And now, she might cost me mine.
The seconds passed silently as she stared at the gun in her hand. Her hands were small, delicate, and they didn’t fool me one bit. She was capable of this.
“Why are you giving me this now?” she asked, lowering the gun to her side.
I resisted the urge to smile in satisfaction, knowing my bride would not like that and then might reconsider her decision not to kill me.
“I’m leaving for Sicily tonight,” I said, careful to keep my voice void of inflection.
I was satisfied to see the disappointment flickering across her beautiful face. Fury danced in her eyes. Not that I was leaving, but that she cared that I’d be gone. She was going to fucking miss me, and she hated me for that. Hated herself more.
As much as it pleased me to see her finding her place here, with me—albeit under duress—I was also furious.
I was going to fucking miss her too.
This trip had been planned for over a year and was too fucking important to postpone. It would forge new relationships with powerful players in the old country. Powerful players who most families over here in the new world had forgotten. And they’d paid the price for that.
So I had to leave.
Yet the mere thought of it, of not having her body next to mine, not feeling her pussy first thing in the morning, made me want to break something. Or someone.
It was dangerous, the need I had for her. Fucking perilous.
“I’ll be gone for a week at the least,” I told her. “My flight leaves this evening.”
Sienna pursed her lips. More disappointment. Tomorrow, the month timeline I’d given her was up. The wedding planning would begin. Or so she imagined. I had been making arrangements since the second she moved in here. Once I’d tasted her that first night, I knew I was never going to let her go. That she’d be mine until my last breath. Or hers.
I stepped forward, unable to continue standing so close to her without touching her. Especially now when she was holding a gun at her side.
My hand settled around her neck, the skin smooth, captivating. Every inch of her was perfection, which made me want to mark it that much more. Every time I touched her, I had to resist the urge to find a knife and carve my fucking name into her flawless skin.
I settled for gripping her neck, my thumb brushing at her jawline.
Her entire body responded as soon as I touched her. Her full lips quivered, letting out a sigh of satisfaction. She melted into me, her eyes still burning with fury but something else too. Need. Hunger.
“I’m going to leave.” My hand flexed around her slender neck. “But I’ll leave with the taste of your cunt on my tongue.”
She shivered under my grip, and I felt that shiver in my cock.
“Unless you have any arguments?” I asked, my voice soft, taunting.
Sienna jutted her chin upward in defiance, but I knew she couldn’t speak. Knew that she was powerless against whatever it was between us. I knew that because I was too. Fortunately, I was just better at hiding it.
“That’s what I thought,” I murmured.
I left much later than I’d planned.
With her on my lips.
With my cum inside her.
And the knowledge I’d damned us both until death.
Sienna
I’d been sure Cristian was going to kill me last night. That he’d found out about what I’d taken, my relationship with Detective Harris.
Instead of killing me, he’d handed me a gun. A weapon that could guarantee my freedom. If I’d pulled the trigger and ended Cristian’s life. I’d thought about killing him many times over the past month. I was capable of it. Taking a life wouldn’t haunt me, wouldn’t ruin me. No, I could handle such a thing.
But I couldn’t handle living without Cristian.
The realization was bitter on my tongue. Arsenic in my veins.
It kept me up the entire night after Cristian left.
I slept in his room because I needed to be surrounded by his smell. By his things. His books on Russian poetry. His clothing. The gun he gave me.
It didn’t make me feel any better. Not that I knew what we were to each other. Not when the sun rose on the first day of the new month. The month that would begin my wedding planning.
Felix didn’t go easy on me, even though the dark shadows under my eyes and grayish pallor told him that I hadn’t slept.
No. He was harsher on me.
I didn’t dare complain. Accuse him of being cruel, taking advantage of me. Not in my weakened state. Because then I might’ve asked him to take advantage of me in other ways.
I still wanted him. Ached to see how he’d fuck. How he’d be different from Cristian. And then there was the added benefit of what it would do to Cristian. Surely he wouldn’t marry me when his most trusted captain had fucked me.