Chapter 9 - Marlen
She arches against me, moaning against my mouth, sending currents through me that steal my breath and my thoughts.
Her lips are perfect. Soft, smooth, warm, and sweet.
I slip my hand around her lower back and pull her even closer, my cock growing hard against her as she digs her fingers into my shoulders.
My body is screaming, melting, surging with feelings I don’t recognize.
Stefania moans again, and the sound is making me lose control.
I want her so badly. I’ve never experienced a kiss this intense.
Is it because I’ve been denying this from the moment I met her?
Pushing away the thoughts of desire, the need, the yearning.
All of that resistance is falling away now, leaving me with this raw, feverish lust. I didn’t realize how badly I wanted this, and now that I’ve tasted her, how do I stop myself from wanting more?
I thread my hand up into her soft hair and knot my fingers through the dark strands. She gasps when I gently pull her hair and tilt her head further back to deepen the kiss. I could take her now. She’s eager. It would be easy.
But a thought shivers through me. A whisper of warning that I can’t push aside.
She’s tricking you.
I pull away from the kiss, my brows furrowed. No, she wouldn’t do that, would she?
“Are you trying to seduce me, so I let my guard down?”
As I say the words, I feel foolish and paranoid.
But the look on her face tells me immediately I’m right, and disappointment snakes through me. The guilt in her eyes, the way she presses her lips together and licks them. How she turns her head away from me and takes a shaky breath.
I step back from her, my disappointment growing. My heart is beating fast as betrayal seeps into my bones. I can’t believe it.
Stefania shifts uneasily from one foot to the other. She lifts her hand to her mouth and traces her fingertips nervously over her lips. It’s fucking sexy, but thinking that makes me angrier.
She’s not sexy. She’s manipulating me.
She won’t even look at me.
“Look at me, Stefania,” I demand.
She looks up. Her dark brown eyes are wide and washed with desire. Her cheeks are flushed, and her breathing is heavy, her chest heaving.
She’s turned on. Very turned on.
And I fucking want her. My cock throbs, aching for something I refuse to want.
I’m fighting an intense urge to reach out and touch her, to pull her back into my arms. I want to lift her onto the basin counter and push her legs apart. I want to wrap my hand around the back of her neck and hold her steady as I thrust into her.
Fuck.
Get control of yourself. For a moment, all I can do is close my eyes and count.
I glare at her, shaking my head slowly.
“You don’t know who you’re messing with, girl.
You’re in over your head if you think you can seduce an experienced man like me.
It won’t work. You have no effect on me!
” I lie, snapping at her, angry and heated.
Angry at myself for falling for it. Angry because I am more than affected by her, and I hate it.
Angry because I’ve never felt a kiss like that before, and it wasn’t even real.
She stares at me in silence, biting down on her lower lip. I can’t look at her anymore. I can’t stop myself from wanting to kiss her again.
A low, agitated growl rumbles through my chest as I turn away from her and storm out of the bathroom.
I don’t dare look back in case it pulls me toward her again. Keep walking, Marlen.
I hate being lied to. I hate betrayals of any kind. Manipulation and dishonesty. If you hate me, hate me openly. If you want something from me, ask. The answer might not be in your favor, but that’s life. Never, ever try and trick me.
***
Over the next few days, my anger simmers.
There is still a wariness in me toward her, a constant reminder to keep my guard up.
But the problem is that Stefania has turned into a ghost in my home.
She’s nowhere. The house is so quiet it’s as though I’m living alone again.
I don’t hear her or see her. I don’t get to smell the delicacy of her scent as I walk past her or make coffee next to her.
She’s nowhere. Every time I walk past her room, I pause outside the closed door and listen.
And oddly, I find myself walking past her room far more often than I need to. It’s the closest I can get to her. I tell myself to leave this alone, that it’s better this way, but my subconscious movements pull me back here.
Sometimes I hear her moving around in there, sometimes I don’t. It’s clear, though, that she’s going out of her way to avoid me.
Why do I miss her so much?
I don’t like this quiet. Dinner is an empty experience without her chatter and that radiant, dimpled smile. The days are bland, and I have nothing to look forward to when I come home from work.
And constantly, I’m thinking about that kiss. The kiss was like nothing I’ve ever felt before. The one that stole my breath and silenced my mind. How did she have that effect on me?
One morning, sitting alone at the breakfast table, my food is growing cold in front of me. I push it around the plate with a fork. The scrambled egg has turned rubbery, but it doesn’t matter because I’m not hungry. I’m feeling miserable.
I’ve lost count of how many times she’s drifted into my thoughts, and she’s there again now, and in this moment of unaccustomed loneliness, I realize my mistake.
She had every right to do whatever it took to try and escape.
Including manipulating me. It wasn’t a betrayal exactly; it was an attempt to gain her freedom.
I am the one in the wrong here. Holding her captive for her brother’s choices and actions.
She did nothing wrong other than have the same name as them.
She didn’t even know what they did to Bardil.
My entire plan is to punish them, to make them suffer in their pain and worry, not knowing where she is. But it’s not fair of me to punish her too.
Sighing, I push my food away and lean my face into my hands, rubbing my eyes.
I can’t be angry with her for trying to escape. She’s in prison for crimes she didn’t commit.
Moving my chair back, I stand up and leave the dining room to find her.
After walking around the library and checking her room, I stop at the gym. Nothing. I stand staring out the window in the gym with my brow furrowed. It’s a beautiful day outside. The sun is shining hot against the surface of the pool, glittering with a million points of light.
That’s when I spot her, just her feet actually, visible from beneath a tall umbrella, angled so the rest of her is hidden from my view.
I hurry downstairs and out into the garden. I walk around the pool and toward her sun lounger.
Standing in front of where she’s stretched out like a lazy cat in her bikini, my eyes trace greedily over her toned, tight little body.
I clear my throat, and she hardly reacts at all. Her mouth pulls tighter, but she says nothing.
“It’s a gorgeous day to get some sun,” I say awkwardly.
“Mm,” she huffs, making her disinterest in talking to me abundantly clear.
“Do you have sunblock? If you stay in the shade of the umbrella, you’ll get burnt quickly. I can get some…”
“What do you want, Marlen?” she sighs.
An awkward nervousness shivers through me, another new sensation I’m not accustomed it. This girl is doing strange things to me.
“I wanted to check on you, see if you were ok?” I say.
She shrugs, lifting her sunglasses to the top of her head and narrowing her eyes at me.
“To check on me? Interesting,” she sighs again, her face is bland, void of emotion.
In fact, she looks bored as hell as she slowly traces her fingers over the edge of the sun lounger and stares at nothing in particular.
An idea strikes me—a way for me to apologize without making a scene.
“I need you to pack a bag for a few days,” I tell her, finally sparking a flicker of interest in her expression.
“We’re going somewhere?” she asks, trying not to sound excited.
“Yes, it’ll be hot, so bring your swimsuit and pack accordingly. Three or four days. Be ready in an hour.”
She sits up, giving me her full attention. “Where are we going?”
I smirk, instantly enjoying the moment with her, no longer ignoring me. “You’ll like it,” is all I say, keeping it mysterious to pique her curiosity.
“Marlen…” she calls out after me as I walk away, but I keep going, only glancing over my shoulder to shout, “You better hurry. Adventure waits for no man.”