Page 32 of Deserter

Her chin jutted up defiantly. “I’ll run the minute you leave this room.”

“Be my fuckin’ guest, but I gotta warn you that those men out there will not be as accommodating as I’ve been.”

She sank down onto the bed and primly folded her hands into her lap. “I can get you money.”

I shook my head. “I got money.”

“I won’t let you hurt me.”

I smirked. “Princess, what gave you the impression that you were in charge here? You’re here to pay a debt.”

Several tears splashed onto her cheeks, but she continued to glare at the wall. “If you would just let me contact my father, I can get you money… or drugs.”

“I have both. What else you got?”

“I don’t have anything else.”

I rocked back on the heels of my boots. “That’s what I thought. I’m taking my pound of flesh.”

Celia looked up at me. “I doubt you even know what that means.”

“It means your daddy fucked up.”

“It’s actually an allusion originating from Shakespeare’s play,Merchant of Venice. A money lender finances a fleet of ships for a merchant, but states in the contract that if anything happens to his ships, he’s owed a pound of the merchant’s flesh. Well, the ships are lost at sea.” She paused, as if realizing her outburst.

The princess was smart as fuck and as much as I hated to admit it, I wanted to know how her story ended. “And? You always start stories and refuse to finish them?”

She blinked in surprise. “Oh. Well, the money lender demands his pound of flesh, but the merchant gets off on a technicality. The contract stated that he could have a pound of flesh, but he wasn’t entitled to any of the merchant’s blood. Because it was impossible for the lender to obtain the flesh bloodlessly, the contract was void.”

“What if I told you that I was entitled to a pound of your blood too?”

The color drained from her face, but she kept her eyes focused on me. “You may get your pound of flesh, but you will never have my blood. You’ll never have my spirit—”

I leaned down until my mouth was inches from her face, growling, “I’ll take whatever I want from you and you’ll love every second of it. Anything you have belongs to me now and, unlike the merchant, you won’t find a way out of this contract.”

I slammed the bathroom door shut behind me, knowing that her ass would still be on the bed when I got out. She was feisty, I’d give her that. By the time she left here though, the spark would be gone.

I lathered up with the bar of soap and washed the remnants of the Black Hawk rally from my skin, taking my sweet ass time. Maybe the wait would make Celia more compliant.

Maybe it wouldn’t.

Either way, I was going to enjoy collecting what I was owed.

* * *

“You’re… you’re naked.” Celia’s eyes widened in alarm before she averted them to focus on the wood floor.

I toweled off my hair and beard with a grin as I walked over to the bed, dropping my clothes beside her feet. “Yeah, princess. That’s what people do when they shower.” I didn’t miss the way she took another peek at my dick when she thought I wasn’t looking.

“I’d like to go home now. Just take me home and we can forget this whole thing ever happened. I won’t tell anyone.”

“You’ve seen my face and unless they blindfolded you, you know where my club is. You think I’d just let you walk out of here with that information?”

“I—I won’t tell anyone; I swear to you.”

I dropped the towel and knelt in front of her. I even went as far as resting my forearms on her knees to really drive my next point home. I enjoyed seeing her try to keep her eyes off my dick. It hardened for the millionth time since laying eyes on her.

“What about this aren’t you getting? You’re not leaving until I get what I want. Your daddy made a deal and guess what? He didn’t hold up his end of the bargain. That’s where you come in. You’re the collateral.”

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