Chapter 19
Rico
The soft pad of carefully tread footsteps stirs me awake.
After Constantine had left all I wanted was my solitude. His visit wasn’t unexpected but it still was brought upon me last minute and I was already mentally drained.
While sleep has never come easy to me, insomnia being a long term friend of mine, I found it even more difficult to shut myself down.
And it has everything to do with the red head occupying my guest bedroom.
She’s become a hyper-fixation I can’t rid myself of.
It’s what I’ve always done. From reading the same book over and over again. To listen to a song on loop for hours. Collecting watches to collecting daggers. Watching a movie a thousand times to rewrite the ending because I had the power to change it and make it better.
Some last hours, others months and even years. But they all tend to vanish in time.
Except her.
Imogen Murphy is damn permanent. I don’t have to understand what I’m feeling to know this to be true.
I hear her steps travel to the kitchen. I can’t help but wonder if she’ll be brave enough to do it. Will she try to escape? Something that feels an awful close to anticipation floods me at the chance of chasing her again.
Instead, I hear her rummaging through the kitchen cupboards. All much to my disappointment. She’s probably hungry. I had forgotten about dinner while forming new plans for her. I tend to do that. There’s too many times I’ve forgotten a meal myself. It just seems to slip.
As I hear her footsteps travel back down the hall I know she didn’t visit the kitchen for food. No, she has sinister intentions. And something about it has my blood pumping.
Is this what thrill feels like?
Red blood pumping hot. Pulse beating wildly. My body feels as if it’s on an edge, just ready to jump. This, this is what it must feel like. Fuck, it’s glorious to know.
Anticipation only explains why I’m pretending I’m still asleep as I hear her outside my door.
What do you have planned for me, gazzella?
I feel her the moment she enters the room. Something I never thought was possible. But it’s undeniable. As a man who believes in facts and science she makes a man like me question if witchcraft can exist.
With the loss of sight due to the darkness all my other senses are heightened. Where I usually crave silence I’m wanting to hear everything that concerns her. Her footsteps. Her hushed breaths. The damn swish of fabric. I want to hear it all.
The edge of my bed dips from her weight. My pulse roars in my ears.
She slowly climbs up the bed, her legs on either side of my body. I swear I feel the phantom touch of her. And I’ve never wanted to be touched by anyone as much as I do at this moment.
Then I feel it.
The edge of the carving knife is against my throat.
She applies the slightest pressure but I can feel the hesitancy to follow through.
“I thought a promise was made between you and I,” I say into the night. She startles. The knife cuts into my skin. The pain is only short lived. Hearing her gasp, the feel of her fully straddling me; that will burn itself into my memory and stay with me until I die.
“You’re awake,” she breathes.
“It would appear so,” I respond dryly.
She shifts and it does something to me. It pulls in my abdomen. All the tension in my body goes southward. If she wiggles her hips one more time she’ll feel something she won’t want to.
I steady her hips, grasping them firmly in my hands. It’s almost worse. She seats herself further down on my cock. Only a thin fabric of a cotton sheet separates us.
“Correct me if I’m wrong,” I begin, “but aren’t I supposed to give you the quick death?”
“Yes.”
“Then why aren’t you respecting your promise you made to me? Where is your honor, little warrior?”
“Honor?” She questions irately. I wish we weren’t in the dark.
I want to see her fury. The way it makes her eyes blaze.
How it twists her lips and makes her pulse flutter.
And she doesn’t disappoint as I pull on the lampshade to softly illuminate the room.
“Your honor will never lie with me. You’ve already made clear who your loyalty lies to.
And believe me, I understand, but forgive me if I can’t risk the chance of taking you at your word. ”
She presses down and a warm stickiness coats my throat. “I ran from a life because I knew I was going to be shackled in misery. I will not trade one prison for another.”
There it is, the missing piece I was searching for. “You ran from an arranged marriage.” Her silence is an answer itself. “Who didn’t you want to marry, Imogen?”
She huffs. “I don’t see how that’s relevant.”
“Oh, it is. Because the fact you can’t deny gazzella is that right now you’re mine. And whomever this man is, he’s going to be searching for you. And I don’t like the idea of him taking you from me.”
“I’m not yours,” she bites.
“You’re my captive. That makes you mine.”
She leans in, her upper body pressing against mine. Her lips brush against my own as she speaks. “I belong to no one. And I will do what I must to prove it.”
“You’re allowing your emotions to govern your actions but you haven’t thought this through,” I tell her.
Her eyes narrow. “I’ve thought it through well enough.”
“Really? You kill me and then what, Imogen? You’re on the run for the rest of your life.”
“I was going to be on the run from escaping my arranged marriage. This will be no different.”
“It will be. You’d be killing me. You know what I mean to The Donati Famiglia.
How important I am. How respected I am. You heard it from Constantine himself.
And while you have heart and spirit it stands no chance against the men who will be coming after you.
And when they find you, gazzella, they will tear you apart. ”
Sheer determination transforms her face. “I held my own against you just fine.”
I have to put these notions to rest. Bringing her a healthy dose of reality I easily shift our positions. She’s now beneath me, the knife still against my throat but her hold has weakened. I lower my weight on her and place my hand on her throat. I feel the wild thrum of her pulse.
“We both know I was holding my punches.”
She narrows her gaze and grits down on her teeth. “You can’t expect me to just accept this.”
“The alternative if you don’t poses a greater danger. I promised no harm will come to you. I’m a man of my word.”
“It’s not your word I doubt, Rico.”
I cock my head to the side. “I need you to trust me.” She narrows her eyes. “Trust me, Imogen.”
“Then what becomes of us if I do?”
“We’re still the same. You’re still the daughter of my enemy. I’m still the man holding you captive. Nothing has changed in that aspect.”
“Then why does it feel as if something has?” She isn’t entirely wrong. Imogen Murphy has come into my life and changed everything. It’s insane, even for me, to admit I don’t want to return to the life before her.
I don’t answer her. Instead I pull the lampshade once more to cloak us in darkness. I settle back in bed, leaving a space for her to sleep beside me if she so wishes.
“What are you doing?” She asks, more confused than ever.
“I’m going to sleep.” I turn on my side, facing her in the dark. “If you still feel like killing me in the morning you can.”
“I’m starting to think you’re insane,” she says as I feel the bed dip once more as she settles in beside me.
“Sleep,” I order groggily.
Her warm breath fans against my face. After a best of silence she says in a hushed tone,” His name is Sebastian. The man I was arranged to marry is Sebastian Rourk.”
“Is this the same Sebastian who manhandled your mother?”
I feel her draw closer. “Yes.”
I can’t help but think of my own mother.
How helpless she had been against my father.
All those times she tried protecting me.
How she seemed to be the only person who maybe understood me.
Her mother had tried to do the same. It lights a fire within me.
“Then I promise you one more thing, I promise you his death, too.”
“Just like that?”
My mind immediately thinks of correcting her. Because it isn’t ’just like that’. But I adapt to her lingo. “Just like that.”
“Thank you,” she whispers with such heart and warmth that it cracks my veneer. A tightness happens in my chest.
I swallow. “Thank me when it’s done.”
I then close my eyes and fall asleep to the sound of her deep and even breaths.