you have to give.”

Alexander stared at me, his mouth pursed tightly, a lock of golden hair caught on his eyelashes, but all he did was watch as I slowly backed out the open door and then closed it on his face.

I slept on the plane, not because I was exhausted and emotionally spent, but because my back ached each time I shifted in my seat, and I couldn’t stop thinking of the beautiful, hard man I’d turned away from again. He hunted me, a predator even to my thoughts. Finally, thirty minutes into the flight, I succumbed to weakness and took two sleeping pills.

The flight attendant had to wake me up with a brisk shake that reminded me instantly of the state of my back, and I was up, groggily walking off the plane.

I was still out of it when I saw the man standing outside of the arrivals gate holding a sign written with my name. It was the same man who had delivered Ashcroft’s missive to me in Central Park. I recognized him not because his features struck a chord of remembrance, but because he was so completely forgettable with his bland features and pale British colouring, I knew instantly he was a servant of the Order.

“I’m not going with you,” I told him as I stopped by his side. “I just returned from less than thirty-six hours in a completely different time zone, and I’m knackered. Tell your employer to beckon me in six hours after I’ve had a nap.”

His hand shot out as I went to move by, clutching my bicep in a bruising grip.

“I think you’ll find, slave Ashcroft,” he jeered quietly. “That my employer has a heavy hand with a whip when he’s been kept waiting.”

“I think you’ll find that so do I,” I retorted, using one of the moves I’d been taught in self-defence class over the years to twist my arm out of his hold, catch his dislodged hand, and then leverage it back against his wrist.

He hissed with pain, rage animating his stoic face.

I leaned in close to softly jeer at him, “Touch me again and I promise, I’ll kill you.”

He cursed as I released him, but dutifully stooped to take my bags from me and lead me to the waiting car parked illegally at the curb.

“No wonder Davenport let you lose,” he muttered as he opened the door for me.

I ignored him, but my chest panged with guilt as I thought about Alexander locked to the bed back in England. I had no doubt Riddick or the innkeeper would find him before long, but he would be furious and maybe even embarrassed at the predicament.

I was prepared to deal with Ashcroft. I had plans for him just as he had ones for me, and I knew I didn’tneedAlexander there with me to hold my hand while I plotted.

But I would have preferred it.

Though, knowing Alexander, I wasn’t so sure he wouldn’t storm into Ashcroft’s Upper East Side home, slit his throat, and then raze it all to the ground.

I was a woman; therefore, my plan was slightly more understated, but hopefully just as deadly.

Ashcroft was waiting for me in the foyer of his townhome, hands held behind his back and feet braced like a general expecting his orders to be obeyed.

Before I had even crossed the threshold, he demanded, “On your knees, slave.”