Page 32 of Casino King

He gives me a sharp look that tells me what I already know.

Sighing, I head down the hall to the guest room and right into his sister’s closet. I feel like I need to meet his sister to tell her how sorry I am her overbearing and demanding brother keeps having me wear her clothes.

As I’m walking around the closet, an idea strikes me. I’m going to give him exactly what he wants.

Replacing my uniform with layers of clothes that ends with a winter parka jacket I find on one of the racks, I head out to meet him. And when he sees me, his face shuts down.

“Are you serious, Tessa?”

“You wanted me covered up,” I challenge, holding my arms out to the sides.

“Take it off.”

Tilting my head to the side, I give him a little smirk that has his seemingly all-knowing eyes narrowing.

I unzip the jacket slowly while Alec stands so stock still, I wouldn’t think he was here with me if it weren’t for the feel of his eyes following my fingers as I pull the zipper down.

Letting the jacket fall to the floor, I stand before him in another zip-up jacket, and his eyes follow my fingers again as I pull the zipper down and shrug it off.

Under that, I have on a black and white snakeskin patterned blouse that has a zipper closure down the entire front of it, and when I start to pull it down, Alec moves in a blur towards me – a panther coming out of hiding to go in for the kill.

Grabbing the front of the top with one hand, and my ponytail with the other, he yanks my head back so I’m looking up at him.

His eyes are two pools of an emotion I don’t know. A mix of rage and desire, with the latter trying to fight off the first.

“What’re you doing?” His voice is holding barely contained restraint, and the rough edges skirt over my skin like a welcome scratch to an itch I’ve had since he first started watching me dance.

I want to feel what it’s like to have that restraint snap, and to be the one he releases it all on.

I need him wild. I need him unhinged. I need him so far past being able to control himself that he gives me everything.

I need everything.

“I’m giving you what you want. Me covered, but uncovered for you.”

His hand tightens over mine that’s holding the blouse, and his other pulls my head back even more, the bite of pain making the breath leave my lungs.

“I told you not to challenge me, bella. I’ll always win.”

“We’ll see,” I whisper, and he takes my mouth with a sureness I’ve never known, his tongue meeting mine in a fiery dance I never could have choreographed.

Pulling my ponytail, he rips my lips from his and yanks my head to the side, dragging his mouth up the column of my neck and biting me hard before whispering in my ear, “You’re testing my patience. You’re lucky my response isn’t to kill you like it would be anyone else.” The brush of his lips against my ear has me panting for more of his mouth on me. “I’d rather fuck you into submission. Until you’re so far gone, you’d do anything I tell you to.”

I can’t stop the moan that leaves me at his words, and I sway into his solid body. My mind is swirling with too many images of what he’s telling me, unable to think straight anymore.

“You want me to? You want me to give you everything your eyes tell me you want but are too afraid to ask for?” Looking down at me, he stares so deeply into my eyes that I start to feel like he’s inside of my head, demanding entrance to every place I’ve created to hide in.

He has the power to do this to me.

He has the power to sweep my mind – making my thoughts his, making my desires his, and leaving me with nowhere to go but directly into his path of destruction.

“Are you going to beg, miabella rosa?” The phrase rolls from his tongue like a litany. A call to prayer all my own, delivered by a fallen angel.

“I need to hear you say it.” His words flow through me like water, lulling me under the current until I’m drowning and have no choice but to beg him for air. Beg him to breathe.

That’s what he’s asking of me.

He’s asking to be the air I breathe. To not be able to survive my next breath without him.

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