Her stomach sank.
How could he want to continue without her? A life without him felt empty and pointless—something to be endured rather than enjoyed.
She was still wet where she was sitting, her bottom slippery against the chair from the mixture of her arousal and his saliva. The musky scent, combined with her half-naked state, embarrassed her, and she looked away from him, trying to distract herself.
Lily took a moment to observe her surroundings. The suite was huge. She was stunned by the depth of the room from where she was sitting to the front door. A bar with optics and stools was positioned in the corner. Across from the bar was a full sized dining table of dark wood, with seating for eight people. On the floor lay a floral motif carpet, the design of which was carried over to the large artwork on the walls, and the L-shaped sofa. The suite was stunning, and must have cost a fortune—not that money ever seemed to be an issue when Monster was around.
“Are you expecting guests?” she asked, shifting on the chair and rolling her shoulders to try to work out some of the stiffness and kinks residing in her muscles.
“Why do you ask?”
“Because this place is massive.”
He shrugged. “I asked my employee to book the best room, so that’s exactly what he did.”
“I see. And was this employee the same one you had following me the whole time I was back here?”
“I needed to make sure you were safe.”
“I thought you might have put cameras in my apartment.”
He nodded, as though that were a perfectly reasonable thing for him to do. “I did think about it, but I couldn’t handle the thought of seeing you every day and not being able to touch you, or talk with you. Also, I knew if I saw you bringing another man back to your apartment, I would lose my mind with jealousy. Hearing about you kissing someone else was hard enough, but if I’d seen it with my own eyes, I might have killed the man.”
She pushed down her misplaced guilt at the idea of him being hurt upon hearing she’d kissed Cameron. “So you had me followed instead?”
“It was only supposed to be for the first week or so, just to make sure you were all right, and settling back into your life as I’d wanted you to.” He paused and then added, “I hadn’t expected this turn of events.”
“Clearly not.”
She was relieved the man who’d brought her here was no longer in the room with them. She’d been right when she’d figured out that he must have been trained in stealth and had left the room silently before Monster had gotten her half naked.
“What did you do with the hired muscle?” she asked.
“You didn’t think I’d let him see you half naked and creaming on my tongue,” he said with a smirk. “I asked him to wait outside.”
“Of course.” Lily pressed her lips together, her tongue flicking out to wet their dryness. “So what happens now?”
“We stay here until you agree to leave Los Angeles and change your name.”
She gave a frustrated sigh. “Seriously, Monster?”
His jaw tightened. “Don’t call me that.”
“Why not?” she said, her anger lifting inside her again. “It’s what you are. Your father was right.”
She’d pushed him too far.
He took a step back, shaking his head. “I don’t know what you want from me, Flower. Everything I do is to try to take care of you, yet you just want to hurt me.”
“I just want you to be fucking normal! I want you to have a regular job, and be ready to cuddle up on the couch and watch television after a long day.”
His teeth dug into his lower lip, and his eyes cast down. “I don’t know how to be any of those things. Perhaps you’re right. Perhaps I am a monster.”
“I’m sorry,” she said, shaking her head at herself. Her heart ached at the idea that she’d hurt him in the same way his father had. “I didn’t mean it.”
“Yes, you did, and you’re right, which is why this is never going to work. Even if we didn’t have the threats hanging over us that we do now, I’m never going to be that man. I’m a criminal, Flower. I won’t be getting an office job any time soon, and I’ve never even watched a television for anything other than the news.”
“I don’t want that either,” she said, deflated. “Not really. I just want you. I don’t care what kind of package our relationship comes in.”
“We can’t have a relationship, Flower. It was never meant to be that way. I owned you. If I’d not fallen for you like I did, I probably would have had you killed once your job was completed. Don’t cast me as some kind of fucking hero in your head, because that’s not what I am at all. I’m the bad guy in this story, and you’d best remember that.”
She scowled. “How could I forget? You had me drugged and sent back to America like I was an animal you’d had enough of, remember?”
His eyes narrowed at her. “I would never treat you like an animal. I sent you back to America because I knew you would never go out of your own free will.”
“I might have gone if you’d been honest about my options.”
He gave an exasperated sigh. “Listen to me, Flower. I sent you away for only one reason, and that was to keep you safe. I could see no other way of doing it.”
“We could have had a conversation like civilized adults. You could have told me what was going on.”
“We did that. We did that several times, and you still refused to leave. I didn’t like the way it happened, but you left me with no choice.”
Deep down, she knew he was right. She wouldn’t have left. If he’d told her someone was threatening them because of what had happened to the Gonzalez-Larrinaga brothers, she’d have dug her heels in even more. She’d have never left him willingly, just like she didn’t plan on going now.
“If you didn’t think I’d agree to leave you then, what makes you think I’d agree to leave you now?”
“Because now you’re already in America, and now I’m telling you the whole truth. The man after you knows I’m here, too. He will track us both down and take you.”
“And what happens to you if he finds you, but not me?”
“I don’t know, but I’ll think of something.”
“You could kill him,” she suggested suddenly, not even aware she was going to say it before it burst from her lips. “If you kill him, we’ll both be safe.”
He shook his head. “Perhaps for a little while, but in these families there are always others to take their place.”
She stared up at him, her eyes filling with tears, making his face swim before her. “There must be something we can do!”
He stopped and crouched in front of her, his hand on her bare thigh. The contact sent a rush of tingling across her skin. “There is. You can do as I ask.”
“I’m not going to, Monster! It doesn’t matter how many times you say it!”
“You will eventually.”
She shook her head, frantically. “No, no, I won’t.”
He gave a low growl. “Just because I’ve taken the hood off, nothing has changed. I can put it back on again within a second.”
“Why?” she demanded. “What would be the point? Is it just another way you’re trying to control me? At what point are you going to accept that I’m not going to allow myself to be controlled?”
He glared at her. “I’m doing this for you. Everything I’m doing is all for you.”
“You need to let me make my own decisions, my own mistakes, if that’s what they are.”
In a sudden rage, he leaped from her, gave a roar, and slammed his fists down on the nearby dining table. “Not if it’s going to get you killed!”
She reared back at his anger, knowing she couldn’t push him any further, not for the moment, anyway. It didn’t mean she’d given up, or given in, only that she knew she’d push him further from her way of thinking if she did.
If only he understood that he could threaten her life, but the thing she feared most was losing him.
Monster (Present Day)
He didn’t want to be doing this. He hated to see her hurt and frightened and angry with him, but he didn’t have any choice. He needed her to choose to continue to live, even if it was a different life than the one she’d grown used to. Perhaps he shouldn’t have touched her, but he hadn’t been able to control himself. Having her so close, bound like that, made his cock throb. He could still taste her on his tongue, and he wanted her again, so badly. Even now, as she sat with her naked thighs primly pressed together, the small thatch of curls of her pubic hair peeping up above them, he had to hold himself back. Just being in her presence turned him on, making him so hard he wanted to rid himself of the slacks that contained him, though he felt sure she’d be able to see the outline of how much he wanted her clearly enough.
More than anything, he wanted to scoop her up in his arms and carry her home with him. What she suggested was so tempting, but he couldn’t allow himself to be weak. They might get a couple of days together, maybe a week if they were lucky, but then she would be taken from him and forced to endure more than she had even imagined.
His cell phone buzzed in his suit jacket pocket.
Monster tensed. There was no one he wanted to hear from.
Without saying anything to Flower, he turned away from her and pulled out the phone. Glancing down at the screen, he noticed the number was withheld. His teeth clenched. That wasn’t a good thing. He debated not answering—hell, he debated opening the balcony doors and hurling the damn thing twenty stories down to the road below—but that would only make things worse for them both.
He glanced over his shoulder toward Lily, who sat bolt upright, her eyes widening in his direction. The sight of her half naked and vulnerable made something in his chest tighten. How was he going to live without her in his life?
With his jaw tight, he answered the phone.
“Yes?”
“Have you found her yet?”
It was him.
“Who?” Monster said, trying to sound nonchalant.
“You know who. The woman you’ve traveled to America to find.” Rodriguez gave a low chuckle. “I assume you’ve gone to all this trouble to keep me happy, Merrick. You know I have hundreds more men working for me than you do, and it’ll only take one word from me to send them after you.”
“I’ll get you any girl you could possibly want,” he said. “You don’t have to take that one.”
“Yes, I do. This isn’t about the woman—although I’ll make sure my men and I enjoy her. This is about taking what’s yours and hurting you, just like you hurt me.”
Monster flicked his gaze back over to Lily. She was watching him, a line drawn between her eyebrows, her lips thinned with worry, and he lowered his voice in the hope she wouldn’t hear him.
“It won’t hurt me. She’s just another piece of pussy I paid for.”
“Then why go to all this trouble, Merrick? I know you had her sent back to America, and then you followed her here.”
Here. He’d said, ‘here’ not ‘there.’ Did that mean Rodriguez was in the United States as well? A chill went through him, lodging deep in his bones.
“I already told you, I have business here. I’ll be back in a day or two. We can meet then and discuss this further.”
“What, and give you a chance to shoot me, too? Why would I do such a thing?”
“Because we’ve had enough violence.”
Rodriguez laughed, infuriatingly, and Monster clutched the phone hard, his other hand balling into a fist. “But maybe I enjoy the violence, Merrick! Isn’t that what makes us men, after all? Violence and fucking, oh, and maybe money. The three things that make a man’s world go around.”
And can make it stop, too, he thought but didn’t say.
“I just have some business to attend to. You can’t expect me to drop everything and come running because you snap your fingers. You’re not the boss of me, Rodriguez.”
“I think you’re wrong there, my friend. I think I fucking own you. Now give me what I want or I’ll come and take it from you.”
The phone went dead, and Monster stared down at the screen in fury. He wished he could reach down the phone and grab Rodriguez by the throat and squeeze the life out of him. He would kill the other man if he could, but Rodriguez kept himself surrounded by armed men, and traveled in bulletproof vehicles. He was cocky, but paranoid with it, and Monster had no idea how to reach the man, never mind kill him. Plus, he knew that if any harm came to Rodriguez, he would have an army of men come down on him. Monster wouldn’t survive another day, and he didn’t even want to think about what they would do to Flower.
No, he had no choice. He had to send her away, and then tell Rodriguez she was dead. Perhaps Rodriguez would see through the lie, and kill him anyway, but Monster couldn’t see any other options.
“What’s going on?” Lily called out to him. “Was that the person you’re trying to protect me from?”
“The less you know, the better,” he replied, slipping the cell back into his pocket and walking down the wide hallway toward her.
“Bullshit. I know you well enough to be able to read your body language. I can tell when you’re angry. Whoever was on the end of that phone has made you seriously pissed. If it’s nothing to do with me, why won’t you just tell me?”
“Because my business is none of your concern.”
“Really? This certainly feels like my concern. You’re asking me to change my life, but won’t even tell me why!”
“All I’m trying to do is protect you.”
She jiggled the handcuffs and stared down at her naked lower half. “This is your idea of protecting me?”
He glowered at her. “I’ve never been conventional, Flower. I thought you knew that by now.”
“Yes, I guess I did.”
He stopped and kneeled in front of her. “I need you to do what I’m asking, Flower. Your life is in danger if you don’t, but this man won’t just kill you. He wants to use you in ways that would make the traffickers who took you initially look like school boys. He would use you in every way possible, over and over, until you are completely and utterly broken, a shell of a woman, and when he decides he no longer wants you, he will hand you over to his men. When they are finally done with you, they will kill you.”
She took a shaky sigh, and a tear slipped down her cheek. “I know you’re frightening me for a reason, and I am frightened, but I can’t stand the thought of being alone again.”
“You have no choice!” His anger fired within him. “God damn it, Flower. Why can’t you see that? Why won’t you just do as you’re told for once in your life? You’re the most infuriatingly stubborn woman I’ve ever met.”
“We can go together,” she said, her tone full of hope. “Let’s run together and take our chances. Please, I won’t do this alone.”
He couldn’t help himself. The desperation and longing in her eyes was too much for him to withstand. He leaned into her and crushed his mouth hard to hers. He pushed his tongue forcefully into her mouth, his hand reaching around to the back of her head and knotting his fingers in her hair. He pulled tight, hard enough to hurt, and she gave a little whimper against his lips, which made the dark part inside of him turn over with delight.
He thrust his hand between her thighs, and she opened her legs willingly for him. His fingers pressed into the soft, wet heat, her vulva still swollen from when he’d almost made her come not long before. Lily let out a moan and pressed her pelvis against his hand. He remembered what he’d told her about not letting her orgasm unless she agreed to what he wanted. He meant to keep that promise, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t come himself.
Blood had rushed to his cock, his balls hot and heavy, a tingling spreading along his perineum, to his ass and back again. He wanted her desperately. Wanted to free himself and drive deep into her pussy, to hold her tight against him, bury his face in her skin and listen to her cry out as her inner muscles pulsed around him. But then she’d be satisfied
and he’d have lost his edge.
He released her hair. Pulling open the button of his fly with his free hand, he yanked down the zipper. He wasn’t wearing any underwear, so his cock sprung free, long and hard. Lily’s gaze locked on his erection, her lips plump and slack, her breathing already growing ragged from the way he slipped his middle and index finger in and out of her.
He took hold of his cock and gave it a couple of long, firm strokes, up to the swollen, dark head and back down to the root. She watched him, and her hips lifted again as though imagining it was her cunt moving up and down his shaft instead of his hand.
But instead of giving her what she wanted, he slipped his fingers from inside her and stood between her legs, so his cock was level with her mouth.
“Open up, Flower. You’re going to swallow me.”
She parted her lips without any hesitation, and he pushed the first inch of himself over her tongue, exhaling a groan as he did so. She felt amazing, and she swirled her tongue around his tip and then applied a little suction. He reached back around her head to knot his fingers in her hair once more. Though she didn’t appear to need any encouragement, he enjoyed the force it held over her, the power to make her do something while she fought him on every other level. That she still had her hands cuffed behind her back, and was naked from the waist down, turned him on even more.
He thrust forward again, his buttocks clenched, his abdominals tight, and another inch of his length vanished between her lips. She stared up at him, wide eyed, and he knew just another nudge of his hips would have her gagging. But her lips created a tight circle around his girth, and he allowed her to pull back slightly, only to thrust forward again so he was fucking her mouth.
He wanted to be deeper.
Tightening his hold on her hair, he pushed another inch of his cock into her mouth. The smooth flesh of her soft palate pressed against his cockhead, and he felt her repress a gag.
“Good girl,” he told her, smoothly.
He thrust again, using her hair to hold her firm, and this time she did gag, and the movement felt unbelievable against his erection.
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