Chapter 15
FIFTEEN
LYKOS
“What?” she breathed, staring at me wide-eyed. “She tried to hurt Aria and Dimitros?”
“Yes.”
“How? When?” I could see wheels working in her mind and realization flashing in her eyes. “Dimitros’s cut on his face…”
She didn’t seem able to finish that thought, so I did it for her. “Amara cut him. It will be a scar that will forever remind him of her.”
Violet opened her mouth, then closed it, no words coming from her. She didn’t need to say anything, because her horrified expression said it all.
I resumed walking, and she followed in silence until I got to the guest room intended for her. After my conversation with Salvatore, I had one of my men go to the hotel and retrieve all her belongings. Hopefully she would be pleasantly surprised by that.
“This will be your room,” I said, opening the door to the guest room nearest my own bedroom. Of course, she didn’t need to know that. She hesitated, flicking an uncertain glance my way. “What? Is it not to your standards?”
She tilted her chin up, glaring at me.
“The room is fine,” she snapped, then walked in. “Company is debatable. Shut the door behind you.”
“That could be taken several different ways,” I gritted, my teeth clenching. This woman had no idea who she was talking to and how fast I could make her disappear.
“Then let me clarify it for you,” she said calmly. “Shut the door on your way out. I have some work to do.”
Images of different kinds of work—the more pleasurable kind—flickered through my mind.
“Aren’t I your subject for your work?” I challenged. “Technically, you should be begging me to stay.”
“Your wife is my subject,” she retorted dryly. “And considering she’s under your roof too, I’d recommend you reconsider your words. Or have you no shame?”
Whether she knew it or not, she struck a chord. It was my shame for so many different reasons. Furious, I turned on my heel, leaving the door open on purpose as I went in search of my children. They were the only good and innocent things in my life.
My loafers echoed through the empty hallway, strangely similar to the emptiness in my heart. No woman to share my life with. No woman to share my love with. No woman to share my body with.
What a fucking joke this life was.
I was at the end of the hallway when I heard the door slam shut. Victory.
Was it slightly petty? Yes, it was. So fucking what? Violet Freud should suffer some of my misery too. After all, she’d given me a little taste and then made it all worse when she turned her back on me.
“There are my two favorite people in the world,” I said as I found my children in the games room we used for our movie nights.
Dimitros and Aria were building a puzzle together—their favorite pastime—and I joined in, welcoming the distraction.
Once night fell, I ignored the fact that there was a woman I desired under my roof, only a door down from my own bedroom.
Instead, I walked into the master bathroom and turned the shower on, then stripped out of my clothing. Steam rose from the tiled floor as I stepped beneath the hot spray, letting it wash over my tired muscles.
My cock was hard as a rock and my balls ached, begging me for a release.
Taking my shaft into my hand, I closed my eyes and pictured Violet’s body splayed underneath me, her hands roaming and lips parted in pleasure.
I stroked myself, harder and faster, rubbing my thumb over the slit at the head of my cock, all the while images of Violet from that night ten years ago played in my mind. Her soft, pliant body, my mouth on her pussy.
My hips jerked forward at the memory of her tight pussy strangling my cock and claiming me. Squeezing myself a little harder, I pictured her red cheeks and beautiful eyes gazing up at me, full of trust.
I exploded suddenly into my hand, sticky cum spurting all over the tile before the water washed it away. My legs almost buckled at the violence of my orgasm, and I took a few steadying breaths.
I’d jacked off more times than I cared to admit over the past ten years, always to the image of Violet.
I committed to memory every curve, every inch of her body, and now that she was so close to me, it was too tempting not to just go to her.
I was dying to find out whether she’d touched herself while thinking about me over the past ten years.
She’s not here for you, Lykos. She didn’t want any piece of me, and she’d made that perfectly clear the last time—the third and final time—we parted. Her words from that day still hurt, ringing in my ear.
“I can’t stand the thought of anything that reminds me of you,” she spat, her lip curling as if the very air around me tasted foul. “Not a trace. Not a memory. I want everything about you gone from my life so it’s like you never existed, Lykos.”
I sighed and finished my shower, stepping out and drying off before wrapping the towel around my waist.
Walking back into the bedroom, I pulled on pajama bottoms and got into bed. It would be another long, sleepless night for me.