Chapter 40 Villain
VILLAIN
Love making.
I finally understood what Dirk’s evil villain plan was, and it had worked perfectly.
He’d used me to destroy Philippe, which was a much better revenge considering Philippe’s unhealthy obsession with me, and it fit the crime, since Philippe had attacked Dirk’s sister instead of going after him directly, like Dirk destroyed him.
Also, and most shocking, Dirk had turned me from his greatest threat to his most loyal defense, all with the price of Maples’ surgery, a cello, and Toni, who he would have protected anyway because of Nitro.
After being wrapped in Dirk’s strong arms, covered in his lips and words, there wasn’t anything else.
I’d forgotten fear. His lovemaking was music, chocolate, and everything else that brought me to life.
It was the last straw, the final stroke of genius that completely slew me.
He was going to keep me addicted to him because that was part of his plan, to turn me to his side and keep me there.
If that wasn’t his plan, he would fail, and he wasn’t an idiot, not in any realm, so he wouldn’t seduce me so utterly if he didn’t want to keep me.
I lay in bed with him, every piece of my body feeling whole for the first time in as long as I could remember.
I felt him beside me, but I couldn’t close my eyes, not when the world was so perfect, when I felt so good.
I was curled up against his back, my arm wrapped around his chest, which he covered with his incredibly capable hands.
Was it true? Was he just setting me up for an even bigger betrayal? For a moment my heart pounded faster, but I couldn’t panic when I was curled against his back, still drowning in his sweet, sweet love. Love? Could he love me the way I loved him? Maybe that was also part of the plan.
I slipped out of bed, unable to hold still.
It would be simple enough to check whether or not he meant this to be permanent.
I grabbed his pink fluffy robe and went into the living room to find Toni sitting on the couch, watching Scooby Doo on her phone.
I sat down with the tablet on my lap. This was the first time we’d been alone together since I left Boston determined to ruin my husband.
I frowned down at the pink diamond for a moment before turning to Toni. “What do you think that his master plan is?”
She raised a pastel-blue brow. The other brow was pastel yellow. Sometimes her style choices seriously confused me. “Making you fall in love with him and keeping you forever.”
I nodded, slightly more settled. “It’s the logical conclusion that I came to as well, but I thought I’d check these files to be sure. He knows that if he gives me this tech, I can’t steal it.”
“That’s one of the truths of life. Can’t steal something you already have.”
I flipped it on and stared at the screensaver for a moment of Maples looking groggily up from an operation table.
Dirk had been there; no, he’d been in Las Vegas, but someone had been there taking care of the doorman’s dog.
My chest constricted, and my skin felt itchy.
What I needed to do was go back to bed and hold onto Dirk until I stopped feeling so dizzy.
“He has a dog? Are you going to steal that?”
“It’s the doorman’s dog, Maples.”
She smiled, her eyes looking soft. “Maples is the doorman or the dog?”
“Dog.” I touched her brow and came away with blue powder on my fingers. “Why the brows?”
“You know how I get after I have a job blending in. Why is the doorman’s dog on the screensaver?”
“He wants to keep me. Don’t you think that’s why he put it here?”
She frowned at the photo in deep concentration. “I think he wants to keep you because he’s not an idiot. I think he put the photo here because he wants you to think that he wants to keep you. He’s very smart.”
I nodded. “He really is. What do you think he’s going to do with me? I’m not sure I can shoot anyone, even after therapy.”
She snorted and pushed my shoulder. “Maybe he’s going to have you learn to cook and be his perfect housewife.”
I wrinkled my nose. “That would be torture for both of us. I’m not really into torture, but I could pretend to cook and clean.
It’s really no trouble to have things delivered and take them out of the oven, and cleaning isn’t something I mind, other than dishes, because they ruin my hands, and you know how much I—” I pulled her into a sudden hug that made her gasp while I squeezed her ribs too tight.
“No one’s going to put you in a hospital ever again. ”
She squeezed me back and put her bony chin on my shoulder. “Nope. And no one’s going to hurt your hands, and no one’s going to tell you to sell your body to the highest bidder. You’ve got a whole company to run now, unless your grandfather has decided to disown you.”
I pulled away and straightened up, trying to look like I hadn’t had a lapse in self-control. “Then it wouldn’t be my problem to reorganize the entire structure so it isn’t a problem for Dirk and his interests.”
She raised that pastel brow. “You’re putting his best interests above your own?”
“His best interests are my best interests.” I tapped the tablet, and there were the lists of everything he was in the process of patenting or creating, exactly as he’d said they would be.
“I am going to make certain that his company is running as well as it can be. I should check some things now, but I need to go back to bed and touch him.” I gave her another quick hug and got up, heading for the bedroom door.
“Go get it, girl,” she said with a laugh and went back to her Scooby Doo.
Love. Dirk was giving me love, the most addictive substance in the world, and he’d keep giving it to me until he tired of it. Well, two could play that game. If he was going to love me so well that I could never leave him, I’d return the favor with interest.
As soon as I closed the door behind me, Dirk was there, the force of his body against mine thumping me against the door, not enough to knock the breath out of me, and nothing like pain, but a shock that made me gasp even as his lips pressed against mine, insistent as he slid a hand up my arm to my shoulder, grasping me with just the right amount of pressure.
I sagged against the door, held up by his chest and the hand that grasped my waist.
“You think that you can leave me alone in your bed?” he murmured low in my ear with a rough growl at the end before he started kissing my jaw.
My knees were weak as he lifted me up and carried me back to the bed. My bed. Our bed. He lowered me down on the Egyptian cotton sheets and then curled up behind me, pulling me against him and wrapping his arms tight around me.
I blinked in the darkness. “What are you doing?”
“Spooning you. You left, so you defaulted on the right to be the big spoon. I’m holding onto you.”
I wriggled a little, and his arms tightened around me, and he nipped my shoulder through his robe. “You aren’t going to do that lovemaking thing again?”
“In the morning, but only if you stay in bed all night.”
“You promise?”
He sighed heavily. “Of course, but I have to get up at five to put the turkey in the oven.”
“Turkey?”
“Tomorrow’s Thanksgiving. We’re going to have a small affair, you, me, Toni. It’ll be like our honeymoon with your best friend.”
“I noticed that the doors are soundproof. I couldn’t hear her Scooby Doo until I went into the living room. So, if you wanted to practice that lovemaking thing tonight before you get up to do the turkey, I’m sure she wouldn’t mind.”
He nibbled on my ear, and a rush of heat and hunger went through me.
I tried to turn in his arms, but he was so deliciously strong.
“If I started making love to you again, there would be no night, and then I wouldn’t have strength to make the turkey.
Also, it’s not the lovemaking thing; it’s making love. ”
“Ah, such a fine distinction. Perhaps you should demonstrate the differences to me.” I twisted quickly, but he caught me and rolled on top of me, pinning me very thoroughly while I soaked in the feel of him, his weight pressing into me.
My heart fluttered, and butterflies exploded everywhere, leaving happiness shrapnel behind.
He growled, “First, you have to let me spoon with you and sleep. I didn’t like waking up without you and knowing that Toni might be a double agent who was working with your father all along, and she’d convinced you to forget this marriage and responsibility for your company to run away knocking over bars all across the country.
There’s also the thing where I haven’t slept in four days.
If you want to really enjoy your husband’s prowess, he needs his rest.”
I sighed heavily, but there wasn’t much breath for that since he was on top of me. “First thing in the morning?”
“As soon as I put the turkey in.”
“Before you put the turkey in.”
He bit the back of my neck. Mm, so delicious to feel the trail of his tongue turning all my flesh into shivers and aching. “Then there will be no turkey.”
“We can order one.”
“Absolutely not. This is the family tradition. Jen and I have been mangling turkeys since the first year they stuck us in here so we wouldn’t ruin the adult party.
You’re my family now, so you have to endure mangled turkey as well as she did.
There was that one time it was undercooked, and we both got food poisoning. ” He chuckled. “Good times.”
I was his family now? All of my thoughts went still, and I released all the tension in my body. “Okay. I guess that means I’ll be keeping the pink hair.”
“Keep whatever you want. For you. She would have liked you.”
I snorted. “There’s nothing about me to like.”
“Oh no, Daniela. She was a cellist. She would have loved playing cello with you while I messed up everything with my banjo, particularly the way you play with people who know nothing about music, how patient and encouraging you are. Nothing about you to like? What nonsense is this? I saw you riding my bike. We are getting a matching set, and we are going to ride bikes across the country.”
“Knocking over bars and playing duets all the way.”
“We’re leaving Toni at home.”
“This is home?”
“My home is wherever you are.” He rolled off me, but kept me in his arms, holding me like he’d never let me fall, like he’d always catch me no matter what happened.
I closed my eyes and let myself fall asleep in his arms, and he caught me and held me all through the night, like he’d never let me go.
And somehow, in spite of all the fear, all the uncertainty, I knew that he never would.
He was my hero. And my villain. And my banjo player.
There wasn’t an end to the music we would make together because our love was music, a song that would never end.
Probably because it was an obsession, but what could you expect from a couple of supervillains? Superheroes? Either way.
The End