Chapter Five
OCEAN
Abel was bent over, clutching his stomach, and howling louder than the wind outside.
The windows were tinted to look black from the outside, but I could still see the city clearly from here.
If we’d been at Glamis, where my entire family gathered like members of a royal court, his loud ass would have woken everyone, but here at Glainne, it was just us.
Exactly how I fucking liked it.
A few of my cousins owned apartments in the tower, but I only trusted a couple of them around Coby.
Regardless, my mom and pops were out of the country celebrating their anniversary.
They’d be back in a couple of weeks, which meant I had less than a month to make Coby understand that she’d be living on a knife’s edge from here on.
If my father had witnessed Coby slapping me, he would have executed her on the spot.
Unwavering obedience and fear were law under Malcolm Kilpatrick’s reign.
“Aye,” Abel struggled to get out between laughs.
“Ole girl said I don’t know what you thought was about to happen, but not today, partna’!
” More roaring from Abel followed as I seriously considered shooting my head of security.
“Bruh, I think I saw a little spit fly when she slapped you, real talk.” Noticing my glare, Abel straightened and wiped the tears from his eyes before shaking his head.
“I don’t know why you’re standing there mugging me.
On my life, you better go get her ass before you never see her again.
We ain’t at Glamis, but this apartment is still a maze.
She’s already skinny as hell. By the time you find her little ass, you’ll be marrying a damn corpse. ”
Responding with only a grunt, I walked off, the sound of Abel’s laughter following me as I pulled out my phone and used the security feed to track down my wife. After flipping through countless screens, I finally found her wandering one of the dead-end halls on the second floor.
I watched as she reached the end of the dark hall and then whirled around with panic all over her beautiful face that told me she was already lost. Tiptoeing back the way she came, she eventually noticed a cracked door sandwiched between two statues.
There was only a moment of indecision before she hurried inside for the only semblance of safety she could find, as trapped prey often do.
Closing the app, I pocketed my phone.
A few minutes later, I strolled inside the library, and I didn’t bother to hide the fact that I was on her ass.
“Coby,” I called out calmly.
It took a minute more before she tiptoed from behind one of the massive twenty-foot shelves. I didn’t miss the pepper spray she had clutched in her hand as she timidly came into view.
“I don’t want to marry you,” she confessed quietly.
Rolling my shoulders to chase away my rising aggravation, I turned and leaned against the wall.
The moon was shining through the paneled windows on my left, creating moonbeams across the twenty feet of marble floor between us.
Coby hovered in the shadows on the edge of the moonlight, but I’d know the gentle curve of her silhouette anywhere.
Physically, she wasn’t my usual type, but my dick, head, and heart didn’t seem to notice.
I’d spent years wanting her from across a dark club. And even if I’d done the right thing and left her alone to marry some simp and have his babies instead, she would have still been mine. Unfortunately for her, I was too damn selfish to let anyone else have her. “I know.”
“I want to go home.”
“I know that too,” I said while my tone conveyed that I wasn’t going to do anything about it.
Coby scowled at me from her side of the moonbeam, and the light that captured her glare made her brown eyes glow a little. Cute. “Hunter won’t let you keep me,” she whispered into the dark like a warning.
Pushing against the wall, I stalked her across the darkened library while Coby stumbled backward until her back was pressed against the bookcases I had built for her. I wondered if she noticed that all the shelves were empty, waiting for her to fill them.
Towering over her, I two-handed one of the shelves high above her head while staring down at her. Because of our height difference, her head was tipped so far back that I could see the strain it cost her lovely neck to hold my gaze. “Would that be the girl you claim is just a roommate?”
“She is my roommate.”
“Oh, is that all?” I drawled sarcastically. A roommate wouldn’t have emptied the clip and tried to turn my car into Swiss cheese, but okay.
Coby had no idea who the fuck she was dealing with.
I’ve never been a slouch—not in school, business, life, and now in love.
Whenever I brought someone onto my team, I vetted them thoroughly to ensure my grass remained free of snakes.
It meant I knew all of her secrets—even the ones she hoped to forget.
“No,” Coby stunned me by admitting proudly. “Hunter’s my best friend, which means when she kills you, I’ll help her bury the body. For you we’ll dig a shallow grave so stray dogs can gnaw on what’s left of you.”
“Oh, I see,” I mused out loud. “You draw strength from Hunter.”
Coby was visibly perturbed. Was it because I’d seen through her so easily or that I didn’t give a fuck about her empty threats? “We both do,” she admitted. “Which is why you need to let me go. Hunter needs me.”
I moved in closer, drawing a gasp from her lips when she felt the long length of my body pressed against her much slighter one. “And what if I need you?”
“You don’t even know me.”
“You’re right,” I agreed without missing a beat. I skimmed my lips over her throat, feeling her struggling to swallow as I smiled against her perfumed skin. “Let’s fix that.”
“I-I can’t love you,” she blurted. “It’s not possible. What you did to my brother—”
The wood underneath my palms groaned from my tightening grip, so I forced myself to take a breath.
I knew this would happen. I knew Roshaun would be a setback as well as a catalyst for my carefully laid plans.
Still, hearing Coby say she couldn’t love me made me want to find whatever hospital he’s laid up in and put a bullet in him.
“I’m okay with that,” I lied. “I don’t need your heart. The rest of you will do for now.” Wrapping my arm around her waist, I pulled her into my body. Coby’s hands flew to my chest, but she didn’t push me away as she stared up at me. “We could be friends,” I told her. “Really good friends.”
Her gaze immediately narrowed. “Friends?” Coby practically growled the word with a curl of her lip, and it took everything in me not to smile. “You asked me to marry you. Actually, you didn’t ask. You pretty much ordered me to marry you, and now you want to be friends. Boy, bye.”
“Coby—”
“Stop saying my name,” she snapped before shoving me. “You don’t know me like that.”
“What would you like me to call you, mo aingeal?” Coby swayed toward me until her fingers were curling in my shirt, and the smile I’d been holding back suddenly broke free. “Oh, I see.”
Panic flared in her brown eyes, but it was too late to hide her reaction. “No! No. I mean…no. C-Coby’s fine.”
“Let’s go.” Stepping away and taking her hand, I pulled her with me toward the door. She stumbled on the first few steps as she tried to match my hurried strides, so I slowed down.
“Where are we going?” she asked once we left the library.
“To bed. I have a proposal for you, but we can discuss that in the morning. I’m tired as fuck.”
Coby immediately tried to snatch her hand away, but I gripped her harder. “I’m not fucking you.”
“I didn’t ask you to.” I was too fucking exhausted from torturing her brother to fuck anyway. Peeking down at my bride-to-be, I bit back a laugh when I saw her roll her eyes at her failed attempt to get a rise out of me.
Coby had always struck me as quiet and sweet, and while I suspected those qualities were still true, I was thoroughly enjoying this hidden side of her. I didn’t want a meek wife who’d roll over and play dead when I told her to.
Finding the stairs to the third floor, I led her up them before she spoke again.
“You really live here?” Her wide brown eyes openly took in the opulence with unbridled awe. I’m sure the shitty apartment building she lived in left much to be desired.
“Last I checked,” I responded as I led her down another hall with my hand on her elbow to steer and keep her standing.
Every other step, she was tripping over her feet in order to drink in every detail.
I almost said fuck it and considered carrying her, but I didn’t want the taste slapped out of my mouth again, so I wisely reconsidered.
Finally, we stopped in front of closed double doors, and I peeked over my shoulder at Coby waiting patiently, if not a little anxiously. “I’ll give you a tour in the morning,” I offered as I scanned my key card and prayed she didn’t ask about it as I held open one of the doors.
Coby immediately lifted her chin as she passed by me. “Don’t bother. I’m going home in the morning,” she replied stubbornly.
Glancing at the ceiling for patience, I shook my head and stepped inside, letting the door close behind me with a beep of the locking mechanism. “If you say so, sweetheart.”
She tossed a glare at me over her shoulder while walking ahead.
I took the moment to admire the way her small hips swayed in those tight ass shorts she was wearing.
Even if I hadn’t planned to snatch her tonight, I would have once the tail who’s been following her sent me the surveillance photo.
My hoodie that she still wore drowned her, but it was the way she walked so confidently in those heels that had me rethinking my promise not to touch her tonight.
Mesmerized by her, it took me a little longer than I liked to realize she’d stopped walking in the center of the room and had gone quiet. She was looking around the bedroom, taking in the decor and furnishings.
Paneled windows dressed with pink chenille drapes.
Baroque moldings along the ceilings and carved into the walls that were painted a pink so light it appeared white at first glance.
An arched, gold antique mirror above the lit fireplace.
A cozy reading lounge tucked into the corner next to it with two pink upholstered chaises—one curved and the other round—with a plush rug underneath them for her soft feet to curl into.
There was a white vanity desk with gold trim and curved legs.
A rare tea set I had imported from France sat on the small dining table by the windows so Coby could enjoy the sunrise in the mornings, since her suite faced east. There was even a small Juliet balcony with Pembroke balusters above the doors to her two-story closet.
And then there was the bed with a high tufted headboard and a curved footboard, piled high with pink and champagne-colored bedding.
The fringed rug beneath was woven with gold, silver, and pearls and cost more than I ever cared to admit.
When Coby spotted it, her brown eyes glittering under the three-tiered chandelier directly above her, I decided the obscene seven-figure price tag was worth it.
“I must have imagined your bedroom a hundred times,” she said softly while looking around the room in both awe and agony. “But I got to admit this isn’t even close to what I pictured.”
“Disappointed?” I asked rather than put her out of her misery by correcting her. My teeth sank into my bottom lip to keep from laughing when she kept side-eying the hell out of me.
“No, it’s…it’s beautiful. You might not believe me, but I’ve always dreamed of having an apartment just like this. I even made a Pinterest board,” she said with a weak chuckle.
I know.
I wasn’t one for social apps, but I always did my homework, and I was shamelessly thorough. Luckily, Coby seemed addicted to social media, giving me an unobstructed insight into my future wife without her being aware.
“So what’s the problem?” I questioned teasingly.
“I guess I didn’t realize we had so much in common,” she grumbled.
“Mhm,” I hummed.
Exhaling heavily, Coby squeezed her eyes closed and then opened them again before whirling toward me. “Ocean, please tell me you have a daughter or a sister who stays here,” she begged, whimpering.
“Sorry. No kids and no sister.” Coby’s gaze widened before letting out another distressed whimper, and I burst out laughing. “The room is not mine, you brat. It’s yours.”
“Mine?” Her head snapped back. “But where do you sleep?”
“I have a suite on the west side of the second floor. The sunsets are amazing if you ever want to pay me a visit.”
Coby, who was unused to wondering how her emotions could be used against her, didn’t bother hiding her hurt feelings. “You want me to marry you, but you don’t want me to sleep in your bed?”
Pushing away from the door because I couldn’t stand how far away she was from me, I took her chin in my hand and tilted her head back to see a sheen in her brown eyes.
“I want more than just you in my bed, mo aingeal. I want to hold you in my bed, fuck you in my bed, tie you to my bed so that you can never leave it, and if I’m being real, I wanted to raze this room to the ground the moment it was completed because I knew it meant I would have to wait a little while longer. ”
“Wait? Wait for what?”
“For you to accept that you’re mine. I know you feel some type of way about what I did to your brother, and I’m not going to say I’m sorry because I’d do it again. I don’t like that it’s pushed you away from me, though. Just when I finally let myself get close.”
“Ocean…” I stopped breathing as I waited for her to tell me that I was wrong. That she wasn’t holding the situation with her brother against me, and that she was ready. Instead, she said, “Thank you for the room.”
I stared into her eyes for a little while longer before I kissed her forehead and forced myself to back away toward the door. “You’re welcome.”