Page 80 of Tamed

Ikept her up till nearly dawn, unable to get enough of her. It seemed the more I had, the more I wanted. She didn’t fight. She gave me everything I demanded, along with her own fierce hunger and passion and the sweetness of her surrender.

It was intoxicating. I’d had plenty of little subs at my beck and call, all of them desperate for my discipline. Yet I’d never had a little girl who only wanted me. Who trusted me not only with her body, but her soul as well, and I knew Isabel did.

I could see it in her eyes when I had her beneath me, when I was inside her with the tight wet heat of her pussy gripping me. She didn’t look away, staring at me as if I held the sun and moon and stars in the palm of my hand and was holding them out for her to take.

Maybe it was hero worship, maybe she was just cock drunk, but instinct told me it was more than that. That it was deeper.

My better self was urging me to call it off, that I needed to take into her account her feelings and that if I truly wanted to protect her from me, I had to distance myself. Yet it was too late for that. I’d crossed the line completely and there was no going back over it. I also wasn’t going to hurt her by changing my mind. Once I made a decision, I never went back on it.

Besides, the way she looked at me made me feel like a god. As if there was more than darkness at the heart of me, something that was worth looking at. A man who didn’t have a past built on violence and murder, on selfishness and greed. A man who was better.

Then there was that little piece of happiness I’d never expected to find again, that little piece of contentment. It was there, in her arms, and I wasn’t going to give that up. I couldn’t. I was too much of a selfish bastard and besides, she was mine now. Nothing would change that.

First up, Ten had to be told that his daughter was mine, and second, there was the issue of the Hamiltons to be dealt with.

Handling Ten, at least, was straightforward, though the consequences wouldn’t be. This would put our friendship on the line, no two ways about it. I could, of course, not tell him, but that wasn’t an option, nor was giving her up for his scruples. I had her trust. I had her surrender. I had some of the peace I’d been missing in my life, and it was too precious to throw away, and no bastard was going to take it from me, not even Ten.

When morning came, I left her sleeping, ordered security to keep an eye on her, told Sally I wouldn’t be in for a couple of hours, then I headed straight to Ten’s.

He lived in a Tribeca penthouse. With five bedrooms, massive kitchen, huge lounge area, an outdoor terrace with views out over the city, and stuffed full of Fox Tech smart home systems, it was nearly twenty million dollar’s worth of real estate.

He barely lived in it, spending most of his time in the Fox Tech offices in downtown Manhattan, though I knew he was home now because, miracle of fucking miracles, according to his secretary, he hadn’t come into work. He was apparently taking ‘a day off’.

Ten never took a day off, which meant something was up, but I wasn’t much in the mood to question what that something was today. I was too busy preparing myself for what was going to be a very unpleasant conversation.

I’d sent him a text to let him know I was coming, but he hadn’t responded. And when I got to his building, no one opened the door to my knock, not his housekeeper or even his security.

Annoyed, I called him and when I didn’t get an answer, I hit redial until finally he answered with a very annoyed, “What the fuck do you want?”

“I’m standing on your doorstep,” I said. “I need to talk to you ASAP so open the fucking door.”

He made an exasperated sound. “What about? I’m very busy at the—”

“It’s about Isabel.”

Instantly the phone went dead and ten seconds later the front door jerked open, Ten standing in the doorway.

Normally, he wore suits as uptight and rigid as he was, but today he was in jeans, a black T-shirt, and his feet bare, his black hair damp. He looked almost shockingly underdressed.

“Since when did you have that stick up your ass removed?” I asked as he stood aside to let me enter then shut the door behind me. “You could be on the beach in California.”

He ignored that, his blue eyes cold. “What about Isabel?”

This wasn’t going to be easy, but it had to be done, so I braced myself, preparing for the shit to hit the fan. “Isabel and I are together,” I said bluntly. “As in a relationship.”

Ten blinked. “A relationship? What kind of relationship?”

I said nothing, only looked at him, letting him work it out for himself. There was no point me giving him details. In fact, the fewer details he knew, the better.

“You can’t mean….” He stopped, his expression hardening, becoming forbidding. “You’d better not be saying what I think you’re saying.”

Again, I stayed silent. What else was there to say?

“Cal.” The forbidding expression gradually disappeared to be replaced by slow dawning shock — clearly it had never occurred to him that the kind of relationship Isabel and I had would ever bethatkind of relationship. “NotmyIsabel.”

“She’s not your Isabel anymore, Ten.” I held his gaze, letting him see the truth in it. “And she’s no longer your responsibility. She’s mine. In every sense of the word.”

There it was, finally, the fury igniting like a gas flame in his eyes. “No. No.” He took a step toward me, rage radiating from him. “Isabel? You andIsabel?”

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