Chapter Nineteen
Arianna
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WE STARED AT EACH OTHER for a long moment, finally able to actually look at one another. Damn, he was gorgeous, and I could feel the same chemistry that had been there before. I wanted to grab him, kiss him, bury my face in his neck, but I had to hold back.
“You think?” Arnold asked, his greasy hand still on the back of my neck. I wanted to brush him off, but I knew it wouldn’t have ended well. Let him think he could have his way with me, let him think he stood a chance, and I would make it through out of this in one piece.
“We’ve met,” Dean replied. My heart dropped. That was how we were playing it?
“Yes, this is the incredible man who rescued me,” I added quickly. The two of us hadn’t taken our eyes off each other, both trying to parse out what was happening here right now. I let my gaze linger on him far longer than it needed to, aching for his touch, for the feel of his hand on my skin.
“Arianna’s going to be staying with us for a while,” Arnold continued, apparently totally oblivious to the tension between us.
“We saved her from the Vogons last night,” he went on. “They tried to ransom her.”
I tried to keep the confusion off my face. They hadn’t - I had been there when they had put in the call; they had just handed me over to him. They had been working together, I was sure of it. I didn’t know where this version of the story was coming from, but he must have had reason to stick by it.
Dean nodded. He didn’t let anything show on his face, and I had no clue whether he was aware Arnold was lying or not. I didn’t know, and I needed to keep my nose truly and utterly out of it. I had to stay removed from all of this. It was the only way I was going to be able to get out of this in one piece. Get pulled into the slipstream, and I might never find a way out again. I wasn’t about to risk it.
“So, the two of you met in rather strange circumstances,” Arnold remarked. His voice seemed edged with something as though he was doing his best to get under the skin of the truth of our relationship. I just smiled, plastering another grin over my face and hoping it would be enough to convince him not to go any further.
“Yes, but thank goodness we did,” I gushed, beaming at Dean. “I don’t know if I would have made it out if it wasn’t for him. And the thought of what might have happened...”
I shuddered pointedly.
“It doesn’t even bear thinking about.”
“You can always rely on our men to take care of you, Arianna,” Arnold assured me, finding another way to draw my attention back to him. Interesting – I wondered if he was insecure about Dean in some way, and wanted to make sure he could keep coming out on top in conversations between the three of us.
“Tell me, exactly, how did you get out of there?” Arnold asked, turning his attention back to Dean. I decided to keep my mouth shut this time and allow him to spin the story. I would just go along with everything he said, and hope it would be enough to get me out of the mess I was currently trapped in.
I nodded as Dean spoke, detailing the fictional version of how we had met. Arnold would occasionally glance over to me to make sure I was in agreement with everything, and I would add in a furrowed brow or a nod or some small noise to make it sound as though I was relieving these moments right along with him.
This was a good chance for me to get a feel of the relationship between the two men, and I took it all in as though I was studying a tennis match. Arnold didn’t seem too guarded around Dean, so I had to guess they had been working together for at some time; he trusted him, on some level, though it was clear from his peppering of questions he wasn’t entirely certain about the story he was telling him now.
And Dean wasn’t giving anything away. His tone was calm and slow, picking out every detail, spinning a story so damn impressive I was starting to believe it might actually have been true. By the time he was done, I found myself letting out a breath of relief, glad he had managed to keep in control of this situation.
“Well, I’m sure you could use some rest after all of that,” Arnold remarked. He wanted Dean gone – wanted me to himself again. I wished he could stick around a little longer, but much more than this and I was certain Arnold would notice the tension building between us and do something to get in the way of it. Dean nodded his farewell, his eyes catching mine for the briefest moment, and I felt a spark of attraction rush down my spine. I prayed Arnold hadn’t noticed. He didn’t strike me as the kind of man who would have much interest in sharing the attentions of a woman he was interested in.
Arnold guided me over to the table, mercifully taking me away from Dean so I didn’t have to pretend I couldn’t sense the tension between us. I just wanted to throw myself at him, grab him, and tell him how much I wanted to fuck him again, but it was one-hundred-percent off the table for now. I couldn’t even hint at knowing him any more than I had already admitted to.
Arnold went to pour me a coffee, and I took a seat in the middle of the large kitchen; it was mostly empty, the staff probably heading off to take care of other household tasks for the day, and I was glad it was just the two of us. It would give me some time to pick his brains and really get under the skin of what I was doing here, and what he expected from me.
I couldn’t stop thinking about what he had said about the Vogons. Did he really expect me to believe that the men, the ones who had actually brought me here and handed me over to him, were nothing but his enemies? Nothing but monsters working against him who intended to take him down? It didn’t make sense, but he was clearly trusting me to go along with it. For whatever reason, he didn’t want me discovering the truth about what was going on between their group and the Vogons, and maybe I would have done a good job just keeping my mouth shut about it.
But that didn’t mean I couldn’t delve for a little more information now I had him all to myself, did it? It would have been foolish to pass up the opportunity, and besides, I wanted to know just how much he was hiding from the people around him. Information was the only kind of power I would have as long as I was here, and the more of it I was privy to, the stronger my chances of making it out alive were.
“You and Dean seem close,” I remarked. He glanced over at me, surprised.
“How do you mean?”
“He’s the only one you introduced me to.”
He shrugged.
“It’s good for you to know who you’ll be staying with.”