LEROI
Seraphine gapes up at me, her lips parted, and her eyes wide. Even though the lights are dim, I can still see her cheeks darkening with a blush.
“Wh-what?” she whispers.
I raise my brows, expecting her to say she sleepwalked or was lying here in wait to ambush me for refusing her advances, but her face crumples.
“Every time I close my eyes, I see my past. I couldn’t sleep last night after Pietro, and I needed to rest.” She shudders. “I had nowhere else to go.”
“And the clothes?”
“My skin started crawling after Julio.” She bows her head. “The only thing I could tolerate were your silk sheets.”
I can’t even tell if this is bullshit because I don’t know how she’s still functioning after five years of captivity, murder, and abuse. Anyone else might turn to substances to cope, but Seraphine’s strength is incredible.
“Do you want to take a break from the killing?” I ask. Paolo Rochas is waiting for her beneath the warehouse. I don’t want to keep him without water for too long. A weak, dehydrated hostage isn’t the most coherent.
“No.” She clutches my shirt.
“I could interrogate them myself and—”
“No,” she shrieks. “I need to slay all the ones that are left alive. It’s the only way.”
“Only way to do what?”
“Only two things kept me going when I was in the basement. The first was the hope of getting to make them scream. The second was chocolate.”
“Chocolate?”
She nods. “I’ve always wanted my own chocolate fountain.”
My head throbs. Such a simple request, but I’m deathly allergic. I can’t afford to go near it and lose my edge. “Fine. I won’t leave you out.”
“Where did you go?” she asks. “You were gone for hours.”
Guilt claws at my frayed heartstrings. “I was hunting Paolo Rochas.”
“Did you kill him?”
“No.” I toe off my shoes and scoot down the bed, so Seraphine can adjust to an easier angle. “We put him somewhere safe, where he can’t escape.”
She exhales, her smaller body relaxing against mine. “Did you take Miko?”
“He’s the one who tracks them down. It’s faster if he comes along on missions.”
Seraphine falls silent, her breathing slowing. I shift on the mattress, trying to make myself comfortable because she doesn’t plan on letting me go. It’s best to sleep beside her fully-clothed because the thought of her naked body against my skin sends my libido in a dangerous direction.
“Leroi?”
“What?”
“Stop leaving me behind. I can’t be alone with my thoughts.”
My chest constricts. I press another kiss on her temple. “Alright.”
“Thank you,” she says, her voice barely a whisper.
I don’t reply. If I had taken the time to turn over the man I shot in Samson’s bedroom, I would have known he was still alive. The outcome might have still been the same, but there’s a chance that I could have caught Samson while he was hiding out at his fiancée’s house.
My jaw clenches at the memory of sneaking into Joseph Di Marco’s bedroom, completely oblivious that Samson was close by. Now, I’ve driven him underground. It’s only a matter of time before he realizes that the hitman he hired to take out his family’s murderer is one and the same.
I clear my thoughts and force myself into a meditative state. If I can’t fall asleep, then I may as well put my mind to rest. Seraphine can’t confront another of those guards who assaulted her mother without some kind of intervention. Even if she claims she’s unaffected by these killings, it’s only a matter of time before she breaks.
I’ll protect her from the ghosts of her past, and I’ll protect her from danger, even if that danger is herself.
Hours later, sunlight warms my closed eyelids, and strawberry shampoo tickles my nostrils. A soft hand slides over my bare chest. It rubs slow circles on one pec before moving onto the other. The gentle touches pull me out of sleep, and I’m aware that the hand is sliding down my abs.
I’m still in that state between sleep and wakefulness when a finger circles my belly button before traveling down the trail of hair that leads to my aching cock.
This is entirely inappropriate, and there’s a five percent chance that this is just a dream. Too relaxed to move, I cling to those small odds.
Less than twenty-four hours ago, I kissed her without permission then I buried my face between her thighs and ate that sweet pussy until she came apart on my tongue.
If she wants to touch my chest, I won’t complain.
My morning erection is strangled by the tightness of my boxers and jeans. Each gentle stroke she makes on my skin infuses my veins with an electric current.
Her fingers skim lower, awakening the last shreds of my morality. This is wrong. I should stop her before she escalates. I should end this pretense of slumber before I become trapped beneath her with another knife to my balls.
“Let me take off your pants,” she whispers, her fingers brushing over the fine hairs on my abdomen. “Please?”
“Behave yourself,” I growl.
She pulls back her hand.
I crack open an eye.
She lies wedged against my side, still naked. My shirt is missing, presumably tossed on the floor.
“Is this what you do to people while they’re asleep?” I ask with a raised brow. “Undress them?”
She scowls. “You said I could.”
I scoff.
“How do you think I took off that long-sleeved shirt? You helped.”
My brows pull together. Seraphine isn’t strong enough to roll me over, raise my arms above my head, and remove my shirt without my cooperation, but I would have remembered undressing for her.
“I asked for permission,” she adds, sounding petulant.
That sounds oddly familiar. She did ask to take off my pants, and she stopped when I didn’t agree. Groaning, I run my fingers through my hair, not believing there’s a part of me that wants her to get me naked.
“What was your end game?” I ask.
“What do you mean?”
“If I had let you pull down my pants, what would have come next?”
She hesitates.
I turn around to look her full in the face.
She shrinks back, her cheeks flushed, the pretty pink shade spreading down her neck and across her breasts. Fuck. She looks so sweet and vulnerable that I feel like a dog for letting her sleep in my bed.
Questions burn in the back of my mind, but they’re all inappropriate. I want to know if she had a boyfriend before she became a captive, but it’s none of my goddamned business. She was a child, and anything that happened after that wasn’t with her consent.
Despite knowing this, I ask anyway, “Am I the first man you’ve gotten close to that you haven’t wanted to kill?”
“Who says I don’t want to kill you?” she asks with a huff. “You’re always blowing hot and cold, then breaking your own rules. It’s infuriating.”
I hold back a smile and keep my features even. “Want to say that again?”
“What?” she asks, sounding petulant.
My brow hikes even further to my hairline.
She looks away, her cheeks still flushed. “Nothing.”
I crack my neck, roll my shoulders, and remind myself that Seraphine isn’t a brat in the truest sense. She’s experienced more trauma than I can even comprehend. If she’s acting up, I have to treat her with compassion.
And a firm hand.
She shifts on the mattress, her fingers twisting around each other to form knots. “You’re the first man I’ve ever wanted.” She takes a deep breath and stares up at the ceiling. “Before you, I’d never been attracted to anyone.”
My breath hitches.
She turns to me and asks, “Is that wrong?”
“It’s normal to have feelings for someone who pulled you out of a terrible situation,” I say, my words measured. “I’m also helping you learn to control your impulses, making me a teacher, but I’m still holding you captive.”
She huffs a bitter laugh. “I haven’t got hero worship syndrome, teacher’s pet syndrome, or Stockholm syndrome. Can’t you just accept that I think you’re hot and you give me orgasms?”
Pressure builds up between my eyes and I curl my hands into fists. She’s making some excellent points. “Seraphine,” I say with a sigh. “It’s just a crush. I’m the only man you’ve met in half a decade who hasn’t tried to abuse you.”
“How do you explain your near constant erections?”
My jaw clenches. She’s got me there.
“I know you want me, too.” She shifts on the mattress and closes the distance between us. “I’ve seen the way you look at me and all the things you say when you’re giving me my rewards. You want me, too.”
“That’s irrelevant,” I growl.
“Why?”
“If I gave into every intrusive thought or desire, I would never have survived past the age of twenty-five.”
Her eyes harden. “Is it because I killed your friends?”
“Of course not.” I pinch the bridge of my nose.
“Then why not?”
“Time is running out. If Samson works out your location and who you’re hiding with, he’ll rally every Capello enforcer and lieutenant to our door. You need to forget about fucking me and focus on finding that bastard before he can pull together a plan of attack.”
Her nostrils flare, and she jerks away.
I use the lull in our conversation to slip out of the bed. “We’re going to train today before our meeting with Paolo Rochas. When I return from the shower, I expect to see you dressed.”
Seraphine remains silent as I head toward the bathroom. I make a mental note to ask Miko if he’s got any more leads on the location of Gabriel. Seraphine needs more than closure. She needs love. Only, that’s something I can’t provide.
