by Pamela Ann
“The likes of me?” he growled out, his eyes flashing wildly at me. Then he closed the gap between us while I scowled at him, unbending. “What do you mean by ‘the likes of me,’ Isobel?”
His mad demeanor didn’t waver my stance. “Privileged bastard, that’s what! Not once did you ever point out that I couldn’t date one of your friends, now did you? So, what’s with this hissy attitude that’s fit for a drama queen, huh?”
“Drama queen? For you fucking with me, Isobel? Look, you—” His eyes did the whole melt-on-the-spot kind of look as he took in my outfit. “You look like you’re selling yourself cheap at a bloody birthday party.”
He was treading on a mighty precarious subject. Best he didn’t get in my way, because I would cause him harm, stupid, idiotic man.
“Selling myself? Oh, yeah, I did just that with you, and what a boring, trifling event that was. Thank heavens you and I moved on to better pastures!” If hurling insults at each other was the kind of way he would like this fight to go about, then so be it. How dare he barge in here without my permission after he had roughly pushed me out of the way so he could confront me? How fucking dare he! Wasn’t he the one to give me my marching orders? Then what in God’s name was he doing interrupting my life once again?
“Boring,” he spat the word out as if it was poison on his tongue. “Boring,” he reiterated once more before slowly charging towards me, backing me against the wall, caging me in. “You’re a spiteful bitch, Isobel.”
“I’m spiteful?” I yelled in his face, to which he didn’t even bat an eyelid from my ungodly defiance. “Oh, that’s rich coming from you. You’re acting like spoilt child because, admit it, you’re jealous that I’m with Julien.”
“Jealous, why should I be? I had you first. He’s literally fucking in my territory!”
“Well, at least he’s a mighty good fuck!” I hissed out the words, and I heard him growl like a bloody animal in response.
Something unleashed inside him as I stared into his eyes. What bothered me more was the fact that he didn’t quip anything back from my malicious claim. Instead, he appeared as if he was contemplating if he should wring my neck or let me live another minute. His breathing became low and drawn out, heaving as if he needed to get a hold of his temper.
Unexpectedly, he yanked my elbow as he dug his finger into my skin, maneuvering us towards the door.
“Ow, you’re hurting me!” I tried to shake his hold off, but he had secured himself. “What are you doing, Hugo? Where the hell are you taking me?” The questions rapidly shot out of my mouth. I knew he was angry, but this? He was proceeding like a mad man. “Hugo, stop! I don’t want to go anywhere with you!” I protested in a highly pitched voice when he was about to open the door before slamming it again after hearing my damning shrill.
Pushing me against said door, he pointed a face that wasn’t to be trifled with at me. “Try to humiliate me one more time, Isobel, and you won’t like the consequences. We can start by putting your father where he belongs.”
He was threatening me? The stupid man.
“We had a contract!” I spat back, ready to break into another argument with him.
“We did, but you chose to violate all the rules in place, or have you forgotten how you royally betrayed me?” He arched his brow to drive home the jab. “Have nothing to say, ma belle? Très bien, keep that delectable mouth of yours shut until I give you permission to open it. Comprends-tu?”
I barely gave a nod. I was appalled that he was willing to resort back to my old sins, unburying the hatchet to simply teach me a lesson.
What was I to do? It was best to keep silent until I was ready to fire back.
With his hand still latched onto my elbow, we stepped out of the loo. Each step we took, I felt his wrath gradually escalate, later to be unleashed when he saw fit.
It didn’t come out as a shock when he dragged me towards the main hall and into the foyer, ready to exit the party without telling Julien or his women, because it was a given he had brought one or two with him.
“Leaving so soon, Xavier?” Callum appeared out of nowhere, looking rather interested in us, as if he already knew what was brewing between his friend and myself.
Before Hugo had the chance to respond, I decided to have a word with him. “Happy birthday and congratulations on your baby!”
“That’s kind of you, Isobel. I hope my good friend here isn’t causing you trouble?”
Hugo glared at him. “Stay out of this, Kensington. It’s none of your business. This is between Isobel and me.”
Callum actually laughed as he stared into Hugo’s eyes before shaking his head. “Should I pass on a goodbye to Julien, then, since you’re stealing his date and all?”
There was no better time for the floor to swallow me alive than this very instant. I was past blushing with embarrassment. I wasn’t even sure what I was anymore.
“Tell him to fuck off!” Hugo airily stated as he resumed our exit, and I heard Callum Kensington’s hearty laugh trailing behind us, making me want to disappear from the face of the earth.
Right then, Hugo’s chauffeur sort of magically appeared with his Bentley. Hugo instantly barked out an order that he wouldn’t need his services for the remainder of the night. He was becoming too mercurial. To even think of trying to reason with him made me shiver a little. So, when he gestured that I get in the car, I didn’t even offer so much as a protest, doing as he commanded, slipping into the car as obediently as I could.
The second he got behind the wheel, it was as if he was being chased by demons. He was driving like he was in Monaco, as if he owned the damn road, swerving and shifting to avoid traffic. He was driving at such a speedy rate that I had overlooked where we were heading until I saw the sign that he was getting onto the M1 Motorway.
Quietly alarmed that we were going outside of London, I tried to squash all the horrid scenarios that were playing in my head.
The blasted quiet stretched for so long that I simply couldn’t take it any longer. “Where are we going, Hugo?”
When he didn’t respond, I knew I was passed deep trouble. This wasn’t like the last time. This time around, I had pushed him too far, so far that he would demand payback.
Chapter 20
Hugo
“Where are we going, Hugo?”
Somewhere, anywhere, maybe to Hell, but then perhaps Hell would be too mild a place to punish her. The woman had stretched my patience and my temper to a point where I couldn’t even trust myself to speak. I would most likely say something crazy that even I couldn’t forgive myself. Therefore, I best shut it and try to reason with my inner demons as rationally as possible.
My lucid thoughts had come to a halt the second I had seen her in Julien’s arms. Sherry and Arianne were with me, yet I saw no one but her, laughing, intimately dancing with another man, and looking as if she was dressed to kill.
I wasn’t sure if I was angrier that Julien had gone behind my back to date her or the obscenely small, little, black number she was wearing. Maybe it was the combination of both, because I felt my entire body shake, my ears went hot, and my eyes only saw red. I knew, in that instant, that I needed to take her out of there, or I would cause a scene. And God knew, if that ever happened, I would be unforgiving, so I took the easiest way by forcing her to come with me. Had she declined and gone back to Julien, I would have killed them both with my bare hands.
Back to her question, I wasn’t necessarily sure where the fuck we were heading. All I knew was that I needed to take her as far away as I could, until I was able to breathe again. Of course, since my heart rate hadn’t gone back to normal yet, we were in for a long drive.
Julien … Where did I even begin with him? He loved to push boundaries, and usually, it wasn’t something I had a hard time getting over. This time, however, he had gone too far. This wasn’t amusing. This had hit a nerve. Of all my past women, he simply had to choose the one I had a hard time letting go of. Then again, who could blame him f
or wanting Isobel? She was absolutely enticing, and those mesmerizing eyes had a way of reaching out to you, like the way she did with me from the moment I had met her. Forgetting her had been one of the toughest things to do.
“Have you gone deaf? Don’t tell me your hearing’s suddenly defective! Where in the world are you taking me?” Isobel was trying to harness her anger, but she was doing a terrible job at it.
Without giving a look, focusing on the road, I replied as calmly as I could, “I’ll let you know once we get there.”
Our destination was nowhere, anywhere. Since she was the epitome of a shrieking banshee, it was best to keep that information to myself. The last thing I needed was for her to go bonkers on me whilst driving.
“I’ve had it with you! Seriously, Hugo, I just don’t get why you act like a mad person sometimes. You’re hot one minute then cold the next. You fucking drive me crazy.”
Ah, the irony of her statement.
“I drive her crazy,” I said to myself, shaking my head as I let the words sink in before I made a dry laugh. “I drive her crazy.”
“Yes, you heartless, possessive bastard!”
Her words rung in my ears, rising my temper. Grinding my teeth together as I gripped the wheel harder, I shifted gears to immediately park on the side of the darkened road, needing to clear my head. Deciding to kill the engine but leaving the headlights on, I instantly bolted out of the car, slamming the door as I did so. Then I strolled a few feet away from the vehicle as I pressed my temples.
Fuck. Isobel was being impossible. This thing that I had tried to hide … Once it resurfaced again, there would be no going back. Didn’t I try to explain as best as I could? Then why was she making everything so difficult? Why couldn’t we have parted ways like normal people? Why had she gone out of her way to fuck with my head once again?
In the background, I could hear the door being opened, shut, and then footsteps marching towards me.
"You said I'm free to date, so that's what I'm doing."
Her betrayal deliberately hit close to home.
“Julien is the closest thing I have to a brother. As far as punishments go, this is by far the cruelest thing a woman can do to a man.”
She went a little ballistic with my statement. “I am not punishing you, for fuck’s sake!”
“What would you name this, then? Revenge?”
She went silent as she sought my face for something then shook her head to deny it. “No. It’s not like that at all.”
Her sudden admission stopped my function to breathe, and her lost expression made me ache inside. The desperate need to touch and hold her was becoming too tempting. The indescribable connection we had was never going to go away.
Looking afflicted, her lip quivered, holding herself back before adding, “I’ve been missing you, and even though I tell myself each day that I was happy, deep down, I wasn’t, though no one could fault me for lack of trying. I started this new job at the same hotel Julien was staying, and when he gave me this opportunity, I simply couldn’t resist. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean for this to turn out this way. I hope I didn’t forever ruin your friendship with him.”
Fuck.
When she was shrieking and acting all crazy, I could easily deal with it, but this? This remorseful, saddened face she had gnawed at my insides, chipping my armor away slowly. Why couldn’t I remain cold and furious with her? It was easier to keep her at bay in those terms. I supposed she was done pretending that everything was running smoothly because, deep down, she was in as bad a shape as I. If I had the power to make her pain disappear, I would truly do it in a flash. Sadly, I didn’t have the capacity to do so.
Deeply regretful for all the things I couldn’t do, for all the things I wished and dreamt of living, I approached her solemn figure. She was miserable. I could see it in her eyes. As much as I was glad to know that she still felt so strongly for me, sadness came along with it.
“Ma belle,” I whispered as I cupped her face to look at me. Profound emotions pounded in me, ranging from extreme highs to lows, electrifying me as if I had just been given an adrenaline shot. “I…” The mere touch of her skin against my hand, her trembling lips, magnetizing eyes, her infallible strength, her sheer beauty inside and out—they had all become my greatest weakness.
Closing her beautiful eyes, she slowly rubbed her skin against my hand, grazing it as if she wanted more of it, as if my touch was the only thing she needed.
There, on the side of the road in the middle of nowhere, we became one.
No words were spoken.
We understood that this was what mattered. Right now, us, this should suffice for the meantime.
Ever so slowly, with my heart madly banging against my chest, I captured her lips, nipping and biting them as if I had been starved for so long. Without effort, I lifted her body, and she wrapped her legs around my hips without releasing my lips, kissing me punishingly, feverishly.
I needed her. Now. Forever.
Guided by the car’s headlights, I roughly placed her atop the hood of the Bentley, groaning the second my hands rapaciously ran across the smoothness of her thighs to her inner, honeyed warmth that thrived from my touch.
My cock felt stifled in my trousers. I didn’t hesitate for a second to let it spring free, desperately needing to come between her legs, to feel the wetness of her cunt stretched to its limits, throbbing, pulsing as my cock ripped it apart.
We were out in the open, and I was sure passersby would be objecting at the obscenity of the situation, but I didn’t give a damn. If Isobel had uttered a word of protest, it would have been different, but since she hadn’t and was giving me the green light, nothing could stop me from fucking her senseless, audience or not.
I was parched, dying from not having this lovely woman in my arms for months. Therefore, wasting another second was out of the question.
She had barely moaned my named before my dick slipped inside her pussy, pushing its way in, insistent for her body to give way and accommodate. Still madly kissing her, my hands cradled her ass, gripping into her skin and forcefully driving her body to meet the rest of my rock hard length, making her yelp and gasp like she was running out of air.
“Take it all, ma belle. This is me … all of me,” I grunted out the words as I fucked her as if I hadn’t fucked in ages.
Rapidly slamming in and out of her, I got lost in the beautiful motion of our bodies rutting, pleasuring each other. In no time, her body had got used to my girth, and I spread her legs wider so I could do as I wanted.
Lost in the height of pleasure, I groaned her name out before cussing in my own language when I felt my cock expand, releasing rope after creamy rope of my seed into her cunt.
The act felt so sacred I thought I saw God behind my eyelids.
Isobel Callas, what am I going to do with you? I wretchedly thought as I kissed her forehead while my cock continued to heavily pulse inside her, still gradually dripping with semen.
Chapter 21
Isobel
I love you. I will always love you. The words ran in my head over and over again as I gave him all of me. The out of this world feeling, the unparalleled passion, the heady energy I got simply by having him close to me… How could one form it into words? There wasn’t a word in the vocabulary to describe it.
“I hope I wasn’t too rough,” he murmured against my forehead before granting me a soft, mellow kiss on the lips.
“No,” I replied with a quick shake of my head. “You were wonderful.” He made me feel beautiful. To some, it might appear as though he was going at it rough, but to me, I got gratification from knowing he was being pleasured by my body. He was a man—a powerful man at that—who thrived on being in control. I didn’t mind giving him everything. I was happy to oblige, to cater to his desires, be they rough or otherwise.
Though he hadn’t voiced much of anything, I knew he had needed it as much as I. Whatever it was he felt for me, on some level, it resonated with mine. It might not
be love—I couldn’t be sure—but it truly was something strong and powerful. It could be named as lust, sexual attraction, maybe a combination of everything. All I knew was I meant something to him.
Consequently, when we decided it was time to head inside the car, I was taken aback as he checked his phone for the nearest hotel, much to my delight.
The hotel wasn’t at all grand and not what he was normally accustomed to, yet I never heard a word of complaint from him when we were ushered into the largest room they had.
After tipping the attendant and shutting the door, we were left to our own devices once more.
I found myself sitting at the tip of the king-sized bed when he finally laughed, eyeing me in amusement before deciding to join me, sitting side by side. Then he laced my fingers with his, holding on tightly.
“I want to spend a few more days with you,” he said thoughtfully as he eyed my reaction before continuing, “I’m desperate for you, Isobel. I need to be with you even if it’s a short while. I need you so I can live the months, years without you in them.”
I knew these little magical moments together were all we had. He might never confess the truth, and as much as I hated it and the situation we were in, I knew he was suffering just as much as I was. I also believed, despite not knowing the truth behind his decisions, he would be with me if the circumstances were different. Sadly, that was all I could comfort myself with, though it truly brought little relief.
“I need you, too … so much.” Stating it aloud made me ache inside. Giving a courageous smile, I stared deeply into his eyes, knowing right then I would do whatever I could to make him happy. Even if these moments we had were few and far between, I would cherish every encounter, every memory made. For him, I could survive the loneliness that came from loving him.
The rest of the night, there were no talks of our futures, only living in the moment. Not even Julien or Damen or any women were mentioned. I spoke about my school and the new job I enjoyed so much. It delighted me to speak to him about my life, my day-to-day routine, and to see him listening to me intently, as if I was such a fun, fascinating person and not yapping about mundane tasks.
