I’ve always known my Snowflake has claws. No one else sees past the good girl exterior to the lioness beneath. She’s been overlooked and underestimated her entire life, but not anymore. Being with me will give her the strength to be the woman she was always meant to be. She’ll no longer stand in her sibling’s shadow, instead she’ll be by my side, exactly where she belongs.
Fire flames to life in her eyes as she stares at the phone in my hand. I’ll be honest, I planned for a lot of different eventualities when she made this call, but her getting mad at Storm for telling her what she can and can’t do is not one I expected.
“Snow—” he starts.
“No. You listen to me, Storm. I’m an adult. I am completely capable of making my own decisions.” She pauses, and her eyes move to mine, anxiety playing behind the pools of blue. She’s trying to decide the answer to an age-old question, is she better off with the devil she knows, or the one she doesn’t? “If I was dating a normal guy who didn’t understand the safety implications, then I would understand your stance, but if there’s one person in this whole fucking city that gets it, it’s Elijah.”
We stare at one another as the silence drags out. She doesn’t want to be here, that much she has made abundantly clear in the short time she’s been here, but if the anger flickering in her eyes is anything to go by, I don’t think she wants to be at the estate either. Which is a good thing because that’s no longer her home. Her home is here with me, and that’s a reality she’s going to have to get on board with relatively quickly. I’m not a patient man, and my allowances for her outbursts are only limited.
Storm sighs on the other end of the line. “Fine, you can stay there for a while longer. But you will be coming home.”
“This is her home now,” I say and can’t help but smirk at the anger that flares to life in her eyes at my words.
“No, it’s fucking not,” Storm snaps. “I’m trying really fucking hard to be understanding, but don’t fucking test me. I will not hesitate to put you in the ground beside your father and uncles.” Menace drips from his words, but I can’t shake my smile.
“I’ll come home when I’m ready to,” Snow offers.
My smile falters and I glare at her, but she just shrugs, turning her attention back to the phone in my hand.
“Is that her?” Wynter’s voice fills the other end of the line and then a moment later there’s an obvious change in hands. “Snow?”
Snow squeezes her eyes shut, tears pooling at the brim. Talking to Storm was one thing, but her sister is her best friend, lying to her is an entirely different thing altogether. “Hey Wyn.” She forces the words out through thick emotion.
“Are you okay? We’ve been really worried.”
“I’m fine, I’m… with Elijah.” My name on her lips is like a fucking symphony. All these years I’ve dreamed of how it would sound in her sweet voice, but every time she says it, my cock gets impossibly harder.
“Elijah Russo?”
“Yes.”
Wynter doesn’t respond for a few moments, and I imagine her and Storm having a silent conversation. “When are you coming home? I have some news.”
Snow’s eyes lock with mine, question dancing behind them. She knows she’s not getting out of here without my say-so, and I hold all the cards right now. “I’m not sure at the moment. Can you tell me over the phone?”
“Not this kind of news. That’s okay. I’ll hold off until I can see you. Just don’t scare me like that again!”
I give Snow a nod, and she lets out a little sigh of relief.
“I won’t, I promise.”
“Elijah,” Wynter chimes.
“Yes, Wynter.”
“If you so much as lay a hand on my sister that she doesn’t want, I promise I won’t miss when I shoot you this time.”
I chuckle. While I’ve always been obsessed with the youngest Saint James, I can see what my cousin sees in her. “I understand.”
We say our goodbyes and when the line goes dead, Snow stares at me, unasked questions floating across her gaze. She doesn’t understand why any of this is happening, and to be fair, I haven’t offered her any answers.
“Why am I here, Elijah? Are you sure this isn’t some fucked up way to get back at my brothers? Because I’m not going to be a pawn between you and my family.” She crosses her arms across her chest defiantly. Her knees brush against mine, the contact making me want to bend her over the table and fuck her until she can’t breathe without feeling me.
“I already explained this, Snow. You’re here because you’re mine. You’ve been mine for a long time, and you will continue to be mine from now on.”
“Don’t I get a say in this at all?”
“No.”
“So you’re just as bad as my brothers then? I’ve just been moved from one prison to another, is that it?”
I growl, my patience wearing thin. She’s pushing my buttons, and she fucking knows it. Before she can think to move, I rise from my chair and bend until our faces are only an inch apart. Her nervous breath whispers across my cheek and I swallow down the groan that claws its way up my throat. I promised myself I wouldn’t force anything on her, that while I’m a monster, I don’t want to be that kind of monster, but I underestimated how fucking hard it would be to be close to her.
“Right now, you might feel like a prisoner, but I don’t trust you at the moment. If you want freedom, you’ll have to earn it. You’ll have to show me you’re not going to run back to your family and tell them I took you against your will. You’ll have to prove to me you’re not going to run from me.”
She lets out a nervous breath as if having me so close has taken the anger from her body and replaced it with fear. “Why?”
“Why are you mine?”
She nods in response, and I reach forward to brush my thumb across her cheek. The softness beneath the pad is intoxicating, but then I always knew she was going to be impossibly soft. An angel tainted by my darkness.
“Because the first time I laid eyes on you, I knew you belonged with me. Everything I’ve done for the last ten years has been to get ready for a time when I could have you, and now you’re here, you’re not going anywhere.” I push off the chair and stalk away from her. The longer I spend breathing the same air as her, the more likely I am to do something I shouldn’t.
Snow’s chair scrapes back across the floorboards as she follows me. “So, you’ve decided that I’m yours. You’ve decided I’m going to spend my life with you, but what if that’s not what I want? Are you going to take me against my will? Because that’s the only way you’re ever touching me.”
My head snaps around and before either of us realizes what I’m doing, I’m backing her into a wall, knocking the wind out of her lungs on impact. I press my body against hers, making sure to angle my cock against her belly so she knows how her fire affects me. I wrap my tattooed hand around her neck and almost groan at the sight. Good and evil. Light and dark. An angel and her devil. That’s what we are together, and what we’ll always be. I tighten my hand just enough that she can drag in a breath, but she can’t speak. What I have to say to her doesn’t require a response.
“Make no mistake, Snowflake. This is happening. You are my woman, and you are going to be my woman for the rest of our lives. There’s no running from me, because I’ll fucking find you no matter where you go. There isn’t enough money or power on this earth that could keep me away from you. I’m not going to take you against your will. I’m going to tease and deny you, and when you can’t take it anymore, you’re going to beg for me to fuck you. You’re going to beg for me to take away the ache, and the moment you beg, the moment those words leave your pretty red lips, you’ll have made a deal with the devil.”
I tear my body from hers before she can respond and walk straight out of the dining room toward my office. She got under my skin. But then I expected that. That’s what Snow Saint James does, but this time it will be her own downfall.
