“But I’m starting to care about you too,” she continues.
“I know you are, Aurelia.”
Silence stretches, softer this time.
Then she shifts. Her gaze drops to my mouth, then lower, then back up. She’s debating something, her mouth stiffening in the way it does when she wants to lie but chooses honesty instead.
“You’re the only one who calls me that.”
I tilt my head, studying her.
Her shoulders stiffen. She doesn’t meet my gaze. “When I was younger, during training… every mistake meant punishment. Every bruise meant I wasn’t good enough. I wasn’t worthy of being Aurelia, not to them. Just… Ace. And Dante, my father, started seeing me as someone to use. He would bring me to meetings as something for men to look at. Luckily, as Enzo got older and Elijah started having a larger role, they interfered and found excuses for me to stay home.”
“Those excuses usually involved me getting punched in the face.” She lets out a hollow laugh, but her hand trembles in mine. “But I preferred it. Physical violence over mental.”
Something hot coils in my chest. I have to stop myself from standing up and tearing the world apart piece by piece until every bastard who touched her is nothing but dust and blood.
Dante, Enzo, Viktor, Elijah, whoever thought they could make her less than what she is—I would slit every one of their throats.
Not worthy? She’s more than all of them combined.
“I would kill anyone who tried to hurt you,” I say, and it comes out darker than I intended, but underneath it’s a vow, a promise written in blood. I pull at my personal rubber band, realizing I might be coming on too strong, and I soften it with, “You’re mine to protect now. No one touches you. No one even looks at you wrong.”
Her lips twitch, holding back a smile. “That’s the difference, isn’t it? You’d stop them. But you’d still keep me caged.”
I lean in, catching her chin so she has no choice but to look at me. “I won’t keep you forcefully forever, Aurelia.”
Her breath hitches. She searches my eyes, waiting for a crack, a lie. But there isn’t one. There never will be.
For a long moment, she just stares at me, her defences slipping. Then she presses her forehead to mine again, relaxed this time, almost vulnerable.
And in that second, I know. She’s already given in. Even if she hasn’t realized it yet.
She runs her hand down my front, letting it get caught on my waistband before undoing the button and zipper that leads to my boxers.
She wraps her hand around my length, and I can hardly keep my eyes open at her touch.
“I want to know more about you,” she whispers, trying to hold my gaze.
“Malyshka, I don’t really want to talk when you’re doing that.”
I regret my words as soon as I say them because she actually releases her grip and sits back.
“Really?” I question.
She shrugs. “If you tell me more about your life, I’ll keep going.”
My mind flashes to the first time she tried this, manipulating my desire for her into something for her benefit, and my dick only hardens further.
“You get five questions, malyshka, hurry up.”
She smiles, thinking she’s won. Fuck, she’s adorable.
Her hand returns to my aching cock, and I want to shove it in her mouth, but instead, she licks from base to tip, slowly, just once, then looks up at me with her gorgeous eyes.
“How was your childhood?”
You’ve got to be kidding.
