Probably why he’d detested Meg from the moment she moved in.
Didn’t help she’d treated him like shit until I found out and made sure it never happened again.
“I want to clarify that I would never betray you Alaric. I just didn’t think she should suffer like the others.”
In other words, he’d developed a soft spot for her. This was odd, but not a bad thing.
“I haven’t changed my mind if that’s what you’re implying,” I replied. “She’s a challenge I’m very much looking forward to conquering.”
Looking visibly relieved, he smiled and then turned to go back upstairs, leaving me to pretend I was working and not obsessing over the woman that had unknowingly become my exclusive possession.
CHAPTER NINE
“If you seek out his secrets, be prepared for the consequences.”
Those words repeated in my head until I fell asleep. I used them as a buffer, a shield against the things Alaric had successfully stirred within me.
Just before my eyes closed it had been working. Lying awake staring at the smooth ceiling, I didn’t get the same result. In fact, I got the opposite. I was hit with a vivid image of being on top of him.
I had completely humiliated myself in front of his brother and the woman he claimed was a ‘colleague’.
With a groan, I rolled onto my side and pulled the cover over my head. It was pushing eleven-thirty in the morning. I’d been awake for hours, unable to drag myself from the bed.
My head was a mess.
I wanted to return to the piano, but then I risked a run with the person I was trying to avoid. Eventually I slid from beneath the comforter and dug out a new outfit for the day.
My options were slim given I wasn’t supposed to be here more than a few days. Recalling yesterday’s events, I skipped the second sundress I’d brought and went with a pair of terry-cloth shorts—sans underwear, a bra and tank.
I took my time in the shower, shaving and washing my hair.
Closing my eyes as the conditioner ran out, I once more replayed the night before in my head. If the bulge that I’d felt between Alaric’s legs was anything to go off, he had been very blessed in that department, which should have been a given.
It would be a sin for a man to look like him and have a small dick.
There was no doubt in my mind that he’d been in total control. The way he’d prevented me from getting away. How he grabbed my neck…With a soft sigh, I pushed my chest out, letting water rain directly on my hardened nipples.
Keeping my eyes closed, I ran a hand over my navel, travelling downward to tease my labia. Spreading my lips apart, I took my index and middle finger and began to rub my clit in a circular motion applying more pressure the closer I got to coming.
Whereas it usually took me a great amount of effort to get myself off, thoughts of Alaric and the way he touched me had a ripple of pleasure coursing through me within thirty seconds. I sunk my teeth into my lower lip to stifle my moan, breathing as quietly as I could. When the feeling faded, I took a few seconds to regulate my heartbeat.
Opening my eyes, I brushed wet strands of hair away from my face. I felt no shame or guilt over using Alaric as spank bank, just a depressing kind of frustration. My fingers alone weren’t going to be enough; they didn’t provide what I needed. I could make myself come a hundred times as I imagined what it would be like to have him inside me, it wouldn’t rid my desire for him.
I’d allowed a darkening fixation to take root in my mind. One or another I had to find a way to get rid of it.
I shuffled my way to the kitchen in need of liquid substance before I immersed myself in Meg’s things for the day. The second I spotted Alaric my mouth was left hanging open.
I came to an abrupt stop.
My eyes traveled their own path, going from a pair of grey sweatpants doing absolutely nothing to conceal his print, over an unrealistically defined torso covered in a light sheen of perspiration.
They dropped back down when I got to a tattoo of a skull on one side of his chest. There was another darkly shaded tat inked over his left hip, something with horns and wings. The image was large, expanding to somewhere beneath his shorts. To see it entirely he’d have to remove his bottoms.
“Trying to catch flies?” he droned sarcastically.
I snapped my mouth shut and scowled at him. The steel water bottle he brought to his lips didn’t hide an antagonizing grin.
“Why are you walking around half-dressed?”
His throat bobbed as he swallowed. He lowered the water-bottle slowly, looking at me as if I’d just come from a new dimension. “Why am I walking around half-dressed?” he repeated back.