6. Chapter Six
Chapter Six
K ane
She runs.
Not the way people normally do, not frantic, not desperate. Calculated. Like she’s got control over the situation. Like she’s making the choice.
She’s not.
She moves through the crowd fast, head high, spine straight, like she’s untouchable. Like she isn’t coming apart at the seams.
But I see it.
The way her breath hitches. The way she grips her bag too tight, like it’s holding her together. The way her heels strike the pavement just a little too hard, a little too quick.
She’s unraveling.
And I let her.
For a block.
Maybe two.
Then the Rolls creeps alongside her slow, smooth, quiet. The window glides down, tinted glass peeling back like a curtain on the next act of her unraveling.
She stops.
Goes still.
Doesn’t even have to look to know who’s inside.
I rest my arm along the door, watching her, letting the smirk tug at my lips. “Get in the car, Princesa.”
Her fingers twitch against the cab door handle. A war wages behind those sharp, brown eyes.
She wants to get in.
She wants to run.
And fuck if I don’t enjoy watching her figure out which urge wins.
She exhales slowly, voice clipped. “Go to hell.”
I chuckle, low and deep, because I expected nothing less. “Already been there,” I murmur, my voice smooth, calm, absolute. “Didn’t like it, left a few bodies there.”
A pause.
“Get in.”
Her jaw tightens. Her body goes stiff, but she still doesn’t move. “I’m taking a cab.”
“No, you’re not.”
I don’t say it loud. I don’t have to. The weight of my words settles over her like a second skin.
She knows how this goes.
“You’re getting in this car,” I continue, voice steady, fingers tapping against the leather seat. “Or, I follow you home and we finish this conversation on your front steps.”
Her nostrils flare.
She knows I mean it.
Knows I don’t care about optics, reputation, or the little kingdom she thinks protects her.
Her eyes dart to the cab.
Her out.
Then, under her breath, something sharp. Defeated.
She opens the door.
Good girl.
She slides inside, body tense, face set, and the door clicks shut, sealing her inside the space with me.
The air in the car is thick. Still.
Like it’s holding its breath.
She angles herself away from me, like space matters. Like there’s anywhere to run in here.
I stretch my legs out, lean back, let the silence bloom around us. Let the weight of me settle over her.
The driver pulls away from the curb, merging into traffic like nothing inside this car is on fire.
I say nothing.
She sits there, spine rigid, every muscle pulled tight like piano wire, beautifully tense, barely breathing.
I watch the anger simmer beneath her carefully practiced composure, watch the pulse flickering erratically at the base of her throat.
She’s furious, yes, but something else mingles dangerously beneath her rage, something soft, vulnerable, something she desperately wishes wasn’t there.
She lifts her eyes, finally forcing herself to look at me. Defiant. Icy. Utterly fucking gorgeous in her attempt to regain control.
“You realize,” she says, her voice cutting through the silence, clipped and frozen, “this little game of yours ends the minute I file a restraining order.”
I can’t help the slow curl of my mouth, the amusement seeping into my voice as I taste the absurdity of her threat. “A restraining order,” I repeat, savoring the words, drawing them out like a punchline that hasn’t fully landed.
Defiance sharpens her gaze, ignites the fire behind those deep, dark eyes. “Exactly,” she snaps, voice harder, colder. “You stay away from me, my family, my life or you face consequences even you can’t buy your way out of.”
I tilt my head slightly, studying her. Watching that icy resolve, that carefully crafted armor hiding the tremble beneath. Fuck, I like her this way. Fighting. Resisting. Breaking beneath me, even as she denies how badly she wants it.
“Oh, Camille,” I murmur, deliberately softening my voice, tasting her name slowly, like aged whiskey, smooth and potent and just a little intoxicating. “You don’t want me restrained. You want me reckless. Dangerous. Close.”
Her pulse jumps, rapid and frantic beneath her skin, even as she clenches her jaw tighter, eyes flashing with resentment. “You’re delusional.”
I lean forward slightly, lowering my voice further, making her strain to hear every devastating word. My eyes stay locked ruthlessly onto hers, not letting her escape, not letting her hide.
“Go ahead and file it, Princesa,” I murmur, each word coiling tight around her throat, holding her gaze captive. “But ask yourself, how exactly do you plan to explain it?”
She freezes, eyes flaring wide, pupils dilating with panic she can’t hide. Her breath stutters in her chest, hitching just enough to betray the cracks in her carefully built armor.
“That restraining order comes with a story, Camille,” I continue softly, ruthlessly. “You’ll sit across from some bored detective and detail every filthy moment we shared. Every moan. Every gasp. Every single way you willingly…and so fucking eagerly…submitted.”
A flush floods her cheeks, hot and angry, shameful and beautiful. Her eyes blaze, dark and desperate, revealing far more than she wants to.
“And then what?” My voice grows darker, cutting deeper. “Then your family finds out. Your father learns exactly how you begged a stranger to fuck you raw and reckless, how you screamed for more until your voice broke.”
I pause, just long enough for the blow to fully land, before twisting the knife further.
“And let’s not forget Preston,” I add softly, voice edged in cold satisfaction. “He’ll hear how you spread your legs for another man. How you clawed my back, how you moaned into my sheets, how you begged me to ruin you. Tell me, Camille, is that a conversation you’re prepared to have?”
She flinches, visibly recoiling at the mention of his name. Her jaw trembles, fists clenched, knuckles white with fury and fear and humiliation.
“I didn’t think so,” I whisper, leaning back just enough to give her the illusion of breathing room…but never enough to let her escape. “So tell me again, Princesa…who’s delusional here?”
She exhales hard. Her hands curl into fists in her lap. “You’re fucking insane.”I shrug. Lazy. Calm. Dangerous.
“No,” I say, voice dropping low, lethal and intimate. I watch her throat jump. She doesn’t even notice it. But I do. “I’m just a man who doesn’t like unfinished business.”
She turns her face toward the window, eyes locked on the city blurring past. “There is no unfinished business,” she says, voice tight. “What happened at the Langford was a mistake and If I knew you’d be this fucking unhinged, I would’ve never let you touch me.”
The words are a knife.
But I don’t fucking bleed.
I laugh. Quiet. Dark.
She goes still.
Because she knows.
I let her words hang in the space, let the weight of them fold back in on her like poison. I watch her shoulders rise, her spine stiffens.
She’s bracing.
She already knows what’s coming.
I lean in, slowly, deliberately. Close enough that my breath skates over her cheek, warm and dangerous, without touching her skin. Just enough proximity for her to feel the air ignite between us, thickening with every heartbeat, every desperate inhale she tries and fails to steady.
Her breath quickens sharply.
A fragile tremor she can’t hide.
“A mistake?” I whisper, voice velvet-edged and ruthless, silk sliding over a blade. “Is that the lie you’ve been telling yourself, Munequita?”
She stiffens instantly, eyes blazing as she bites back at me, sharp and fierce. “I’m not your fucking doll.”
A slow smile tugs at my lips, not just from her defiance, but from how quickly, how flawlessly, she understands. The weight behind her words, the sudden realization, the tiny fracture in her composure.
She knows exactly what Munequita means. Not the sweet, innocent kind of doll, dressed up in pretty lace and set carefully on a shelf. Not the polite, proper version her expensive education taught her.
No. Mine.
Possessed.
Controlled.
Played with.
And she knows I’ve marked her with it.
It shouldn’t surprise me. Of course, Camille Sinclair speaks Spanish. A girl born into privilege, raised on a pedestal, groomed for the international stage since childhood. French, Italian, Mandarin and this. She’s fluent, worldly, precise.
But I guarantee no professor ever murmured it against her skin in the backseat of a car while her thighs shake and her breath still hitched from the things I’m going to do to her.
I lean closer, lips brushing gently, deliberately, against the sensitive skin just below her ear. The silence pulls the breath from her lungs as I linger, letting anticipation choke the air between us.
“Do you know the best thing about dolls?” My voice is low. Lethal. Soft as sin and just as dangerous. “They don’t get to decide how they’re played with.”
She stiffens.
I lift my hand, just my knuckles, and let them glide across her cheek, featherlight. A ghost of a touch.
She trembles.
Her body remembers.
Me.
Even if her mouth keeps trying to forget.
I drag my fingers down the side of her neck, slow and easy, feeling her pulse race under skin that used to beg to be marked.
“Let’s be completely honest about that night, my sweet little liar,” I murmur, my tone slipping lower, rougher.
Her breath catches. I hear it. Feel it.
“You came up on your own,” I say. “No coercion. No games. Just pure fucking need.”
Her throat flexes beneath my fingers.
I trail lower, across the hollow of her collarbone, my touch barely there, but she feels all of it. Her body leans in before she can stop it. A betrayal. A tell.
“I remember how you let me taste you…”
I let the words land. Slow. Measured.
“Your lips… both sets…”
Her breath catches, tight, needy, like a moan she won’t let herself make.
And I fucking grin.
“Dripping for me,” I murmur, my mouth brushing her cheek. “Melting on my tongue like the best fucking vanilla ice cream I’ve ever tasted.”