Page 17

Story: Vow of Vengeance

CHAPTER 17

Haze

How is it that being in the same room with her simultaneously slows my pulse and makes my heart beat faster?

I stand in the doorway momentarily, absorbing her loveliness, before telling her, “Ophelia, he doesn’t have a family to visit.”

She blinks. Twice. A beautiful doe in the headlights of my gaze. “Where has he gone, then?”

“I have no idea. Gian hasn’t taken any of our cars,” I say. “He’s taken his old clunker. And he left his staff watch on the kitchen counter. He doesn’t want us tracking him.”

“He said he wasn’t going till tomorrow afternoon. He was going to help me with schoolwork in the morning.” She looks down, thinking, chewing at her bottom lip like she does. “I wonder why he lied to me?”

“It’s not like him. He’s never done anything like this before.” I pace her bedroom floor. “I don’t understand why he would do this. As soon as I came home and couldn’t find him, I called the head of our security. Eros is scanning camera footage now but, as of yet, hasn’t found anything.”

Seeing my state, she tries to calm me. “Come, sit down. We’ll figure this out.” She goes to the cushy armchair next to the desk, one I had Charlie buy for the room. “You’re wearing lines in the carpet. Which, you really shouldn’t be wearing shoes on.”

Sitting across from her, I sink onto the corner of her neatly made bed, eyeing her. “No one tells a man to remove his shoes in his house.”

“And no one wears shoes on my lovely carpet.” She eyes me back. Something in her gaze makes me break our eye contact.

How can I argue when she’s caring for the things I’ve bought her?

I concede, slipping one shoe off and then the other, thinking of how Gian would get a kick out of watching this exchange. Thinking of him makes that strange gnawing feeling creep up from my gut. He’s never left like this before.

“I don’t understand,” I say. “Why did he leave? Tell me everything that happened today and everything he said.”

She goes through their day, doing her best to relay the information. As she speaks, I ask a few questions and gather some clarification. None of this makes sense. Gian would have told me if he was leaving for an above-board reason. I stare down at the plush carpeting and my mismatched socks.

I was so out of it this morning that I guess I couldn’t tell stripes from solids—no wonder I’m not captain material.

What a day.

She ends with, “He said we needed to take time to get to know one another and that he would be in the way. I asked him to stay.”

“He left to give us some space…” I mull over the idea.

It does sound like something Gian would do.

I know he wants nothing more than this wild, impossible thing between her and me to work out. He’s a romantic at heart. What Italian isn’t? My blood pressure is up after the failed meeting. I’m overthinking again. Gian just buggered off to give us some space. Nothing more.

I run a hand through my hair. “It sounds like him. He should have told me, though.” My eyes lock with hers. “I don’t like sneaking around. I don’t like lies.”

“You don’t like lies?” She scoffs, defending a fast and fierce friendship with Gian. “Lies like bringing my family to the Villa so someone could tell them I was studying abroad. Or sneaking around, like breaking into people’s houses? Pretty sure you snuck into my bedroom and threw my boyfriend out the window.”

Ignoring her accusation, I hang on to a word that made my stomach clench when she said it. It turns my mind off Gian, and it tastes terrible in my mouth as it comes out.

“Boyfriend?” Is that jealousy or just pure hatred oozing from my tone?

She curls up in the chair, tucking her feet under her like a sweet little kitty cat. She’s dressed in a simple white T-shirt and black lounge pants. She does not wear makeup, and her hair hangs loosely around her face.

She couldn’t be more breathtaking.

“What’s so bad about saying Carter was my boyfriend?” She’s taking the heat off Gian, protecting him by changing the subject.

I’m clever enough to see past her plan. I’m too mature to take the bait.

“I’d think he’d be brave enough to knock on your front door and show his face to your family. Maybe even take you out in the daylight and show you off like you deserve.” Okay, maybe I’m not as mature as I wish I were. That, or I’m regressing. “I think a real,” I use air quotes around the dastardly word, “BOYFRIEND wouldn’t ask you to leave your window unlocked.”

She looks away. “You don’t know anything about it.”

Unfortunately for her, I was a teenage boy a million years ago. I know how their minds work. And the way Carter treated her was not how you treat your girlfriend.

I lay the truth on her.

“Let me guess. He gives you a high five or a fist bump at school instead of a kiss. He calls you his bestie, not his girlfriend. And the only time he shows you affection is in the privacy of your bedroom.” I stare at her, the truth written all over those rosy cheeks. “Am I right?”

“So, he wasn’t my boyfriend, per se.”

“Whoever is worthy of being with you will show you off like the gem you are.”

“That’s nice of you to say…” My words of truth soften her for a moment. Then, stubborn pride wells in her, and she says, “Still, I don’t think you have too much room to talk bad about another man?—”

I stop her with a curt, “Boy. Carter is a boy. Not a man.”

“Okay, let me say, don’t talk bad about a boy or a man when you’re the one holding an eighteen-year-old girl hostage.” Untucking her legs from under her, she crosses her arms over her chest, ready for battle.

“You can leave at any time,” I say.

She scoffs a laugh. “Really? Just walk right out the door?”

While walking home tonight, I decided to come up here, tell her to pack, and drive her back home. Then I saw her beautiful face—makeup-free and looking the same as when I first saw her. All my determination to let her go dissipated with one look into her blue eyes.

I want her so badly.

She unfolds her arms. Tracing the seam of her sweatpants up the side of her thigh with her fingertip, she whispers, “If I leave, if I don’t give you what you want, you’ll hurt my family.”

Hurt them? Hell—Liam fed them Wagyu steaks. They weren’t even poisoned.

I shake my head. “I wouldn’t hurt them. I would need to report the theft. Let’s see…a hundred thousand dollars. That’s a lot of money. It might be a felony charge. How much time behind bars do you think your mom would get?”

She doesn’t say anything.

I’m being childish, but I won’t let her go, so I continue, saying, “The Italian courts are cracking down on online theft right now.”

“Is that so?” She narrows her eyes at me. “Why do you need a wife so badly, anyway? You don’t seem like the marrying type.”

Her words make me bristle. “That’s my business.” I think of my dastardly meeting this morning. I stop myself from running my hand frustratedly through my hair again. “Though that plan might be on hold for the moment.”

Her eyes widen. She leans forward. “Are you saying the wedding is off?”

“I said, on hold.”

Eyeing me, she says, “On hold. As in I can go home?”

I stare at her beautiful face and full lips, both begging to be kissed by me. My voice is tight. “You’re staying put.”

Her blue eyes glitter, teasing almost. “But you said it yourself. The plan is on hold.”

“Did I?” I’m barely registering the conversation. All I hear is the soft, sexy intonation of her voice. All I see are those full lips of hers moving as she talks, begging to be kissed.

“You did.” Instead, she speaks lightly, almost teasingly.

“You don’t seem to be trying too hard to get out of here.”

“I can’t go anywhere if I’m supposed to be studying abroad, can I?” she says.

There’s something in her expression I can’t quite read. I’d think she’d be clawing down the walls, fighting to escape, or at least having more force behind her words. She’s not. She’s not even jumping on my words about putting the wedding on hold, demanding it to be so.

She’s not running from the room. She’s not running from me.

She leans closer in her chair. She really shouldn’t encourage me. An urge warms deep in my belly, increasing in heat as it flows through my body. Somehow every shitty thing that happened today suddenly means nothing. Liam has no faith in me. Gian has abandoned me.

The only thing I care about is sitting in front of me. Her. Desire grows strong enough to take my breath away. My chest feels tight. She makes me forget my shitty day, my unaccounted-for house manager. She makes me forget everything but her.

I don’t need her love. I only need her. I have to have her.

Now.

“You don’t need me anymore,” she whispers.

“You’re wrong.” I stand from the bed. “I need you.” I move closer. Even closer. I’m towering over her now. “I need you. Badly.”

Steeling her nerves, she doesn’t inch away. Staying seated, she forces herself to stare up at me. I reach out, stroking her face. My light touch makes her breath come faster. Her words come out in a whisper as she says, “What could a big bad man like you possibly need with a little girl like me?”

God damn.

My body was already humming with arousal, but her words ignite a fiery explosion in my veins. Every nerve ending ignites with electricity, sending sparks of desire shooting through me. I am consumed by a primal hunger, driven wild by my obsession with her.

Leaning down, I scoop her in my arms, holding her against my chest.

If I were a decent man, I’d hate myself as I touch her, this innocent, naive young woman. She’s perfect, lovely, and sweet, with just the right amount of bite.

And here I am, loveless and ruined, ready to destroy her. I know her first time should be tender and loving, shared with someone who can give her his heart.

What can I give her but my body? And, it turns out, my mind, ‘cause she’s never further than a centimeter from my thoughts.With a cold, calculating ease, I lay her on the bed and begin to explore her body. A predator examining my prey. “Which delicious bits shall I nibble on first?”

She eases a breath as I nip along the curve of her neck. My appetite grows, and I suck at her delicate skin, eliciting a moan from her lips, hunger welling in my belly.

“I need more.” Running the tip of my tongue along her collarbone, I trace my way up her neck till I find her earlobe and capture it between my teeth. I take another taste, kissing her ear and murmuring against her. “You taste beautiful.”

She melts underneath me. I feel her surrender, her submission, as she lets me grasp her breast, my touch possessive and rough. I squeeze her curve, finding her nipple, and I pinch it between my finger and thumb till she cries out in pain.

Then I’m there, my lips on hers, taking her cries onto my tongue. I swipe mine against hers, tasting, exploring, and owning her. I barely know the girl, yet I know exactly how to manipulate her body, how to touch her, so she wants nothing more than to give in to me.

I can’t let go of her. I don’t know how I’ll get to my end goal, but now, with my mouth on hers, I’m determined to arrive there with Ophelia in my arms.

I move lower, pushing her white tee up over her breasts. She wears no bra, her beautiful breasts free and bare and warm in my hands. My kiss moves to her nipple, her body arching as I suck and taste.

She whimpers as I move lower, kissing her belly. My five-o-clock shadow tickles her, and she jerks, giggling nervously as I brush my jawline against her again. When she realizes where I’m going, she attempts to resist, as before.

Kneeling over her, I grab the waistband of her pants. “You should know by now I’ll always get what I want.” I tug them over her hips and down her legs, taking them from her body and flinging them onto the floor.

I stare down at her, leaving the tee shirt twisted up above her breasts, the rest of her naked body bared to me. “No panties. No bra. You are officially declared the sexiest creature on this earth.”

No longer able to hold back, I bury my face in the soft, warm, musky heaven between her thighs. Her legs tense, but it’s easy enough to part them, so I can lick and nibble her already swollen clit. Addicted to her taste, I lap at her arousal, tonguing her tight entrance.

She grabs my hair. I love the feel of her fingertips running over my head. Fiery electric pulses dance over my skin where she touches me.

Realizing I’ll soon have my cock buried where my tongue is, I almost come in my pants. I rub myself against the bed, finding friction to relieve some of the pulsing need aching there. I’ll be the first man to ever have my cock in her perfect pussy.

I can barely think as I glorify the virgin I’ll soon take ownership of. The pleasure builds in her quickly, and before I’m done, she’s curling around me, crying out in what sounds like startled moans—she’s shocked and overwhelmed by me. It’s clear she’s never had a man with my experience dedicated to worshiping her, a body that was made to be celebrated, exhausted.

She struggles to catch her breath as she comes, panting as she says my name. An angel sings her praise: “Haze. Oh my god! Haze!”

Her body strains against me. I hold her hips tight, keeping my mouth tight against her so I can draw every last ounce of honey from her. Only when I’m fulfilled do I release her. She falls against the bed, boneless and slack.

I crawl my way back to her, kissing her fully. “See how good you taste? I’m addicted to you.” She kisses me back, hesitant at first, but then I move my hand between her wet thighs and play with her as our tongues tangle together.

I rest my weight against her as I finger her, thrusting my tongue further into her mouth at the same pace I’m stroking inside her with my pressed-together fingers. She kisses me back, hungry and in need. I cup the back of her head with my free hand, holding her close as I bring another orgasm to her trembling body.

She cries into my mouth. I kiss the climax away, holding her as she slowly turns to liquid in my arms. Before drawing my fingers from her, I stroke her once more, whispering against her ear, “I can’t wait to fuck this tight little hole.”

Her once pliable body goes rigid. She snaps her head back from mine. There are daggers in her eyes.