Page 45 of Tyrant (The Villetti Chronicles)

“Don’t stop, please,” she gasped, her voice all breathy and wanton.

I pinned her to the wall and captured her face with both hands, pressing my mouth back on hers. If I stopped, reality would come flooding back, and I wasn’t ready for it. The only thing I could see and feel right now was her. It was all I wanted. To stop denying myself this insane urge to own every part of this frustrating girl.

“Mine,” I growled against her lips. “You’re fucking mine.”

“Zayn,” she whimpered, a sound I swallowed because it drove me crazy to hear her say my name with such desperation.

My pulse pounded in my ears, urging me to slide my hands all over her body. To see if she was wet for me. Judging by the way she was trying to get closer, even though there was already no room between us, she clearly wanted this. Had last night really just been about her wanting me to save her father?

The thought brought me up short. I pulled away abruptly, panting as I stared down at the wide-eyed girl with swollen lips, breathing just as heavily as me. She’d always been beautiful, but right then, Ari was the most stunning person I’d ever laid eyes on. And by fuck did I want to make her mine in every possible way I could.

“Why’d you stop?”

I stepped back, leaving her against the wall. She shifted on her feet but stayed where she was.

“That shouldn’t have happened.”

The words were like fucking razor blades in my throat, but I had to say them. Kissing her wasn’t part of the plan. I couldn’t get intimately involved with Arianna. Not in the way I wanted to. The mere thought of what I’d have to do to make it safe for her to be mine was a difficult pill to swallow. Having Arianna by my side would mean going against our families. Both of them. And my father was not a man you wanted to make into an enemy.

It killed me to see the confusion in her eyes. Did she not realise this couldn’t happen? I wasn’t being cruel or unkind, but in my world, you didn’t get to make daughters of petty gang leaders yours. I wasn’t going to insult Ari by making her some kind of mistress to me. A girl I fucked and kept hidden in the shadows. She didn’t deserve that, and I refused to be the kind of man my father was.

“Why not?”

“Are you really asking me that?”

“Yes, I am.”

I ran a hand through my hair, frustrated she was making me spell it out for her.

“This is not a part of our deal, and you’re too young for me. I’m almost your father’s age, not to mention I’m in business with him and he would likely want to gut me for touching you. Kissing you was wrong.”

She let out an indignant squeak.

“I kissed you first! And I’m more than old enough to choose who the fuck I go around kissing, with or without my dad’s approval, thank you very much.”

“That’s beside the point.”

She shook her head and glared at me.

“I don’t care how old you are. Hell, you could be fifty, wouldn’t change a single damn thing. I’d still want you.”

I swear my heart just about stopped hearing her say that.

“You what?”

“I want you.”

She couldn’t possibly mean that after telling me she hated me. What the fuck was happening? I mean, she’d kissed me, but it didn’t mean shit, did it? This was a mess. I was a fucking mess after our kiss. I needed to get my shit straight and I couldn’t do it when she was staring at me with those chestnut eyes so full of emotions I didn’t want to see.

I reached out and grabbed a hold of her arm, tugging her with me towards the door.

“No, you don’t,” I ground out.

She struggled against my hold, but it’s not like she could do much with her hands behind her back.

“You don’t get to tell me what I do and don’t want, Zayn.”

“It’s sir to you.”

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