Page 15 of The Butcher

I felt the smile try to move into my jawline. “Damn, that backfired.”

“Yep.”

“Sorry about that.” I continued to smirk. “Well, not really…”

She chuckled, her cheeks reddening slightly.

“Maybe a second round would do the trick.”

“I don’t know,” she said with a sigh. “He said some shit, and I don’t think he was bluffing.”

“What kind of shit?” I asked, turning serious. “Did he threaten to hurt you?” Because I would cut his eyes out of his head and force him to eat both.

“No. I can say a lot of bad things about Adrien, but not that,” she said. “But I know he wouldn’t hesitate to hurt whoever I’m with.” She continued her work and avoided my gaze, like she assumed this information would bring our fling to a standstill.

“In that case, your place or mine?”

“Bastien, I don’t want to get you mixed up in my soap opera?—”

“Your place or mine, sweetheart?” I took a drink.

She stopped what she was doing. “He’s watching my place. That was how he figured out you were there.”

“So you didn’t tell him.”

“He beat me to the punch. But trust me, my fist was clenched.” She walked off to help the patron who came to the bar. Her back was to me, so I stared at her ass as she made the drink for the old man and charged it to his tab.

I lifted my eyes when she returned to me.

“Subtle.”

My fingers rested against my mouth, and I felt my lips rise in a smile. “Wondering if those handprints are still there.”

“They aren’t,” she said. “I checked…”

I remembered her tight ass in my grip, the flesh between my teeth, the velvet softness of her slick pussy, the way her hair clung to her neck when she got sweaty, how she begged me to come inside her like I was more than some guy she met in a bar. “I’m happy to give you a new set, sweetheart. All you have to do is ask.”

“Last time I wanted something, you made me beg for it.”

I was a man with a permanent scowl, but she made it impossible not to smile. If this was a volley without an end in sight, she was a worthy opponent. “And I’ll make you beg again—and again.”

She closed up the bar, and we stepped onto the curb. She wore a long coat and wrapped it around herself like she intended to walk home through the mist at two in the morning. “Are we walking?”

I texted my driver and slipped the phone back into my pocket. “No.”

The SUV pulled up a moment later, and I opened the back door so she could climb inside.

She hesitated, her carefree attitude suddenly gone when she saw a driver appear at my beck and call. But then she climbed into the back, and I got into the other seat. We were on the road, driving through the empty, wet streets to my residence in the 7th arrondissement, a three-story palace on the Seine next to the Eiffel Tower. It was close to Luxembourg Palace, where I spent a great deal of my time.

She was silent on the drive, her gaze focused out the window.

A short while later, the car pulled up to the front of my home, a building I owned entirely. It used to house several apartments, but I’d turned it into my private residence. It had its own gardens, an interior courtyard, its own secure entrance that couldn’t be accessed from the street, and it contained fifteen bedrooms and twelve bathrooms. I’d bought the property for a total of one hundred million, and the renovation had cost an additional twenty million. If she was acquainted with money, she would understand exactly how much of it I had.

When we pulled through the gate, her eyes widened slightly then quickly returned to normal, like she knew but was too classy to react outwardly.

We entered through the double doors and came into the foyer, fresh flowers in vases, artwork on the walls, chairs and sofas that no one had sat on since I’d moved in. Hallways branched off to different places, like the drawing room, the study, the grand dining room, the kitchens. All of those amenities were downstairs where the staff stayed.

I guided her to the stairs and went to the second and then the third floor. My primary bedroom had double doors, taking up the back part of the top floor, a space where an entire apartment had sat before I’d renovated the whole building.

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