‘I am,’ he sighed. ‘But that doesn’t excuse what I said to you, princess. What happened to my father – none of that is your fault.’
‘You were upset –’ I started to say.
‘So were you,’ he interrupted me. ‘And you are always my priority, Alana. I need you to know that.’
‘I do,’ I said, placing my hand on his face. ‘And you are mine. But you need to let me in, Alejandro. I don’t need protecting from the truth. I understand that you don’t need to give me the details of your day to day life, and I don’t want them. But, the big stuff … I want to know that. If I had known you were in the middle of this thing with the Ortegas, I would never have gone to New York.’
‘I understand. But, I want to keep you out of all that, princess. I don’t want you worrying about who we’re at war with. That’s my job.’
‘You think it’s your job to protect me? To look after me? Well, it’s my job to do the same for you too. And how can I do that when I don’t know what’s going on with you?’
He placed the washcloth on the nightstand and lay down beside me, pulling me into his arms until I was lying with my head on his chest. ‘Are you sure you want to know about my world, Alana?’
‘Yes.’
He kissed the top of my head and then he told me all about what had been going on for the past few weeks. When he’d finished, he tilted my chin up so he could look at my face, searching for my reaction.
‘Thank you for trusting me,’ I said with a smile.
‘It was never about me not trusting you, princess. I thought keeping you out of it would keep you safe. But you’re right, how can you protect yourself if you don’t know what to look out for. If you are ever taken from me, Alana, then you should do everything you can to survive. Know that I will be moving heaven and earth to find you, so you do anything you can to stay alive.’
I shuddered involuntarily. I knew what his business was. I knew what had happened to his father was deliberate and was because of who he was. And I had asked to know more, but hearing him say that out loud, suddenly made everything all that more real.
‘You should listen to everything,’ he went on. ‘Always be listening. People usually aren’t as smart as they think and they will leak something that will be useful to you. You listen first and talk later, understand me? You learn everything you can about your attacker or your kidnapper, and you use it.’
‘Okay,’ I breathed.
Suddenly, he was rolling on top of me and brushing my hair back from my face. ‘Have I frightened you, princess?’
‘A little,’ I admitted. ‘But it’s okay. I asked to know. I needed to know.’
‘Tomorrow, I’ll have Hugo teach you the most effective ways to cause someone pain and some escape techniques.’
‘Why can’t you teach me instead?’
He narrowed his eyes at me and I felt his cock twitching against my stomach. ‘I’m pretty sure that anything involving me restraining you, or generally putting my hands on you, is only going to end one way, princess.’
‘Oh? And what way would that be?’ I purred.
‘You dripping wet and my cock buried inside you,’ he growled. ‘Besides, Hugo is an expert.’
‘Okay. Maybe Kelsey and Lucia could join us? Sounds like it could be useful stuff for any woman to know?’ I suggested, thinking that having both of them involved, would make it feel less like preparation for a potential kidnapping and more like one of the self-defense classes I took in college.
‘I think that’s a great idea. Then I won’t have to have to think about you and Hugo alone together wrestling in my gym,’ he flashed an eyebrow at me and I pushed him in the chest.
‘You’re kind of possessive, do you know that?’
‘Yes, I do. And you love it. You’re all mine, Alana,’ he growled, pressing his hips into mine so I could feel every inch of him.
‘I know,’ I groaned as I raised my hips to meet his. ‘Just like you’re all mine.’
‘Fuck, yeah, I am,’ he breathed as he shifted his hips lower and pushed his cock into me. ‘And you can have every last inch of me, princess.’