17. Dimitri
17
DIMITRI
When we get back to the boat, I issue orders for the night to the men, pour Adriana a glass of champagne, and then lead her to the suite I’m in. I push open the door and let her peer in. “If this place gives you bad memories, we can go elsewhere.” She slept here, but she was scared on her own. I don’t want her first time in a room she’s not entirely comfortable with.
“It looks totally different.”
“I had the awful crap Dorian had in here ripped out and had new furniture delivered.”
“But … are you keeping the boat? That seems like a lot of expense if not.”
“Not sure.”
“So, you did all this for a few weeks?”
I nod. “If I’m going to stay here, I might as well be comfortable. I doubt we will be here for weeks.”
“What?” Her voice lifts. “You said you’d keep me safe for the next few weeks.”
“I will.” I give her more information, not wanting to keep her in the dark. She’s already being dragged around like some sort of pet, and she must feel like she has no agency. “You know my stepfather wants the party on the yacht; I’ve already discussed it with you.”
“Yes.”
“Well, after that, we should go and stay at the compound. It’s so much safer there. I have everyone that I can looking into this group who wanted to buy you, but it takes time. We can relax more at the house as there are so many armed guards and drones. And a friendly police station within a few minutes.”
She nods. Maybe I should tell her about this Prince dude and the picture, but it might freak her out so much it puts her off the idea of sex, and I’m far too selfish for that.
She walks tentatively into the room. Her gaze cuts to the bed and then to me. As if I’m going to throw her on it right this minute and ravish her. Instead, I lead her to the double doors, which lead out to a small, private balcony.
“Come sit outside a while.”
Her gaze is perplexed as if she expects me to rip her clothes off right away. “While you drink your champagne,” I say.
We head onto the balcony, and she goes to sit in a chair, but I grab her and gently pull her onto my lap. She’s looking out over the twinkling lights of the bay, her back to my front, and her legs dangling. I scoop them up and put them over mine, sideways to me, so she’s properly in my arms, providing me a gorgeous view of her profile.
“This view is amazing,” she purrs.
“Isn’t it just.”
She turns to me, sees my gaze on her, and laughs softy. “You smooth talker, you.”
“What’s your favorite food?” I ask. I have a burning desire to know more about her, beyond this situation we find ourselves in, and that should be a big red flag.
I don’t normally care what the women I’m fucking like to eat.
“Sushi,” she says. “But vegetarian.”
“That’s a misnomer, isn’t it? Vegetarian sushi?”
“No, it’s very much a thing.”
“Are you vegetarian?” I recall Jacob noting she’d barely eaten any meat.
“No. I just don’t like sushi with fish in it.” She sips at her drink. “What’s your favorite food?”
“Steak.”
“I’m shocked,” she says.
I laugh.
“I know you like screeching noise for music,” she says. “What kind of movies do you like?”
“Horror and science fiction.”
She wrinkles her nose.
“Not a fan, huh?”
“No.”
My fingers slide into her hair, and I smooth it from her shoulder so I can see the tattoo. I trace it with my fingers, and she shivers. “Do you want any more ink?”
She nods. “I want a line my mother wrote to me in a card. Though she be but little, she is fierce.”
I lean in and kiss her throat, soft and reverential. Just once.
This is a seduction. Something I haven't done in the longest time, and it’s painfully erotic. Why did I dismiss this in exchange for years of quick, meaningless fucks?
A small whisper of breath escapes her gently parted lips.
“It’s a beautiful line,” I say. “Shakespeare.”
“You know it?”
“Yes. I read a lot of Shakespeare when I was younger.”
“You did?”
I laugh at her surprise. “Yeah. It’s full of the good stuff. War, blood feuds … love.”
I kiss her shoulder. Then her upper arm.
She leans into the touch, her face still looking out over the horizon, over the sparkling lights of the bay. “It’s so beautiful here,” she says softly. “If only my time in this city could have been happier.”
“You talk as if you’ll be leaving soon.”
“I will. No way can I stay here. My stepmother will always be a danger to me.”
“You’re safe with me,” I say.
“I can’t stay with you forever.”
I give a low laugh. “Why not? I think I quite like having you around.”
She pulls back and looks at me. “Quite liking me being around is not something I can base my future security on. Anyway…” She glances away again. “I want more. At some point I want love. Marriage, even. Maybe.”
“Kids?” I ask, the sudden fear at her answer taking me by surprise.
She intrigues me when she shakes her head. “Not sure if I want kids of my own. There’s already a kid out there who needs me. It’s another reason I want to leave. I want to take my brother Cade with me.”
“Your stepbrother?”
“Yes.”
“But you’ve known him, what, a year?”
“And? He’s a great kid, Dimitri.”
I love her using my name.
“He’s in that house, and even before I knew my stepmother was related to some very dodgy people, I was seriously concerned for his welfare. My father, he drinks too much.
She’s still looking away from me, her face sad in profile as she watches the ocean.
“Hana, well, she’s downright neglectful. She forgets to get him from school. The food in the house isn’t what a kid of that age needs or wants. She’d leave seafood salad in the fridge, and he hates shellfish, but when he said he was hungry she’d snap there was food in the fridge. I used to make him stuff: meatballs and spaghetti and pizza, things like that.”
“I mean, seafood salad doesn’t sound like terrible abuse,” I say carefully.
“It is if you hate seafood, and that’s all there is in the fridge. That and her bottles of Chablis, of course. She’d start on the wine before noon some days and then be too gone to remember to pick him up.”
“So her and your father both drink a lot?”
“Yes.”
I don’t tell her what I’m thinking because I need to look into it further, but if Cade is related to Dorian and Ari, and perhaps others in that organization, there’s a chance they’ve already earmarked him for entry into their gang once he’s a teenager. When I’m done with them, there won’t be a damn thing left, so at least he’s saved from that fate.
She’s sad, and that isn’t the mood I want for her tonight. I want to get inside her, to drown myself in her, but I also want to wash the sadness away for a while and make her feel good. She’s been through hell, and for a while, I want us both to forget. We can lose ourselves to each other.
“Where would you take a vacation if you could go anywhere in the world?”
She laughs. “That’s easy. Italy and Greece. I’ve always wanted to visit Athens and see the birthplace of democracy and then visit Rome and Florence.”
I wonder if we could take a trip when this is all over, and then I come up short. She wants marriage. Kids, or at least someone to raise her stepbrother with. I’d be a terrible candidate. All the men in my life were awful role models, and they always say we take after our early role models. I’d rather never have a kid than risk screwing one up for life.
Plus, the tinnitus and my hearing may at any time get worse. I could end up losing what little sanity I have left.
I’d be a terrible father and not much better as a husband.
If only she were a career girl, or a materialistic woman who wanted nothing more than a glamorous life full of travel and luxury. I could give her that. Then again, would she have the same soul-tugging vulnerability if she were those things? Her experiences, her hopes and dreams are a huge part of what make up the magical mix that is Adriana. Without them, my Littleblue wouldn’t be the same person, and I probably wouldn’t be half as enthralled as I am.
I kiss her shoulder again. “I can take you to Rome.” I make promises that should never leave my lips before pressing my mouth once more to her warm skin. “Florence too. I’d take you to the bay of Naples and to Pompeii.”
I bite softly at her shoulder, and she gasps.
Gently, I take the glass of champagne from her and place it on the table beside me. I turn her to face me and frame her face with my hands, eyes searching the perfection of her features.
I could drink her for hours, days, hell, years, and never get bored of looking at her. It’s not just plain lust; it’s something more. I fucking love her face.
She smiles, and those tiny dimples pop. I want to devour her.
I exert the control I’m famous for and brush my lips softly over hers.
I’m going to blow her mind, so she’ll crave more.
If I can’t be the man she thinks she wants, the stable husband of her fantasies, I’ll become the man she craves.
I’ll become her drug, the thing she needs.
Then she won’t be able to easily walk away, not even if she wants more than I can offer.
If I keep her addicted.
Then she’ll be mine.
All fucking mine .