Page 45 of Devil Mine

The fingers of one hand caress his jaw back and forth. The move is so simple but so dominatingly male, my body can’t help but react.

A thick five o’clock shadow adds a rough edge to his already dangerous appearance. I want to run my own fingers through that stubble and find out how bristly it is. I imagine his face between my legs, the scruff of his nascent beard abrading my thighs, making me even more sensitive.

In the darkness, I swear his tattoos move, dark tentacles undulating up his neck. His eyes shine like a black cat’s, the only parts of him that aren't completely void of life and color. He stares at me predatorily, unyielding and unapologetic in his perusal. His head falls back to rest against his chair as he rakes his eyes over every visible part of me.

Even through the phone, I can sense the volatile energy around him. It shifts and gets more charged the longer he stares at me.

The connection turns taut between us even as burning need swirls in my belly. Being aroused by him has become a part of my automatic nervous system, I’m incapable of controlling it.

That’s exactly what I’m running from.

“Amor,” he calls.

He might as well have whispered it right into my ear, his body pressed against my back and his hands on my throat for how much it affects me. If I wasn’t sitting on a chair, my knees would have given in.

But he’s a remorseless killer and I can’t lose sight of that, no matter how much my body tries to get my mind to submit.

“You have to know that attacking the people I love isn’t going to get you what you want.”

Instead of focusing on my point, his eyes flash in response.

“Who else do youlove?” he asks, his lip curling up in irritation and his features drawing down into a glare. “Names.”

“A little late to worry about that, isn’t it?” I answer suggestively.

Extra rich of him to give a shit when he’s pining after a dead woman while continuing to make my life hell.

His aura turns downright hostile. He sits forward, coming dangerously close to the camera.

“Dagny lived because I knew she’d lead me to you somehow,” he rasps ruthlessly, jaw so tense it looks ready to snap. “But if I find out you have a lover waiting in the wings for you,amor, I’ll feed him to my dogs for breakfast and make you watch.”

“You can’t control my life that way,” I exclaim.

He bares his teeth, standing now. I feel intimidated even though he’s sitting hundreds of miles away and isn’t actually in front of me.

“Yes, I can,” he growls. “Iownyou.”

“Nobody owns me.”

Thiago grabs a sheet of paper just off camera and holds it up for me to see. “This contract says I fucking do. I paid twenty million pounds for you.”

He sure keeps that paperwork close. I wonder if it enrages him every time he looks at it knowing that his investment is gallivanting across the world, running from him.

Bitterness simmers in my stomach being reminded of just how casually he bought me.

How easily my father sold me.

I blink back tears thinking about it and scoff derisively instead to cover my moment of weakness. “That’s it?”

His voice is perilously low when he responds.

“I was willing to pay a hundred times that,” he mutters. “But in what seems like a lifetime of stupid decisions, the biggest one your father made was letting you go for such a cheap price.”

I shrug my shoulders like it doesn’t matter and look away. “My father has never seen any value in my existence. Who cares how smart or capable I am? At the end of the day, I’m just a daughter. He was probably overjoyed that someone was willing to pay that much money for little old me,” I add acerbically. “I guarantee you he thinks he came out the winner in your deal.”

Thiago remains silent for so long that I flick my gaze back at him. When I do, I find him staring at me, eyes shining with keen interest. There’s something about his gaze that feels completely denuding, like he’s seeing past the surface and peeling back every layer to expose me to my core.

“Just because he doesn’t see how exceptional you are, doesn’t mean I don’t. It’s why I need you back.”

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