“Stop asking questions and get dressed.” I wasn’t used to someone questioning me left and right. My men did what I said because they believed in my leadership—and they also didn’t want to get shot in the foot. But this woman was fearless.
“I’m not a whore who just follows directions.”
“Never said you were.” I stepped away and made a phone call while she got ready in her bedroom. By the time I was finished, she stepped out in jeans and t-shirt.
“I hope I’m dressed for the occasion…”
She looked fuckable in anything. It was the first time I’d seen her in something other than a dress, and even though the clothing covered her beautiful legs and her shirt wasn’t as tight as her dresses, she still made my heart stop for a second. “You could be naked and still be dressed for the occasion.”
We left the compound and got into my truck. Then we drove a few blocks away to the doctor’s office.
She read the sign out front. “I’m not sick.”
“That’s not why we’re here.”
“Then why are we here?”
“We’re getting tested.”
She turned her head my way, her beautiful brown hair swaying with her movements. She hadn’t put on makeup because she hadn’t had time, but she was one of the few women in the world who didn’t really need it. She had naturally red lips, sexy cheekbones, and green eyes that reminded me of the green valleys of Switzerland in spring. “Does that mean what I think it means?”
I nodded.
“Both of us, right?”
I nodded again.
“What’s the point of that if you’re sleeping around?”
She continued to make the assumption I’d been with other women when I hadn’t. She’d been the only woman in my bed since the night we met. I didn’t practice monogamy, but I’d never been with a woman I wanted twice. For some inexplicable reason, I wanted this woman more than twice. More like a million times. But I refused to correct her. “They’re also putting a tracker in your ankle. I’ll be able to find you anywhere in the world. Not that you would run.”
“What makes you think I won’t run?” She cocked an eyebrow.
I stared at her, my eyes lingering on the hollow in her throat. “Do you want to go back to Lucian?”
“No, but—”
“I’m the only man in the world who can keep him away from you.” If he crossed me, I would enslave him. I would kill all his men, and I would torture him mercilessly. Then I would get everything I wanted.
She shut her mouth, her eyebrow slowly descending. She despised Lucian a lot more than she would ever despise me, and not just because she was fucking me. At least I was a man who could be respected, a man who was strong enough to protect a woman. By my side, she would never have to worry about anything again.
“If you run away and somehow manage to succeed, he’ll take you. And what do you think he’ll do to you?”
Her face turned noticeably pale.
If he didn’t kill her, he would beat her. And death was preferable to being underneath that man every night. Maybe I was an asshole, but at least she liked to fuck me. And at least I was a real man. “Let’s go.”
Not that I expected anything else, but our results indicated we were both clean. The tracker was successfully placed in her ankle, and the doctor didn’t raise any questions to my unusual request. He was the doctor I called in the middle of the night when my men were shot or stabbed. He was paid handsomely under the table, and he looked the other way to all my illegal activities.
We returned to the compound and took the elevator to my floor. I hadn’t told my brother what I did because we hadn’t crossed paths yet. He was busy working, and I was busy leading.
“You know, I could carve the tracker out of my ankle.” She stepped inside the living room and left her shoes by the door, making herself at home already.
As she should. She would live with me for a long time. “You’d probably die.”
“It takes a lot more than some pain to kill me.”
It was hard not to grin at everything she said. “From the blood loss.”
She shrugged. “That still doesn’t scare me.”
“It’s pretty close to a vein, so it should scare you.”
The confidence disappeared from her gaze. With her arms crossed over her chest, she walked into the kitchen and looked in the fridge. “Oh, good…you got some food.”
“There was already food in there.”
“But real food. Like cheese.” She grabbed a beer before she came back to me. She held it to her lips and took a long drink while she kept her eyes on me. She sauntered around my living room like she owned it, like she was enticing me with her natural allure. But she wasn’t the kind of woman that had to purposely be sexy to seduce a man. She was just naturally magnetic, the way she swayed her hips and sealed her lips around the head of that bottle.