Page 29 of Wicked Sinner

CAESAR

Two weeks.

It's been two weeks since I brought Bridget home, and she's no closer to accepting the situation than she was that first night. If anything, she's become more defiant, more determined to resist everything I offer her.

My new life in Miami has become a routine that I don’t at all enjoy.

In the morning, I wake up, usually from dreams fraught with flashes of that night with Bridget in her garage, hard and aching for her.

I tried ignoring it for a few days, wondering if I could brute-force myself to stop wanting her, but all it did was make me frustrated and irritable.

So now I end up jerking off the moment I wake up or going to the shower, giving myself a little relief before I start my day.

I check on Bridget two or three times a day when I’m at the penthouse, and I’m always met with a version of the same conversation. The same resistance. She’s stopped trying to go on hunger strike, which is a small mercy, but that’s it.

I don’t ask her out on another date. I don’t try to spoil her again.

For the next week, I focus on work as much as possible, try to avoid getting into arguments with her, see the women Konstantin wants me to see in an effort to ‘make a decision’ about my future bride, and do everything I can to try to figure out how to make Bridget crack.

One night, I even went out to a fancy martini bar, looking to pick up a woman and bring her home, just to feel the pleasure of a warm body under mine instead of fucking my own fist. But in the end, I couldn’t do it.

I don’t really want to make her jealous. I don’t want to hurt her.

I just want her to see fucking sense.

I lean back in my office chair, staring out at the Miami skyline while I contemplate my next move. Every tactic I've tried has failed spectacularly. Bridget isn't like other women—she can't be bought with expensive gifts, intimidated with displays of power, or seduced with romantic gestures.

It feels as if she’s completely beyond my control. As if there’s nothing I can do to make her move forward on the path that I see for us.

The irony isn't lost on me that the very qualities that make her impossible to manage are the same ones that drew me to her in the first place.

Her strength, her independence, her refusal to back down—those are the traits that turned me on in the first place, that made me want to possess her for that one night, and those are the same things that make her absolutely determined never to be mine.

My phone buzzes with a text from Konstantin, reminding me about our meeting this afternoon.

Another opportunity for him to pressure me about Isabella Torrino, no doubt, who I’m well aware is his first choice for me to marry.

The woman has been calling me almost daily, finding excuses to invite me to various social events.

I know where she got my number, too—either Konstantin or Tristan, the meddling brat.

Yesterday it was a charity luncheon. A few days before that, an art gallery opening. Each invitation comes with barely concealed hints about what a suitable wife she would make, how perfectly she understands the demands of our world.

The thought of spending the rest of my life married to Isabella makes me want to put my fist through my monitor.

But first, I need to check on Bridget. Again.

Sometimes I wonder if I’d be better off just not seeing her for a few days.

Sending Marco to bring her meals and letting her squirm, wondering if I’ve forgotten about her.

But I can’t seem to stop myself. She’s quickly becoming an obsession—something I don’t need right now—and not for the first time, I also wonder if I’d have been better off simply never coming back to Miami at all.

My life before was difficult. Rough. Dangerous. But it was also exciting and profitable, and most importantly, it was mine.

Now, my life feels as if it’s being pulled apart at the edges by forces out of my control.

Konstantin and his demands. Tristan and his desire to take my father’s legacy for himself.

The fact that Bridget is having my child.

Isabella’s dogged attempts to seduce me into marriage.

Bridget herself, refusing to give in and yet making me more obsessed with her than ever with each conversation that slips through my fingers and goes nowhere.

I don’t want to control her or break her. I want to win her. And I’ve never been so at a loss as to how to win a game I’ve decided I want to play.

She’s in her room, of course, curled up in the window seat with a book.

I had a stack of them delivered from the local bookstore after she complained about being bored, a few from just about every genre, so she’d have plenty to choose from.

She doesn't look up when I enter, though I can see the slight tension in her shoulders that tells me she's aware of my presence.

"Good morning.” I lean against the door. It’s nearly afternoon, and a part of me thinks I said it just to see if she’ll start by arguing that point with me.

I thought I’d grown out of my combative nature, but something about Bridget seems to bring it out of me.

"Is it?" she asks without looking up from her book. "I wouldn't know. Every day feels the same when you're a prisoner."

"You're not a prisoner," I say automatically, though we both know it's a lie. "You're a guest."

"Guests can leave whenever they want," she points out, finally meeting my eyes. "Can I leave?"

We've had this conversation so many times I could recite both sides from memory. But I persist anyway, hoping that eventually I'll find the right words to make her understand.

"You know why that's not possible," I reply calmly.

"Because you're a controlling bastard who thinks he owns me?"

"Because there are people in this city who would hurt you to get to me," I correct, feeling my patience start to fray. "Because our child is my heir, and would be a threat to any other heir I might have. Because you won’t leave Miami, and I don’t want to give you up.

And even if we came to an agreement, men like me will always have enemies—"

"Enemies," she repeats. "The ones you keep talking about but never actually name. Are they under the bed? In the closet? Monsters waiting to get me?"

The sarcasm in her voice makes my jaw clench. "This isn't a joke, Bridget. I'm trying to protect you."

"You're trying to control me," she counters. "There's a difference."

I step forward abruptly, frustration boiling over. I look at her, her jaw clenched and eyes sparking, and I wonder if she truly understands what she’s dealing with. Who she’s dealing with. What kind of man she invited to fuck her that night.

"Do you have any idea what I could do to you if I wanted to? What I'm capable of?"

Finally, I have her full attention. She sets down her book and looks at me with those hazel eyes narrowed directly at me, though I don’t see a hint of fear in them.

"Are you threatening me, Caesar?"

"I'm reminding you," I say, my voice dropping to the tone that usually makes people back down. "I'm reminding you that I'm not some lovesick boy you can dismiss and argue with and dangle on a string. I'm Caesar Genovese. I've killed men for less than what you put me through every day."

She studies my face for a long moment, and then does something that stops me cold.

She laughs.

"You want to know what I think?" she says, standing up to face me. "I think you're all bark and no bite. At least when it comes to me."

"Don't test me," I warn.

"Why not?" She takes a step closer, and I swear, even from this distance, I can smell the scent of her skin and her soap. My cock twitches, my body craving hers like a drug. Every day since I fucked her—hell, sometimes twice a day—I’ve jerked off fantasizing about her scent, her taste, the feeling of her soft skin, and her tight, hot body wrapped around mine. I’ve imprinted her on my fucking brain, it feels like, and I want her so badly it hurts.

"What are you going to do, Caesar? Hit me? Hurt me? We both know you won't."

She's right, and we both know it. The thought of causing her physical harm makes me sick. But I can't let her know how completely she's disarmed me.

"There are other ways to hurt someone," I say quietly.

"I'm sure there are," she agrees. "But you won't use them on me. You know why?"

I let out a sharp breath through my teeth, frustrated that once again, she’s talked a circle around me. "Enlighten me."

“Because you don’t just need me in one piece,” she says, smiling sweetly at me. “You don’t just need me healthy and whole to carry your precious heir. You need me cooperative enough to eventually say yes to your marriage proposal. And deep down, you need me to want you back."

The last part hits too close to home, and I feel my control slipping.

Before I can stop myself, I'm striding toward her, backing her against the large glass window that makes up a portion of the wall she’s nearest, my hands braced on either side of her head.

Her back hits the glass, and I hear her let out a soft gasp that I know she tried to hide.

Her scent fills my senses. Her body is so fucking close to mine.

My muscles tense, my cock suddenly straining against my zipper, and I’ve forgotten almost everything except how badly I want to flip her around, yank down the soft lounge shorts she’s wearing, and bury my cock so deeply in her that she feels the shape of me inside of her for days.

"You think you have me figured out?" I growl.

She doesn’t flinch. Fuck, she doesn’t so much as breathe harder, entirely unafraid of me, and I’m so fucking turned on that it hurts, the piercings in my cock tight against the straining flesh. A small smile twitches at the corners of her lips.