Page 28 of Devil Mine

She should be scared of how violent my lust is for her. I can’t promise I won’t hurt her when she does eventually submit to me.

“I’ve decided I will have you.”

She scoffs. “It’s not up to you. I’m not for sale, Thiago.”

Her use of my name is intentional. It’s meant to equalize us, to reduce me from violent killer and cartel leader down to just a man who might show her some mercy.

It does the opposite, because I don’t hear my name often and I’ve definitely never heard it lobbed at me with such venom before. I love it, that fire of hers. She unintentionally marks me as hers with my own name.

“Everyone has a price.”

“Not me.”

I face her and bury my hands deep in my pockets.

“Maybe you don’t,” I acquiesce. A slow, dark smile stretches my lips. “But we both know someone else who does, don’t we,amor?”

She blanches and I’m seconds away from coming in my trousers at the sight of her pale face losing all its color.

Her submission is going to taste so fucking sweet. I whistle, a shrill sound that pierces the air, and the doors open. “Let her through.”

I turn away and don’t watch as she leaves.

???

Arturo walks back into the room with Marco in tow. The expression on his face tells me he knows what I’m going to say before I even say it.

“Her,” I tell him. “I want her.”

???

Chapter Ten

Thiago

Aweek later, Alexander Noble picks up the phone and summons Tess to his office. I knew she was in residence when I forced my way into her home to meet with him, but I hadn’t wanted to see her until it was done.

Turns out the conversation with her father took less than ten minutes. He wasn’t given any choice in the matter, but he readily agreed to my proposition nonetheless. That selfish, narcissistic prick was more than happy to give me exactly what I wanted if it meant he wouldn’t die.

Even if it meant sacrificing his own daughter.

Tess walks in with a determined look on her face. She looks like she’s ready for battle when she can’t know what’s about to happen. She’s wearing a baby pink sweater, bell bottom jeans, and a pair of fluffy slippers. Out of her work clothes and evening gowns, she looks warm and comfortable.

Completely pluckable.

I haven’t seen her in a week and something slackens in my stomach at laying eyes on her again. I take note of my body’s reaction with dispassionate interest.

Now that I know the perky tits she has hidden underneath all that cashmere, I want to rip it off her with my teeth.

“You rang, Father?”

She finally spots me standing arms crossed in the far corner of his office and her expression grows first alarmed, then wary. Heat splashes across her cheeks, whether out of surprise or arousal, I’m not sure. She narrows her eyes on me, seeming to forget that her father is still in the room with us.

That is, until he speaks.

“Congratulations, you’re getting married,” Alex declares.

The announcement has her head whipping back around to look at her father.

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