He answered me with another one of those treacherously charming smiles, and my heart sank. His hand reached out, fingers curling under my chin, tilting my face up to meet his gaze.
The blanket shifted, and cool air kissed my bare shoulders.
"Because, little one,” he murmured, his thumb brushing across my lower lip, "your mother will be there. And you're going to help me destroy her."
CHAPTER 17
DARIUS
Feeding her should not have turned me on, but my cock ached with need at the way her plump lips surrounded the spoon and her eyes got heavy as she savored every single morsel.
I couldn’t help but picture her lips wrapped as tightly around my cock.
What was that devilish little tongue doing?
Would it be just as wicked as she swallowed me?
The mere act of eating should not have been arousing, not only because it was something so simple, so domestic, but I had just come inside her tight little body. I should have been satisfied.
I was satisfied, but something about her shook my control and my discipline. Satisfaction wasn’t enough anymore. I didn’t want just a taste of her, I wanted all of her.
In less than twenty-four hours, this purple-haired American woman had turned me from a disciplined man into a fucking glutton.
But watching her lips part for the spoon, her cheeks flushed from embarrassment and resistance, stirred something dark and possessive inside of me.
The need to control, to own, to lose myself in something had only ever occurred with numbers. Spreadsheets, ledgers, and bank account balances. Those were my vices. Those pulled and held my attention faster and more completely than anything else…until her.
In just one day, my fascination was pulled away from cold logic over to this woman who was an agent of sensuality and chaos. I didn’t understand why she had this hold on me, and it was infuriating.
Everything about her was chaotic—messy rooms, tangled thoughts, rambling speeches, and her stubborn rebellion.
At first, I thought she was just fighting me, but as I looked around her apartment, I wondered if she was actually fighting against any control. It was a battle she was going to lose, but while combatting it, I risked her pulling me into that same madness.
I'd lectured my nephews about getting too soft over their women. Told them sentiment was a weakness our enemies would exploit. Men became careless, sloppy, vulnerable, from that attachment.
This wasn't the same thing.
Anna was leverage. A means to an end. The fact that I enjoyed breaking her, that I got hard watching her eat, that I'd spent an hour organizing her chaos like some domestic fool—none of that meant anything.
I was simply ensuring my asset was properly maintained. That was all.
That had to be all.
When I left her in the bathroom to clean up, I ran my hands through my hair several times, trying to regain some semblance of control. I looked around at the chaos that was her apartment and realized that there was no place for control in this mess.
If I wanted to control the girl, I had to have her in an environment that was ordered. So I got to work. She would need to eat, and one look in the refrigerator told me that was not happening.
I called down to one of my men and had him grab the ingredients for a simple, nutritious and hearty stew that would take practically no time to make. Then, I aimed my efforts at the chaos of her apartment.
I imposed order with an iron fist.
First, I straightened up piles and piles of sheet music, careful not to dislodge any of her sticky notes and to keep the pages in order. Then I set my sights on the clothes and linens that were strewn all over the place.
One of her T-shirts still had a dryer sheet clinging to it, so I knew everything was clean, just disorganized.
It took me only minutes to hang up or fold her clothes and put them away, and to stack the fresh towels in her laundry basket until I could get to the bathroom cabinet. Then, I started gathering the random sticky notes that were left all over the place.
Don’t forget to call the plumber about the billing issues.
