Chapter 13
Gio
I can’t believe she did that. Anger explodes through me as I pace the living room, slowly waiting for my mind to calm itself.
She never showed any aggression toward me before. Lashing out like that was strange, extremely unlike her. I quickly go into the control room and sit down at the monitor, watching her in the cage.
I can see her trembling, practically shaking. I can’t hear any noise, but I know that she’s crying. I watch her carefully, the anger slowly melting away, replaced by curiosity.
Then she moves. She rolls over and looks around the room, her eyes wide. She quickly crawls out of the cage, moving as fast as she can. She grabs a large shard of the broken ceramic cup and crawls back into her cage with it. The piece is large and jagged, and I watch as she finds a hiding spot.
She goes back to her old position, not moving at all this time. I lean back in my chair and sigh, shaking my head. I know she’s scared because I got mad, but she knows better than that.
What the hell is going on with her? Maybe this is a part of her process. That must be what this is. I need to be firm, and her ass is definitely going to be punished for this.
I thought we had something. Feeding her, speaking to her, bathing her…
it was something I’d never experienced before.
Touching her skin that way and not taking her was more erotic than anything I’d ever experienced.
My blood still rings for her, and my cock’s still half hard.
It took every ounce of my willpower not to slide my fingers along her skin toward her tight, soaking little pussy, and part of me wishes I had.
But then there’s the anger and the teacup and now this. I can't allow her to have that shard. I don’t want her to harm herself. I’m not worried about her hurting me with it, because I know I can easily disarm her and overpower her if it comes to that.
But I don’t want her to turn it against her own skin. She might even be able to kill herself with it. Either way, I don’t want another scar on her body, at least not because of me.
There’s a small problem, though. I can’t just kick in her cage and steal the shard back from her. I have to coax it out of her or at least convince her to leave the cage so that I can go retrieve it. I promised that she’d be safe while she’s in there, and I’m dedicated to keeping that promise.
And I’m still puzzled by what happened with the tea. Curious, I rewind the video on the monitor to my right, keeping an eye on her on the other. I return back to the moment I gave her the tea and turned away.
I have to watch it twice before I notice what she did. My breath catches in my throat when I see: she slipped something into the tea.
Holy shit.
I watch the video over and over, slowing it down, frame by frame. Sure enough, she slipped something into the tea. Something I hadn’t noticed. Something she smuggled in here.
How? Why? I can’t be sure. Whatever it was, she must have had it on her before she was taken.
I curse myself for being so fucking careless.
She could easily have killed me. Whatever she put in that tea could have been a deadly poison or a strong sedative, and if I drank from that cup, I would be dead.
Careless, fucking careless. All because I let her have that fucking bathroom. If I forced her to use the bucket, this never would have happened. She wouldn’t have been able to be so fucking sneaky.
Anger rises inside of me, clean and strong. I watch the video again and again, shocked and angered that she would try and pull something like that after what happened between us.
But slowly, I begin to calm myself. She didn’t make me drink the tea. In fact, she stopped me. Whatever she had in there, she decided at the last second that she didn’t want to hurt me.
I lean back and take a deep breath.
This is good. Her sneaking something into the tea wasn’t, but her reaction was good. It means she’s beginning to feel the bond between us, that it isn’t just me. She’s beginning to trust me. She could have let me drink the tea, but she didn’t.
I smile to myself. The shock of catching her begins to wear off, and the implications of what actually happened settle in.
Grace didn’t want to hurt me. She wanted to escape, but when it came down to actually doing it, she couldn’t. She stopped herself. For whatever reason, she smacked that tea cup from my hand.
She’s dangerous. But that excites me more than it should.
I stand up and groan, stretching. I walk slowly toward her door, not sure if she’s going to listen, but I’m hopeful. I press my thumb against the pad, making the door click open.
Once inside, I stand near the door and watch her. She’s breathing slowly, not moving, and she knows I’m there. She’s trying to pretend like she doesn't notice me, but I know that she does. She’s shrewd and smart, a cunning little minx. I can’t help but smile.
She nearly killed me. But in the end, she couldn’t do it.
Now it’s just a matter of time before I take her.
“Princess,” I say gently. “Is there something we have to talk about?”
She looks up at me. “No,” she says and looks away.
“Princess,” I say, coming closer to her cage. She doesn’t move. “Are you sure about that?”
“Yes,” she says softly.
I sigh and crouch down in front of her. I decide not to tell her that I know what she did, afraid that it might hurt more than help. I can revisit that later, when I've earned her trust. Instead, I decide to concentrate on the shard.
“You have something,” I say.
Her eye twitches toward the remains of the cup and back to me. “No,” she lies.
“Princess,” I say, shaking my head, disappointed. “I know you’re lying.”
She looks away from me. “Just leave me alone.”
“I can’t do that. You know I’m always watching, but you tried to lie to me anyway. Why?”
“Please,” she says weakly. “Just go.”
“Princess. If there’s going to be trust between us, you’re going to have to tell me the truth. Do you have something you shouldn’t?”
She looks at me, her face stricken. I want to reach out and touch her, feel her full lips under my thumb, hear her moan as I caress her body.
“Yes,” she says.
“Good girl,” I say, smiling. Pride and warmth fill me. “I need you to give it to me.”
“Let me keep it.” Her voice is practically a whisper.
“Why? What are you going to do with it?”
“I don’t know,” she says.
“You don’t need it. I don’t want to see another scar on that perfect body.”
She stares at me. “It could be for you.”
I smile at her brazen response. “We both know that won’t happen,” I say softly. I crouch down in front of the entrance to her cage and hold out my hand. “Give it to me, princess.”
She chews her bottom lip, staring at me. “What will you give me in return?” she asks.
I can’t help but smirk at her. “I’ll give you whatever you want,” I say. “All you need to do is come out of that cage and give in to what we both know you want.”
She takes a sharp breath. I know she understands what I’m saying to her.
“I-I can’t,” she says.
“Yes, you can. Come out, princess. Give me the shard and then let me take what I want from you.”
She hesitates, but she obeys; she reaches under the blanket and slowly draws the shard out.
My heart starts to rush in my chest, beating like mad.
I know she’s inches away from doing what we both want.
I can practically already taste her delicious pussy, her smooth skin against mine.
I want to sink my thick cock deep inside of her and hear her finally moan the deep release she’s been dreaming about for days now.
Her hand stretches toward me, but she’s still resisting.
“Come on now-” I’m interrupted by a loud knock from the other room. I can hear it clearly through the still-open door. I resist the urge to look, but Grace’s eyes are drawn to the noise, her body frozen.
I pause and cock my head, waiting. She pulls back into the cage, frightened.
I hear it again, and it’s loud and insistent.
“Shit,” I curse under my breath. I look back at her. “Don’t do anything. I’ll be back.”
She nods. I turn and quickly leave the room, my jaw clenching and anger coursing through my blood.
Fucking shit. I nearly had her. I was inches away, and now some fucker is interrupting us. I can’t be sure I’ll be able to pick back up with her where we left off. The moment is destroyed now. And I’m fucking pissed.
I head to the front door and yank it open. My father’s standing there, looking annoyed.
“What?” I ask him, angry. I almost forgot about him.
He pushes past me and walks into the kitchen. “Is that how you greet me now?” he says.
“I’m busy,” I say, shutting the door and following him.
He leans against a counter and takes me in. “Doing what?”
“I’m making headway with the girl.”
“You haven’t broken her yet?” He laughs. “Pathetic.”
“She’s stronger than you know,” I practically growl at him. “What are you doing here?”
“The Romanos want to know when the hit will be.”
“I thought you were doing that yourself.”
He grunts and looks away. “Things haven’t panned out.”
I sigh. That’s fucking typical of him. He’s gotten soft in his old age and he gets too excited about bad intelligence. He probably overheard some bullshit and took it as gospel like an idiot.
I won’t fall for that, though. I take my time and work things out the right way, like he used to do. Like he taught me. He’s a different person now, though, a weak person. He disgusts me, and I almost pity him.
“They have to be patient,” I say. “This will happen when it needs to happen. And right now I’m busy. You got me at a bad time.”
He huffs, but gets the message.
“I’m making headway,” he says slowly, moving back toward the front door.
“What does that mean?” I’m frustrated, and he’s being vague.
“I’ll be back tomorrow,” he says. “There’s a meeting with the Romanos. I want to talk to you before I go.”
“Wait,” I say. “What are you talking about?”
He pauses at the door. “You’ll find out soon.” He grins and leaves, shutting the door behind him.
“Shit,” I curse to myself. I stand there, wondering what the fuck that’s all about. I can’t tell if he’s just trying to taunt me, or if that little meeting had an actual purpose.
Finally, I go back into the control room and sit at the monitors. Grace is fine. She’s curled up in the corner of her cage like she normally is, not moving. I think she might be asleep.
The moment is gone. I’m not sure how to recreate it at this point. I’ll just have to watch her very, very closely, and make sure to stop her if she decides to use the shard. At least until I can get it from her.
I lean back in my chair, thinking about her body, my father completely forgotten.