Page 27 of In the Dark

Callahan

WHO THE HELL WAS I kidding about wanting a docile woman? I wanted the storm that was Jasmina Ruiz, and as her pussy contracted around me, I knew she was going to be that.

The evidence was as obvious as the blood staining the back of my shirt.

The only time she didn’t resist was when we were touching each other. It was the only time I wanted her submitting, the only time I wanted her listening, and only because I got to see the fight she had with herself as she did it.

I’d never seen anything more beautiful than Jasmina when she was vulnerable. And I’d had a lot of women in the past year trying to forget her. Now, seeing her after her orgasm, I knew she was a rare, glittering treasure that I was pretty sure I wanted all to myself.

But after she came down from the high I brought her to, I knew it would be war again.

When her vulnerable grayish-blue eyes met mine, I didn’t know what to do. I’d expected her to snap at me, not come at me with shaky hands like she was going to return the favor.

I grabbed her blanket and tucked her back into it tightly, making sure she didn’t come near my belt buckle. “We’re done here,” I said, my voice commanding as I adjusted my slacks.

Her eyebrows lifted. “What?”

“We’re done,” I said.

Now, she looked affronted rather than vulnerable. “What about you?”

“What about me?”

“Don’t you want to get off?”

“Not at the moment,” I told her, like all the blood wasn’t pumping straight to my dick. It was idiotic that I didn’t want to fuck her right now even if I could have my way with her. For some reason, I didn’t want it until I knew she fully wanted to give it to me on her own accord.

“Oh my God.” She breathed out like I was disgusting, and the post-orgasmic haze seemed to vanish into thin air, only to be replaced by her normal, snarling self. She reached for the door handle, desperate to get away from me, but I clicked the central lock.

Her eyes shot to mine in fury.

“From now on, I open doors for you. Do you understand?”

“I don’t want help—”

“I don’t care what you want, Jasmina.” This was the line in the sand that she’d have to learn. We weren’t going to be partners in this relationship at all.

I got out and rounded the hood of the car so that I could haul her out, tucking her into my chest with the blanket wrapped around her.

“What are you doing? This is way over the top. I can walk, Callahan.”

I ignored her as I got to the cement porch and rang the doorbell. It opened right away to Monte and Perla, like they’d been standing there ready to receive us.

Her aunt looked completely in shock at seeing her niece in my arms. She started cursing in Spanish in her black cotton dress. Monte stayed silent, his lips in a grim line. He was a larger man with gray hair and wrinkles of wisdom on his face. I saw the distrust and disdain written all over him, but he didn’t move toward a weapon, so I stepped inside with their niece, knowing I had the upper hand.

“Put me down, Callahan,” she whispered, glaring at me. And before I could remind myself that I didn’t need to listen to her, I did.

“I’d like to have a brief, private conversation,” I told her aunt and uncle as her two cousins whispered from the far end of the foyer.

Perla’s hands shook as she put them in the pockets of her dress, but her eyes scanned her niece with concern. “Are you naked under that blanket, Jas?”

The question wasn’t one about her wellbeing and it made me wonder about their relationship. Jasmina lifted her chin and said, “I’m going to change. Don’t say anything without me.”

That command was for me before she hustled out of the room. Her cousins followed her and left me with her aunt and uncle, who didn’t seem at all happy that I was standing there.

Neither of them gave in to the silence that stretched between us though. We were all waiting for the other to strike first.

Yet, it was Jasmina, walking back into the room in sweats with her hair up, that did. “Mr. Knight, you can leave and I can inform my aunt and uncle about what’s going on.”