Trapped. Held by his penetrating gaze, I watch the last of his mask finally slip away. The true Simon revealed as he drives himself into me as if he never wants this to end.
Every word he spoke, every truth he revealed, is reflected right there in his eyes.
And it’s so much, so fucking much, I have no fucking clue what to do with it.
But I do know one thing as his mask slides back into place and his pumping hips begin to slow…
If I ever want to escape him, I’m going to have to kill him. And after everything that just happened, even if I was a cold-blooded murder, I don’t think I could do it.
Shit.
11
Simon
Too many nights I’ve remained awake, unable to sleep, wanting something like this to be a reality.
In my bed, completely naked, Meredith is sleeping on her side with her cheek on my chest.
Her light breathing tickles my chest hair as she sleeps the night away.
And now I have what I’ve been internally aching for, the ultimate prize in the game of life. A woman who matches my ferocious desires, who challenges me in so many demanding ways…
She’s the moon to my sun.
I don’t simply want her to be my broken puppet. No, never that. Her spirit and fight are far too precious for that. If she can simply channel that energy into something more along the lines of what I want, she will be an unstoppable force.
Answering to no one, but me.
I will be her lord and master now.
Damn, how surreal it is to have what I’ve longed for, and yet now I worry about what it will do to me. Will it burn me out like a neutron star? Will I collapse into a black hole if I were to somehow lose her?
I can’t let her go. Not ever. She will be with me for as long as I can hold her to my side.
I want her to remain the woman who enthralled me so painfully that I could barely breathe. But she cannot remain that woman, the black widow of powerful men. She brought too many men down to their knees, never giving quarter. She used her striking femininity, her analytic brain, and a ruthless cunning that rivals even her brother.
She may hate the relation she shares with Matthew, but she is cut of the same cloth.
Hedge fund masterminds, CEO’s of banks, even soccer stars. No one was safe from her wrath.
Ahmed being the only one to turn deadly… at her hands.
If I were to use any type of psychological analysis on her, I would say she has deep down ‘daddy issues’. Her father was a hard man and he had very little in the way of showing compassion.
He was a product of his own vices. He lived hard and played dangerously. He ran the largest crime syndicate in the state, but couldn’t manage to get past the dark ages. If he hadn’t died when he did, I believe I wouldn’t be in the position I’m in now.
Lucifer pulled the family out of the dark. He kept his cool under the storm that his father’s death caused. He ruthlessly removed any who challenged him. Perhaps because she was seeing the man her brother was about to become, cut from the same mold as her criminal tyrant of a father, she seeks to punish them both by proxy through the men she has destroyed.
The buzzing sound of my phone pushes away thoughts of her killing her own father. I wouldn’t have put it past her, though ruining men is more her style than actual murder.
Pulling my phone from the nightstand, I push the connect button, but don’t say anything as I quietly slide out from under Meredith’s arm and head.
As I move away from the bed, I don’t give myself a chance to look at her naked spine. If I did, I wouldn’t be able to resist going right back to bed.
“James, do you have the boxes?”
“Yeah, I have it all in the back of the SUV. What the hell am I now, a fucking errand boy?” he bitches to me.
“I’ll meet you at the garage door,” I say then push the disconnect button.
Risking just the smallest of glances back, I see that she’s curling into a small ball around an errant pillow. Her naked torso wraps tightly around the pillow as if it’s a lifesaver.
Bits and pieces of our night flash through my mind in a chaotic mess of thoughts, desires, and actions.
I have no clue if Lucifer knows just how fully I plan on keeping Meredith to myself. Does he know that I had more than simple carnal desires for her? That I’ve come to need her like I need air to breathe?
Pulling on my slacks from last night, I hope the creases I so carefully maintain in my clothing holds. It would not do for anyone from the inner circle to see me so ruffled, even if it’s by a woman.