I was beginning to think her death was caused by more than a simple sickness.
If that was how she died at all.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
I’d been waiting for him to arrive.
He came in carrying a store bag with a smiley face on the side of it, the aroma of food wafting from within. Spotting me at the bottom of the stairs, he shut the door slowly.
“What is it?”
“Why did you take my sister to your clinic?”
He carried the bag to the table in the center of the foyer and sat it down.
“That question is redundant. It’s a clinic.”
I titled my head to the side and eyed him. “I knew you were going to say that.”
He quirked a brow at me and slid his hands into the pockets of his slacks.
“Was there any other answer?”
“You would know.”
“That…mouth,” he bit his lower lip, beginning to make his way towards me.
I used the bannister to help me stand, moving slower than usual due to the pain between my legs.
“Did you sleep okay?” His blues pressed me; a hint of a smile rested on his lips.
All the hair lifted on my arms and the back of my neck. I moved to the step behind me, he stepped forward.
“Are you afraid of me?”
I shook my head side to side.
He grinned up at me, looking every bit the beautifully insane monster, he’d always claimed to be.
“Catalina,” he sighed. “That’s not the right answer.”
I took another step back, then another. The sensation to flee was growing by the second. I’d never been afraid of him, but as a barrage of macabre clips flashed through my brain, things I had no recollection of doing. Things I’d witnessed him doing. I was terrified of what he could to do me.
“I think it’s time for me to leave.”
He clucked his tongue at me. “I’m sure you do, but that’s not possible for two reasons. One, I can see you’ve started to piece some things together. Two, I’ve paid a lot of fucking money for you.”
I couldn’t begin to process what that meant. He pounced before I could move another inch.
I was swept off my feet and carried up the stairs with a dread inducing quickness.
“Put me down!” I twisted in his arms, grabbing at the walls as he carried me down the hallway. Reaching the door of the room he never allowed me to fully enter, he twisted the handle and it opened right up, as if it were never locked.
I was tossed down on his bed, the duvet cushioning my fall. The sheer black curtains on the canopy enclosed me inside. Scooting backward towards the other side of the bed, my muscles tensed to run.
“No.” His sharp command snaked through the air, freezing me in place.
“Don’t ever run from me. I will catch you, and then I will destroy you.” He tugged the canopies curtains apart. “You’re not like the others, Catalina. Don’t make me treat you that way. The things I’d do to you…you’d be happy to die by the time I’m finished.”
I watched him remove first his shirt, and then his shoes. His pants were next. Unable to meet the smoldering stare he leveled at me; I turned my head away.
“Take off your dress,” he commanded.
“Why are you doing this?”
“Don’t give that victim bullshit. You’ve wanted this since you got here. I know your pussy is growing wetter and wetter as I speak. Now take it off, or I’ll rip it from your body.”
I reached for the hem, pulling it over my head slowly.
Completely naked, I hugged my knees to my chest, wincing from the pain.
Seeing my obvious reaction Alaric reached out and parted my knees, eyeing the bruises in bemusement. “That looks like it hurts.”
He moved onto the bed, pushing me down onto my back. His icy blues swept over my curves as he pushed down his briefs. “You never disappoint. You’re gorgeous.” His mouth covered mine, and his hands went to my hips.
I knew then, when I parted my lips and kissed him back, I knew I should have listened to the warning I was given. I should have heeded the black label that wrapped every inch of his body, proceeded with caution. He was a hazard to my health, but it was too late to go back and undo what he’d done to me.
He lined himself up and shoved inside me with one fluid motion. The size of him and the searing pain had my thoughts blanking. He stretched me in a painfully delicious way. A curse passed through his lips, drowned out by my scream.
“You feel so good,” he soughed. He pinned me to the bed with a hand knotted in the top of my hair and another around my throat, constricting my air flow as he pounded into me. Pain greeted pleasure, my pussy aching even as it drenched his cock in arousal.