25
The dull yellow light glowing overhead made Emma’s curls seem even more golden. It made her eyes even greener as they expanded to twice their size in response to the sight before her. It made her already milky skin lose even more color until her cheeks were ashen white. Her chin and lips took on a tremor as her wide eyes flew back and forth between the two steel cages in the dark basement of the palatial Ali estate. In one cage was a naked man who shook almost as badly as she did, his teeth chattering in time with hers. In the other, a python, slowly slithering through the small door that separated the two cages. A door that one of Malik’s goons had just opened up, seconds earlier.
The naked man leaped when the twenty-foot naked snake called Princess slid her massive body into his cage and slowly lifted her head and recoiled back, causing her body to morph into several S shapes.
When the snake struck, both Emma and the man gave a primal scream. Emma looked away from the sight, her heavy gasps swelling her chest and flaring her nostrils.
“No!” Malik’s harsh, whispered voice came in from where he was crouched behind her, followed by his hand, which he used to seize her jaw under a grip so tight it made sinkholes in her cheeks, forcing her tear-filled eyes back toward the cages. “Look.”
The tears in her eyes made her vision blurry, but Emma could still see that the man had escaped the snake’s first strike and was now scurrying all over the cage in fear, which only seemed to agitate Princess even more, her head still reared back, preparing for strike number two.
“See, that man in there?” Malik’s whispered voice warmed her ear once more. “He’s a bloody rat. Do you know what a rat is, Emma?”
The first tear jetted down her cheek and soaked into his palm where he still clutched her jaw. Still gasping, her every breath ragged with a lump blocking her throat, all Emma could do was nod.
“Well, just like a real rat, a human rat is one of the most contemptible living creatures on the face of the Earth. The type of creature who’ll do anything to survive. Even if it means betraying their friends and the people they love.”
Princess struck again, sinking her razor sharp teeth into the man’s neck and bringing him to his knees.
Another tear jetted from Emma’s wide eyes as the man screamed for his life.
“Are you a rat, Emma?” Malik asked.
She shook her head rapidly as the man’s screams moved to wails, his broken voice begging for mercy as Princess bit in deep, causing his body to convulse as she wrapped herself slowly around his writhing form until every inch of her body had encased his.
And then, she clenched.
Emma gasped at the sound of his bones breaking under the squeeze.
In turn, Malik squeezed her cheeks harder. “Do you love me?”
Emma hesitated, her gleaming eyes now almost entranced as she watched the man wheezing for air, as Princess’s scales pulsed down her body, stealing every inch of life from him. Even as a cold chill raced down Emma’s spine, making the hairs on her neck stand tall, she nodded.
“Say the words,” Malik said.
“I love you, Papa,” she wheezed, her voice almost as weak as the man’s as he managed one last, croaking plea for his life.
Then, his eyes fell closed, and Princess opened her mouth wide over his head, engulfing him in seconds.
Emma cringed, her rapidly beating heart nearly exploding from her chest as Princess glided over her dinner. Emma held her breath, her stomach going rock hard.
When Malik released her cheeks, took her shoulders and turned her body to face him, Emma’s gaze was still locked to the cage. Too shocked now to tear her eyes away.
Malik took hold of her jaw once more and made her look at him.
“I love you too, my darling,” he said, brushing her fallen tears away before tucking her curls behind her ears. “I’d hate to discover you really are a rat when your birthday is coming so soon. All the gifts and surprises I had planned… ruined. Do you want that?”
Emma shook her head.
He smiled, moving his hands to her waist. “Is Mia the one who gave you the book I found under your pillow?”
Emma searched his eyes, pressing her lips together.
“I know she did, but I admire that you’re not willing to tattle on her. That proves you really are loyal. I understand she’s your friend and you don’t want to see her get in trouble.” He squeezed her waist. “Did your mother give you those pictures? The pictures hidden in the books?”
Emma nodded. “Yes, Papa.”
“Did she give them to you before you and I met?”
“Yes.”
“Do you miss her?”
Tears filled her eyes again. “Yes.”
Malik shushed her when the emotion in her eyes spilled down her cheeks once more, wiping them away as they jetted down her face, one after the other.
Her voice came, soft, but still laced with the same pain that watered her eyes. “When can I see my mommy again?”
He gave a tight smile, still wiping away tears and brushing blonde curls away from her sweat-dotted face. “Your mommy’s dead.”
Emma’s mouth fell open but no words came, just raspy, unintelligible squawks, her face curling as emotion overtook her.
Malik nodded. “Your mommy is dead and so is your daddy.”
A sob left her trembling lips.
“I’m all you have now.” He rubbed her back and pulled her in, letting her bury her tear-stained face into his shoulder, her cries warming the crook of his neck. “Before they died, I promised them that I’d always love you and take care of you. And I meant it, alright?”
When she didn’t respond, he pulled back, met her shattered green eyes, and smiled again. He kissed both her reddened cheeks, tasting her tears, reveling in their saltiness, his eyes shining even as hers overflowed.
——
He would never kiss her again. Of that much, Mia was sure. She couldn’t even blame him for it. If it had been her that had gotten a nail to the neck, seconds after giving him a blowjob, she would never bother kissing him again, either. If anything, she’d make a silent vow to hate him for the rest of her life. Add in the idea of him neglecting to return the sexual favor she’d just delivered—quite eagerly in fact—with her mouth, and she might just have to kill him! She looked across the small wooden dining table, where Linc sat in nothing but a towel. He leaned forward on the table with the phone they’d tussled over the night before in his hand, frowning at the screen.
She frowned at him.
Did he hate her guts?
Could she even blame him if he did?
Sure, they’d woken up that morning hand-in-hand in bed, but that didn’t mean anything. It was human nature to crave to touch of other humans, after all. The fact that their hands had found each other in the deepest depths of sleep when neither of them had any control over it, didn’t matter. What mattered were the choices he’d made once they were fully conscious. And, in his consciousness, Linc had yet to touch her. He’d barely even looked at her. Not after they’d both showered, leaving only white terry-cloth towels donning their bodies—Linc’s tied around his waist and hers at her breasts. Not even the thought of her naked underneath that towel seemed to erase the memory of the nail she’d put in his neck.
She wondered if anything would. If she’d ever know the feeling of that beard—still slightly damp from his shower—tickling her upper lip. Of his long mane, also still damp and stretching past his collarbones, tangled in her fingers. As her stomach raged with butterflies at the memory of his tongue, lashing with hers during their first kiss, she nearly cursed herself for screwing up so badly. So badly that not even the breakfast she’d cooked for him after waking up a few hours earlier had gotten her back on his good side. A breakfast that he’d destroyed, leaving both their plates empty on the table after he’d finished his plate and hers.
The flavor of the re-heatable sausage, biscuits and orange juice she’d found in the mostly-empty freezer still lingered on her tongue as her eyes ran him across the table, always amazed at his ripped body. His six-pack abs were just as taut as ever, showing no signs of the massive meal he’d just demolished. Neither did his washboard pecs, hulking biceps, and broad shoulders, all of which seemed to be flexing and relaxing, over and over, just to torture her. Just to remind her how royally she’d screwed up. Whatever godly sculptor had gone at him with a chisel and mallet on the day he’d been born was surely shaking his head at her from up above too. Deeming her completely unworthy of the man he had spent so much time laboring over, with great patience and care, until his every bulging muscle had reached absolute perfection.
How dare she neglect such a priceless work of art? Not just a man so externally beautiful she could scream, but internally beautiful as well. A father doing everything in his power to save his daughter. Who loved his daughter deeply enough to put everything on the line. A father truly dedicated to a little girl he’d never even met. If that wasn’t beauty, Mia didn’t know what was.
She gave a heavy sigh, shoulders sinking as the knot in her belly grew tighter at the memories of her foolishness. She could only hope, as he typed a number into his phone, that this would fix it.
His raised his scarred eyebrow while meeting her eyes across the table, putting the phone to his ear.
Mia straightened when the green eyes he’d been depriving her of finally locked onto hers like a puppy standing at attention in preparation for a meal.
“You ready?” he asked.
She breathed in deeply when the buttery bass of his voice, which he’d also been robbing her off all morning, reached across the table and stroked her skin like cocoa butter.
“Ready.” She nodded sharply, determined to right what she’d wronged.
The phone on his ear must’ve still been ringing because he added, “We only have twenty seconds. Make it count.”
“It’ll be the performance of my life.”
He nodded, and she saw the moment Malik picked up the phone on the other line. She could tell by the way Linc’s green eyes grew almost as gloomy as the gray clouds hiding the morning sun outside. The way his breathing picked up so loudly it drowned out the soft trickle of sprinkling rain against the canal waters. Waters that had risen several inches overnight, leaving the city of Venice completely flooded.
“Emma for Mia,” Linc growled into the phone, adhering to his twenty-second rule by getting right to the point. Whatever Malik said on the other line caused his green eyes to harden even more. For his fists to clench tight. He looked at Mia. “Yeah? Well, I’d hate to have to return your wife to you disfigured beyond recognition.”
Linc paused, presumably listening to Malik’s response. It must’ve been a sour one, because Linc cringed, his jaw tightening as he met Mia’s eyes once more and whirled his finger through the air.
Seeing the cue they’d agreed upon earlier, Mia took the edge of the table in both hands, drew in a deep breath, and then screamed at the top of her lungs. The kind of scream most people only heard while watching a horror movie. A horror movie where the knife-wielding killer had just grabbed the heroine’s hair from behind, seconds after she’d breathed a sigh of relief, believing she was home free. Mia’s gut-churning scream filled the small room and petered out of the open windows as well, surely startling the hell out of their neighbors.
She screamed until her lungs burned too badly to continue, and then she began to weep, her voice hoarse with terror. Her wide eyes even filled with tears as she got into the part, gasping heavily through her strangled cries.
“I just broke a finger,” Linc said, giving his attention back to the phone. “If you don’t come with my daughter, two days from today, I’ll break the other nine, and then I move onto the face. Ask yourself how bad a battered wife will look to your loyal constituents before you decide to send your goons after me again.”
A smile laced Mia’s lips when she heard Malik screaming through the phone, so irate that she heard his every profane word, even as they came muffled through the receiver.
Linc ended the call in the middle of Malik’s rant, and silence filled the room once more.
Their eyes met across the table.
He smiled.
And her heart skipped a beat.
Perhaps she hadn’t ruined everything after all. “Was I convincing?”
He tossed the phone, letting it clatter down onto the table. “Very. Even my heart stopped for a minute after that loud ass scream.”
She clapped her hands together with a beaming smile.
His eyes fell to drink in the sight, a little softer than they had been before.
“Do you think the city will be drained in two days?” Mia asked.
“Better be.”
She searched his face, the memories of the small smile he’d just given her, lighting a fire in her belly. “Well, we might as well take advantage before that day comes.”
He raised his eyebrows at her.
Biting her bottom lip, she stood from the table and moved out of the kitchen, passing the bed and making her way toward the open double doors of the balcony. Her heart raced when she leaned on the railing and looked down to the narrow canal where the water had risen so high it had swallowed up the bridges that connected the apartment buildings lining either side of the water. Bridges that had been completely clear just a day before were now completely submerged. Mother nature had made her point by closing Venice entirely. Leaving every gondola parked for the day. Rendering the once vibrant city as quiet as a mouse. Like a watery ghost town.
With the memory of Linc’s smile at the table behind her still fresh in her mind, Mia knew this was the ultimate test. The ultimate indicator of whether he’d ever be able to find it in his heart to forgive her. No man who had real feelings for a woman—especially a woman he had yet to sleep with—could help himself from watching her walk away from any table. This was doubly true when the object of his affection was wearing nothing but a towel. If she’d gotten across the room, bent over the balcony rails, looked over her shoulder and found his eyes on anything but her—that was it. She’d lost him. So much so that it would be impossible to get him back.
So when she took a deep breath—filling her nostrils with the fresh scent of rain—peeked over her shoulder, and found his green orbs locked to hers, she couldn’t fight the beaming smile that crossed her face. The blush that warmed her cheeks. The sensation of her heartbeat picking up pace sent blood gushing to her center and made her pussy lips swell. His gaze, riveted to her from over his own shoulder, as he leaned forward on the table, fell to the valley between her legs as if he could sense it. As if he could sense the blood surging through her veins and straight to her center. As if he could smell it across the room. He licked his lips.
She pushed away from the railing while tucking her hair—also damp from that morning’s shower—behind her ears. Her gaze shifted to the yellow bear still sitting on the foyer table, and she lingered on the sight before looking back to him.
He lifted his eyes back up to hers, holding her gaze across the room.
“Let’s take advantage.” Her voice was soft in the way only a woman hungry to reel a man in could be. “How many times will the opportunity to go swimming in a flooded Venice quarter present itself again?”
He lifted an eyebrow. “Swimming?”
“Swimming.” Her voice grew defensive. “Swimming. Splashing. Playing. Living.”
He smirked.
The sight lit her soul on fire. “I suspect you haven’t let yourself live in years.” She shrugged one shoulder. “I guess you haven’t really been allowed to.”
Something dark flashed across his face, but the shadowy look didn’t form itself into words.
Gaze still locked to his, Mia tilted her head and dipped her fingers into the tie of her towel.
His eyes fell to watch, jaw clenching.
She undid the tie. “Come swim with me.” She let the towel pool to the floor at her feet, leaving her naked before him. “Come live with me.” She stroked her fingers up her thighs, her heaving stomach, and her breasts, pinching the nipples.
She turned away before he could respond, moving toward the door without looking back. The legs of his chair disagreed with the wood floors a moment later. The sound put a smile on her face, and the boom of his heavy stomps coming up behind her made it spread to twice its size.