“I never said we were friends,” he growled in warning, only confirming my suspicion that the man was more animal than man. “I said I worked with him.”
I turned my eyes up to his face, meeting his challenging gaze with a glare of my own. “If you weren’t friends, Chad never would have trusted you to handle the money he left us. He would have left it with his partner or—”
“The money that has supported you and the kids didn’t come from your husband. Don told you what he needed to in order for you to accept the money you needed.” I yanked my hand from him so hard that he had no choice to release me unless he wanted to hurt me. As I stood, I took comfort that he didn’t seem to want to hurt me. At least not yet.
“But his signature was on those papers,” I argued, spinning back to face him once I had the luxury of distance. With his hand off of me, without his skin on mine, I could think more clearly. Somehow, the proximity to him had clouded my head and brought my body to the forefront.
“Forged.” He shrugged, and I gaped at him in response. The blatant admission seemed shocking, as if there was no regret in his body that he’d deceived me for a year of my life. Given me things I hadn’t asked for, and undoubtedly would expect things I didn’t agree to give.
“Then I’ll pay it back.” As soon as I said the words, I regretted them. There was no way for me to pay back that money. Even if I gave him everything I’d saved up, it would never be enough to even cover Axel’s schooling.
“I don’t want your money,” he said then snickered, standing from the couch to tower over me. “You needed to grieve. I gave you what you needed to do that.” He stripped off his suit jacket, and my heart leapt into my throat. Tossing it over the back of the sofa, I watched as he rolled the sleeves up on his white dress shirt. His right forearm was covered in ink, an intricate tribal design that seemed to both contrast with his olive skin and somehow fade into the shadows the artist had created. Smack dab in the center of his forearm, vivid blue eyes stared back at me in the face of a lone wolf. The shadows gave the illusion of moving with his muscle as he reached for me, and I was so distracted by the art of it that I startled when his hands grasped me around the waist and he lifted me to set me back down on the couch.
“Don’t touch me!” I snarled, swatting his hands away when he sat in the corner seat and leaned back.
“Then sit your pretty ass down and stay put. We both know you aren’t leaving until I say you can leave.”
“Excuse me?” I whispered.
He sighed. Then he dragged his hands over his face and reached over to me. Plucking me off the couch, he lifted me until my legs straddled his hips and I stared down at him. “What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” I shrieked, shoving off his chest and scrambling to climb out of his lap, but those hands of his kept me rooted exactly where he wanted me. Evidently growing tired of my struggles, he stretched his hands up and caught both of mine in his and pulled them behind my back.
“Settle, Calla,” he ordered. “I’m not going to hurt you.”
“Then let me go!” I yelled at him, wincing when he shifted his entire body to sit straight up. The motion ground his hips between my thighs, giving me the friction I shouldn’t need. Shouldn’t have wanted in that moment, but there was no denying how good it felt to feel all that muscle between my legs and the way he groaned in my ear vibrated through me.
“I want you to listen to me,” he said and his voice went oddly soft. I hadn’t heard him speak much, but even I knew that there was something unusual about it for him. “Are you listening, Tesoro?”
“I don’t have much choice, do I, asshole?” I shot back, wiggling in his lap. I stilled when I felt the bulge between my legs harden.
“That’s the point, Hellcat,” he laughed as I glared at him. “As we speak, my men are packing up your home.” I gasped, jerking my arms against his grip, but even with only one of his hands gripping them there was zero chance of me getting free. He was relentless in the way he held me. Never hurting me, but never letting me go either. “It’s already been sold to a very nice family who will appreciate it the way you used to. In a little while, we’ll go get Axel from school and then pick up Ines from your father. By the time we get home, your things should be here. I’ve told them to prioritize unpacking the kids first. Their rooms are set up and waiting for them.”
“You cannot be serious,” I whispered. “I didn’t sign off on selling my house. It isn’t possible for it to be sold.” Even as I said the words, I could already hear his response.
He’d forged Chad’s signature. What was to stop him from forging mine?
“I took ownership of the house months ago, with your signature on the Deed and all the other paperwork. You’ll quickly find that there is nothing that can stand in my way, Sunshine.” He stared up at me, those blue eyes piercing through me as my breath disappeared from my lungs.
“Are you insane?” I whispered.
“Probably,” he said with a nod. He looked as if he was thinking it over for a moment, before he shrugged his massive shoulders and continued on, “Our boy has a car and sports room that would make your father proud, and Ines’s room looks like a fucking unicorn vomited in there, but I’m sure our Princess will love it.”
“Our?!” I shrieked, tugging back so harshly that he readjusted his grip on my wrists.
“You’re mine, Calla. That means they are too,” he said simply, like it was the most obvious thing in the world.
“I am not yours,” I argued. “I don’t even know you.”
He sighed, reaching up his free hand to cup my cheek with a warmth he didn’t deserve. “This is happening, Sunshine. You can either accept that or we can do it the hard way, and we both know that the hard way won’t be pleasant for the kids.”
“What?” I asked.
“What do you think it will do to them to see their mother locked in this house against her will? To see you fighting me every step of the way will only traumatize them needlessly. If you fight me and I have to trap you here, what do you think that means for them? For school and seeing your father? I promise you that you will be mine, regardless.”
I stumbled back when he released my wrists suddenly, falling to my back on the sofa. He moved to his knees, all languid and smooth in his movements despite the dramatic mass of his body. I had a moment to wonder what it must be like to be that large, to have to navigate the world and not fit in spaces where normal people never stopped to consider. The moment disappeared when he prowled over me, his hands resting on either side of my head and caging me in when he filled the space I’d left open after I’d fallen back. He stayed on his hands and knees, keeping a distance between our bodies even when he violated my personal space and trapped me beneath him. “I don’t want to scare them,” he said pointedly, his expression imploring me to see reason.
As if there was any reason to be found in the insanity he proposed.
“You’re scaring me,” I pointed out, but he didn’t seem to have any qualms about that.