“Good,” I reply, laughing a little. “If it did I’d be worried. My father isn’t someone who likes to occupy the spotlight so you’d have to be a gangster to know who he is. But the Volos family holds the real power in Detroit. Money laundering, drugs, prostitution. You name it, my father is at the top of the food chain.”
“But you’re not your father. You can choose your own path.”
“No, I’m not. But you don’t know what you’re getting yourself into by being here with me. I’m supposed to marry someone. A business rival of my father’s, someone who can be brought into the family to solve a lot of problems. It’s a forced marriage, but I can’t go to the police because he owns so many of them I don’t know who to trust. He has people in every government department, even the mayor’s office. I wouldn’t be surprised if he has influence in the White House.”
“I don’t care,” he says, and I laugh.
“He’d kill you just for being here with me.”
Saint shakes his head. “No. Amara, I’m not going anywhere and I’m not afraid of your dad. So he owns the city. But he doesn’t own me. And he doesn’t own you. We can do what we like.”
“But perhaps I should just accept my fate?”
“Is that what you want?”
“N—no, but—”
“But nothing. Baby, nobody is taking you away from me. Not now, not ever. I didn’t know I was looking for you but now that I’ve found you I’m never letting you go. Do you trust me?”
I gaze into his eyes, but I already know the answer. “Yes, I trust you,” I tell him, and nothing has ever been more true for me in my life. If anyone is capable of standing up to my father, it’s him. Most men would be thinking about themselves right now, either getting as far away from me as they could to preserve their own safety or looking for an angle to extort my father for a small fortune.
But not Saint.
He’s here to stay, and I’m safe in his arms.
Without another thought, I crush my lips to his and feel his hand flutter down between us, grabbing my pussy hard and making me shriek as he presses the soft satin of my gown into the folds of my sex. I wriggle against him, but already my hands are fumbling with his shirt buttons, frustrated that I can’t unfasten them any faster with my face glued to his.
“I want you,” I whisper when our kiss breaks.
“I’ve wanted you from the moment I met you,” he says back. “I love you, Amara.”
The words make me gasp. Love. He just said he loves me. A man I’ve known for only a few days, but somehow I know it’s true. And more than that, I know how I feel about him too.
“I love you, Saint,” I tell him and feel his fingers brush aside the fabric still covering my nakedness, reaching in, fingertips gliding across my mound, playing with the soft strip of hair, making me shiver with the lightness of his touch. “I want you inside me.”
“Fuck, baby, you don’t know what that does to me.”
***
Saint
I can’t move quickly enough. I need inside her right now, I need to claim her, to make her mine. Sure, my cock wants his prize too, but that’s not the driving force right now. This is purely about binding her to me, about letting her know that I’m not going anywhere, that I’m not going to leave her. Amara is afraid still, I can sense it from her. Not afraid of me, of us, of this, but of what her father is capable of. And if what she’s said is true, I understand that fear, but I’m not afraid.
I’m not afraid because there’s this part of me that lives to protect her at all costs. The primordial part of me. The caveman part. The gladiator. The savage ready to spill blood on her behalf.
I’ve never been more sure of anything in my life.
Her father can do whatever he likes, but I’m going nowhere. Amara needs to know that’s true, and there’s only one way to prove it to her.
“I want you to know, baby, I’m clean. I’m going to take you raw right now, there isn’t going to be anything between us, but I haven’t been with anyone else in years. Hell, I’m probably a virgin again myself at this point.”
She’s fumbling with my belt, my shirt already half undone, and I help her tiny hands with the buckle. “I’m desperate for you,” she says. “I want this cock inside me right now.”
“And you’re going to get it,” I tell her. “It might hurt, baby, but only this first time. And you can take it, I know you can. You’re stronger than anyone thinks, aren’t you?”