“I’ve been in there.” He points to a door, the one that leads to the hidden passages behind the first-floor den and library.
“Is that so?” My lips twitch.
Sneaky little thing.
“I’ve been all over this place,” he professes, almost triumphantly. It’s purely adorable. “In fact, the only part of this mansion I’ve never explored is your floor.”
“That can’t be true,” I hum.
“It is. The only time I ever went up there was the night you caught me.”
His wording fills me with many things I decide to store up and think about later.
But one question is too persistent. “Is that how you see it, pajarito… That Icaughtyou?”
He peeks at me. “You don’t?”
I have to think about it for a moment. “Maybe… But you returned on your own. I wasn’t out hunting you. Not for lack of trying, anyway.”
He chuckles softly. I can barely even fathom how unperturbed he seems by the notion of being abducted. I know he tells himself he hates being locked in that cage, but in truth, Ithink he’s comforted by it. It offers him a more concrete excuse as to why he isn’t killing me, like he’ssupposedto.
“Well, I had to come back to you, didn’t I, Diablo?” Mirth decorates that sultry mouth. “How else am I supposed to kill you?”
A buoyant grin sweeps up my own lips. “You got me there, baby bird.”
We take the back staircase up to my floor. It’s much narrower than the grand staircase, and thus a bit harder to ascend cuffed and leashed. But we manage, and I bring him through the doorway to my floor, though he’s lingering and distracted.
“I thought your floor was the top,” he questions. “Where do those stairs lead?”
“Roof, my love,” I tell him, yanking him along to keep him moving. “The helipad is up there.” I pause, noting how fascinated he looks. “Would you like a tour?”
Some excitement flashes in his bright eyes, and he nods enthusiastically.
I can’t pretend that his interest in my home doesn’t please me immensely. It’s often overlooked how intricate and incredible this mansion really is. I haven’t had a guest I wanted to impress here in a while—not since Lemuel, and I was too busy to give him the tour of the mansion myself. I’m pretty sure Kent did it, though he wasn’t allowed on my floor.
With Angelito, I have the rare opportunity to show off my privatefortress of solitude.
And so I do. I bring him all around my flooron a leash, giving him a brief history lesson. I tell him about the island, where the prison came from and how it came to belong to me. And then, as we take a seat in my den and I pour us a glass of wine, I tell him about The Ivory Mansion.
“The architect and I used to get drunk together and come up with funny ways to spend more of the board’s money,” I tellhim, chuckling nostalgically while I unbuckle the leash from his collar. “Like the secret passageways and the conservatory.”
Angel shakes his head, grinning. “How much did this place cost?”
“In total? Start to finish?” I tip the glass to his lips, offering him a sip.
He’s glaring, unamused. But he concedes, allowing me to feed him wine. It’s unbearably fucking sexy.
“Just shy of eleven million,” I answer.
He coughs into the glass, and I pull it away. “Jesus…”
I swipe away some Tempranillo from his lip my thumb, popping it into my mouth. “And that’s just the mansion.” I smirk at the way he’s blushing, taking a sip from the glass myself. “The prison was… less costly.”
“Yea, no shit,” he scoffs. “The place is a hole. I mean, even before…”
“Hm… yes, well, Alabaster Penitentiary is like a cockroach,” I grumble. “It will survive nuclear holocausts and probably the next great flood.” He chuckles. “Three thousand years from now, some new race of creatures will stumble upon a weathered concrete shell withRen was herecarved on the walls…”
Angel rumbles some more, watching me closely. I cock a brow.
