It was foolish of me to think that I would eventually be able to purge this obsession with her. Every day I’m near her, it only grows stronger. I’m inside her every opportunity I get, and when I’m not fucking her, I’m thinking about fucking her.
In meetings, my thoughts drift to her instead of focusing on what it is I need to do. It’s a fucking problem, and it’s one I have no intention of solving anytime soon.
Abella clings to me, her eyes heavy as I carry her back to our suite and into the bathroom. I set her onto the counter and strip her bare before I discard my clothes. She lets me take care of her the way she always does, soaking up my attention as I wash her in the shower.
She craves this from me, and when I deprive her, I know it feels like a punishment. But it’s self-preservation. When she looks up at me, there’s a vulnerability in her eyes that she doesn’t often show. It tugs at something in my chest and makes me want to kiss her.
But kissing her is a slippery slope, and I won’t do it again until she’s willing to come clean and tell me everything. I can fuck her, touch her, and sleep next to her in bed every night. But I will never lay myself bare and make the mistake of trusting her again when she refuses to be honest with me.
So instead, I lift her gaze to mine and offer her the next best thing.
“You put up a good fight tonight,cara. I’m proud of you.”
Her eyes drift shut, face softening as she absorbs those words. I’ll never get over the way the world seems to stop for her the moment she has my approval. When I tell her how well she’s done, and she unravels like this, it pleases me to no end. But it also guts me that this wound lives inside her.
She never had approval from the one person she should have. Now that he’s dead, she’ll have to settle for hearing it from me for the rest of her life.
“Are you sore?” I ask her.
“A little.” She shrugs. “I’ll feel it tomorrow.”
I suppress a groan because I’m a sadistic son of a bitch, and I love the thought of her feeling me every time she sits.
I guide her to the bench and sit her down while I lather some shampoo in my hands. When I work it into her hair, it’s a long, slow process. Mostly because she shivers with pleasure every time I drag my fingers over her scalp.
“Angelo?” She draws her lip between her teeth as she looks up at me.
“Yes?”
“Thank you.” Her voice trembles with an unexpected swell of emotion.
“For what?” I search her eyes.
“For everything you’ve given me.”
I don’t know what to make of that statement, but I also know there’s no point pushing her. We’ve been down that road too many times already.
“Let’s get you to bed.”
After drying Abella,I take her to bed and pull her against my body. She fits perfectly—head tucked beneath my chin, her soft, round ass curved against my cock. I drape an arm over her waist and tell her to go to sleep, but despite her earlier exhaustion, she seems restless.
“What’s keeping you awake?” I ask.
She hesitates for a moment before her question spills out in the safety of darkness.
“Have you…spent a lot of time at the Cat House?”
Her body hums with tension, her breath suspended as she waits for my answer. The asshole in me wants to see her burn with jealousy the way I did when I thought of her and Matteo.
Instead, I tell her the truth.
“I’ve been there after my release from prison,” I admit. “If you want to know if I’ve fucked women there, the answer is yes, Abella. But I don’t know who they were. I don’t even know what their faces looked like. I didn’t know their identity, and they didn’t know mine.”
It takes her a minute to process that before she nods against me, the strands of her hair tickling my chest. “Okay.”
Another long silence follows, and then she shifts, pressing her ass against my cock.
“Keep doing that, and I’ll shove it back inside you.”
