Her eyes flare with admission, but I can already see her lips forming the lie. “That… that’s not true…”
“No?” I ask, stroking the back of my fingers against her cheek.
She trembles. Behind all the fear, her pupils are dilated. Her nipples are hard. I know beyond the shred of a doubt that, if I dip my hand into her panties, I’ll find she’s wet for me.
“Your body gives you away, Olivia.”
“I don’t want you.”
“Say it again,” I taunt her. “Say it like you mean it.”
Her eyes go wide, desperate. She tries to push me off her, but I’ve got my chest pressed tight against hers. I can feel the soft peaks of her breasts. My cock stiffens.
I imagine the way she looked pressed up against that bathroom sink, her nipples bare, her pussy exposed. That intense, ravenous expression in her eyes.
She was scared then, just like she is now, but this time, the stakes are higher. This time, there’s shame attached to every dirty thought she’s had about me since the moment I ruined her life.
I’m perfectly fine with that. Shame never bothered me much.
“Do you make a habit of seducing unsuspecting women?” she asks.
“Only when I have a reason to.”
“What reason did you have for seducing Isabella?”
“Now I’ve seduced her and kidnapped her?” I shake my head, exhaling impatiently. “For fuck’s sake, the Lawrence family does not know how to listen. Your brother has it all wrong.”
“He wouldn’t have started the investigation without a lead.”
“Facts can be manipulated, Olivia. Lies presented as truth. Not everything you hear is valid.”
“In this case, I think it’s pretty damn valid,” she hisses. “You took me, after all. You wouldn’t have done that without good reason. I want to know why you did it to her.”
“Why don’t you tell me?” I suggest. “Let’s hear your conspiracy theories.”
“Maybe she saw something she shouldn’t have,” she says, guessing wildly. “Maybe she was important to an enemy of yours and you wanted revenge. Maybe she was just beautiful and you decided you wanted her, even if she said no.”
I raise my eyebrows. “You think I’m a rapist?”
“You said you’d committed heinous crimes. Am I supposed to know that you have favorites?”
I tighten my grip on her and her breathing hitches. “If there’s only one thing you choose to believe about me, believe this: I am no fucking rapist. I don’t have to take what isn’t given to me. By the time I’m done with a woman, she comes willingly. God knows you did. Several times.”
Her expression twists into darkness. “You bastard.”
I press my nose to the nape of her neck and trace a line up to her cheek. She smells like cotton and butter. Homely, warm scents that bring to mind fireplaces in winter, blue oceans in summer. Nothing like the women I’m used to.
“You like that about me, don’t you?” I murmur in her ear.
I release her, but I make sure to keep my hands on either side of the wall, trapping her between them. I’m not touching her anymore and my cock is already irritated with me for that sad little fact.
“Like what?”
“You like that I’m a bastard,” I say. “You like that I’m dangerous. You like that you have so, so much to lose with me.”
“That’s—”
“The truth,” I say, cutting her off. “Women are all the same. They say they want dependable, they want safe. But it doesn’t hold their attention for long.”
“That’s not true.”
“No?” I ask, giving her a knowing smile. “Let’s see: your last relationship lasted scarcely nine months. He designed software for gaming companies. Enjoyed brewing craft beer in his free time. How deliciously exciting.”
She gapes at me in shock. “You’ve been digging around in my past?”
“I make it my business to know things. Especially things I own.”
She shakes her head, not taking that bait. “What did you do to him?”
“Do to him?” I scoff. “As if your boring fucking ex-boyfriend was worth a fraction of my time. He wasn’t worth yours, either.”
“I’d rather have him than you,” she spits.
I smile and push myself off the wall, then take a few steps back, putting some space between us. My cock is definitely not happy, but I ignore that and focus on the larger point.
“Would you, Olivia?”
Her eyes glide down my body. She tries to control the instinct, but she fails miserably. And by the time she’s averted her gaze, I’ve already noticed.
I tilt my head to the side. “How was he in bed?”
She looks instantly mortified. “I am not answering that question.”
“Let me take a wild guess: he probably didn’t fuck you until the fifth or sixth date, am I right?” I ask. “And even when he did, he probably didn’t fuck you at all. I bet he tried to make love to you. Tell me—was that satisfying? Did it make your toes curl? Did it make your eyes roll back in your head? Did you moan his name?”
She looks down, her cheeks flushing with color. “I don’t want to talk about this.”
I feel like a kid with a new toy. There’s something about this woman—I want to push all her buttons and watch her explode. She’s so reserved, so turned in on herself, that I want to see what happens when I rip her wide open.
“Because you’re embarrassed about what you settled for?”
“Lionel was a good guy,” she says defensively. “He… he treated me well.”
“Pity it ended so quickly, then.”
She narrows her eyes at me. She knows I see right through her bullshit. “So he was a little boring. Who cares? It doesn’t mean I want a man who treats me like crap.”
“What about a man who is your equal?”
“Are you implying that’s you?”
“Not at all. I have no interest in being anything to you. I’m simply curious.”
The fact that I’m curious at all is unprecedented, but that is lost on Olivia. It doesn’t matter. I can have my fun with her and deal with her brother at the same time.
Two birds. One stone.
“He was twice the man you are,” she snarls.
“He was half the man on his best day that I am on my worst. And besides—if he was so impressive, why aren’t you with him anymore?”
“I… decided to focus on my career,” she stammers in the most transparent lie that’s ever been told. “Anyway, what about you? What happened to your last relationship? Did she just decide she doesn’t like murderers?”
I laugh at that one. “What makes you think I want a relationship?” I saunter a little closer to her again. “I can have any woman I want, Olivia. What would I do with a commitment I don’t intend to keep?”
“See,” she says, “that’s one thing Lionel has over you. You may be bigger and stronger and richer. But he’s kind. Honest. Loyal. He’s capable of commitment.”
“Yet you broke up with him,” I point out. “And then you fucked me in an airplane bathroom.”
She goes bright red once more and looks away from me. She’s so self-conscious all the time. All it would take is for me to bend her over now and fuck her until she realizes that there’s no point to self-doubt. No purpose for awkwardness.
The only thing to do is give in.
“I… I was trying to do something… something…”
“That made you feel alive,” I fill in. “You wanted to know how it felt to come undone. And I showed you, didn’t I?”
I can see it written on her face: her emotion is getting the best of her. She’s regretting asking to talk to me. She just wants to be alone now, to reflect on her life, her choices. The ones that led her here and the ones she never got the chance to make.
“My family means the world to me, Aleks,” she says softly. “They’re the ones that make me feel alive. I… wouldn’t know what to do if something were to happen to them. Just, please… promise me they’ll be okay.”
I touch my fingers to her jaw and push her chin up so she’s forced to meet my eyes. “I don’t make promises I can’t keep, Olivia.”
She whimpers. “My brother’s a good man. He’s spent his whole life doing the right thing. Following the rules, upholding the law.”
“The law?” I repeat. “The laws are made by the very men who break them, Olivia. He’s wasted his life following a bunch of rules that were never intended to help anyone in the first place.”
“Fine,” she says in defeat. “Let’s say that’s true. What about kindness? Isn’t that worth something?”
“You expect me to go easy on your brother because you believe he’s a good man?” I laugh. “A good person?”
“He is.”
“And I suppose in your world, the hero always wins and the villain gets his just desserts?”
She shakes her head. “No, not that. I stopped believing in fairytales when my father died. There’s no happy ending without him.”
That takes me by surprise. I raise my eyebrows, staring at the loss etched across her face.
I have a thick file on the Lawrence family sitting in my desk drawer as we speak. That file told me that Bradley Lawrence died more than seven years ago. Olivia would’ve been a teen then. So much time has passed.
And yet the loss is still fresh. The raw pain boils in Olivia’s eyes, scalding.
“Your father is dead, Olivia. What’s the point in acting like you are, too?”
“He… he was our rock,” she murmurs without looking up. “And when he passed, Rob became that rock for us.”
I nod. “Exactly. Then you wouldn’t want to lose him, too, would you?”
She recognizes the threat in my voice. Her jaw trembles. She raises her gaze up at me, her hazel eyes going round with fear. “Would you really kill him?”
“I think we’ve already established that I will do whatever I need to do to protect my interests. And what’s more, I will get away with it.”
“Let me talk to Rob,” she tries again. “I’ll tell him to recuse himself from the investigation. I… I can solve this.”
I shake my head. “That won’t be enough. He has to end the investigation. Otherwise, some other agent will be assigned to it, and this cycle will begin anew.”
“But… but… but…”
I turn away from her and head back to my desk. “You’ll get a phone call with your brother when I feel it’s necessary. For right now, it’s not.”
“But—”
“You can go back to your room now.”
She breaks off mid-sentence, her expression twisting with failure. “That’s it?”
“That’s it.”
She lunges towards me and seizes my arm. “You can’t do this.”
I look down at her grip. It’s not remotely strong, but at least it’s determined. Her fingers tremble the longer I keep my gaze on her hand.
“Actually,” I say slowly, “I can do anything I fucking want.”
“Well, I’m not leaving.”
I raise my eyebrows. “Did you come here for your brother, Olivia? Or did you come here for me?”
She frowns. “I… what?”
“You crave danger, Olivia, even if you refuse to admit it. You’ve suppressed your instincts for so long that you’ve forgotten you have them at all. But I see you. I see all of you.”
I can see my words hitting her. She twists them around in her head, trying to deny them.
I take the moment to grab her suddenly. She gasps, her arms coming instinctively around my shoulders. I pick her up and set her down on my desk, wedging myself between her legs. I don’t even have to push them open. They part for me willingly.
“No,” she whispers, pushing me away so weakly that I laugh in her face. “This is not what I want…”
I ignore her words. They’re meaningless. Her body tells me the true story.
I unzip her pants and shove my hand inside. She gasps in shock, but she makes no real effort to stop me. That’s all the confirmation I need.
The moment my fingers find her pussy, she cries out.
“I was right: you’re soaking wet.”
She bites down on her bottom lip, unable to deny or justify her body’s betrayal.
“I wonder what your brother will think of that?” I ponder.
She shakes her head. “No! Please… don’t tell him.”
The innocence with which she utters that fervent plea almost makes me smile. “That depends on your behavior over the next few weeks.”
“Weeks?” she gasps.
I move my fingers inside her, and she gasps again, her knuckles going white as she clings to the edges of my desk.
In the airplane bathroom, I didn’t get to see the war on her face quite like this. But now, I can see it clearly…
She wants me so bad she can hardly breathe.
And she doesn’t trust herself not to give into that impulse again and again and again.
So I make the choice for her.
“Go up to your room, Olivia,” I tell her in a sigh. “Get in bed, pull down your panties, and make yourself come.”
I pull my fingers out of her. A low whimper escapes her lips.
“I don’t have to tell you to think of me when you do,” I say. “I already know you will.”
