Page 51 of Where the Wicked Reign

I put my phone down and sank against the wall of the empty warehouse. I was still wrapping my head around this entire thing.

“You and Nico are to marry.”

The moment Julian had uttered those words, they had sent a shudder through me.

The forced nature of it and being basically traded like that was bad enough, but I was also a loner. I didn’t do partnerships, especially not something as intimate as marriage. This mission with the hostages was a one-off and created by necessity. Nothing more.

As if Nico showing up in my penthouse and us… doing what we had… hadn’t been enough of a mind-fuck as it was.

Fortunately, I had a gift for adapting to things and pivoting when necessary, so I’d recognized the opportunity in it.

Bringing them in on this operation, for instance.

It served several purposes.

The first was obviously rescuing those hostages and destroying my father’s human trafficking venture.

The second was that if the boys worked with me as I was hoping, we’d be bound together through this, through going against the families by doing this, meaning I’d have allies. It was something I’d need in order to survive this marriage situation until more could be done about it. Until I weakened my father further to a point where I could escape from it without losing everything I’d worked for and built in the process.

The third was that I’d get to analyze Julian and Emilio more through the planning, execution, and aftermath of the operation. You could learn a great deal about people in high-stakes situations, much faster than under any other circumstances.

Now all I had to do was to keep my wits about me and maintain my focus on the upcoming operation.

Well, and be able to work in a team format, rather than as my usual lone wolf self.

“You can let go, principessa.”

I dug my nails into his pecs, and it earned me a sexy groan.

Groaning was going to be the least of it.

I proved that in the next moment as I raked my nails down the length of his chest, over his abs, all the way down to the waistband of his pants, drawing blood all the way down as I dug in deep.

“Fuck,” he cried out, grasping my thighs and grinding his very hard cock beneath the hem of my slip, right against my bare pussy.

Pleasure ignited there, but it was intensified by seeing his reaction to my viciousness. He wasn’t shocked. He wasn’t disgusted. He wasn’t turned off in the least.

He didn’t just want it. He encouraged it.

Yeah, keeping my focus just on the business at hand might be easier said than done.

The memory of him all over me, of how much I’d not only wanted it, but needed that from him, to let go so completely, had been haunting me over the last few days.

As much as I’d tried to bury it, it just kept stubbornly rising up.

That wasn’t helped in the next moment when he rounded the corner and strode into the empty storage unit warehouse space. Well, mostly empty.

He was wearing a pair of black jeans that clung to those muscular thighs of his in the best way and instead of his usual leather jacket; he had on a zipped up hoodie, the hood up and hiding most of his facial features. He’d definitely done the whole incognito thing well. I would have had to do a double take if he hadn’t already messaged me that he’d be arriving at this exact time.

He flipped his hood down as he stopped just a couple of feet from me, revealing all that gorgeous silky black hair of his, and those enthralling sapphire eyes.Stop it, jeez.

“Nice space you’ve got here,” he said, gesturing around at the storage units just beyond the large opening, the units positioned in several rows and extending all the way to the back of the massive warehouse.

“It has its purpose.”

“And what might that be? Beyond a covert meeting space, of course.”

“All in good time.”

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