Chapter Four
Fuck. Gabe’s immediate denial stuck in his throat, as the talons of grief and remorse pulled him under. Thoughts and feelings which he’d thought himself immune to sat on his chest and threatened to swamp him, making the simple act of breathing difficult.
To give himself time and to hide his reaction to her words, he straightened slowly and turned his back on her.
“Why would you ask me that?” He ground the question out through gritted teeth. He sensed her get up and step closer. The briefest of gentle touches on his arm, and then she stood in front of him. Arms wrapped around herself, she worried her plump bottom lip with her teeth, and Gabe swore softly. She looked so much like her mother had at her age, it was unreal.
“Just answer the question, please. I was there in the car. I saw her being shot.”
He flinched when her expressive eyes filled with tears.
“I know, Lissa, I’m sorry.”
She gasped, shook her head, and stepped away from him, until the glass balustrade stopped her.
“Oh my God, you did do it, didn’t you? I heard rumors, even out in Switzerland, but … no, don’t you dare touch me, you bastard, you.” She put her hands up to ward him off when he took a step toward her and shook her head. “How could you? What did my mother ever do to deserve this?”
“Nothing, sweet girl. The bullet wasn’t intended for her, believe me. That asshole used her a shield, when the first shot went wide. Neither you nor your mother should have been there.”
Like a spring released from its box, Lissandra shot forward and slapped his face with surprising force for someone so small. He blocked the next move easily enough, grabbed her wrists, and spun her around so that her back was resting against his chest. She still fought him, kicking and snarling like a feral kitten, while he held her pinned against him, feet dangling off the ground with her calling him all the names under the sun. He took it for a while—she needed to vent—until she started to sag against him, and he put her back on her feet.
“Have you quite finished, girl?” He growled the question into her ear and was rewarded with another backward kick by her left foot. Thank heavens she wasn’t wearing shoes, or his shins would be black and blue, come morning.
“No, let me go, you murdering scum.” The words, while brave, came out on a hoarse whisper, and Gabe sighed and relaxed his hold on her a little more.
“That would only be an insult if it was true, little girl.” She stiffened in his arms. “Now, promise to behave yourself and I’ll let you go. Hit me again, and so help me, your delectable ass will be red raw, are we clear?”
He didn’t miss her sharp intake of breath, but she did murmur her acquiescence.
“I can’t hear you, little girl.”
“Yes, damn you.”
He transferred both of her wrists in one of his and delivered a sharp swat to her ass.
She jumped and yelped, and her startled gaze collided with his.
“That’s ‘yes, damn you, Sir’, at least, girl.”
Her eyes widened, and she looked all set to argue before she offered him a tight smile.
“Fuck you, Sir.”
The snarky intonation she put on that title, while she yanked her chin up and did her best to stare him down, should have made him do good on his promise to put her over his knee. However, the slight wobble in her bottom lip, coupled with the way every delectable curve of her body was pressed into his frame, meant any such action would be a very bad idea indeed. He wouldn’t be able to keep his hands off of her, and he didn’t want her first time to be angry sex. She deserved better than that.
“Oh, fuck we will, my dear, but not now and not here.”
Her eyes grew wide, her already fast breaths sped up even more, and Gabe swallowed a groan. He let go of her and stepped back for some much-needed breathing space. As it was his cock was trying his hardest to break out the confines of the denim surrounding it. Gabe couldn’t even remember the last time he wanted a woman this damn much.
“So, you’re going to add rape to your rap sheet. Murdering innocent women wasn’t enough for you?”
A gasp from behind them alerted Gabe to Mavis’s presence, and sure enough when he turned his head it was to see her standing there. Hands pushed into the pockets of her ever-present apron her lips were pressed into a fine line, signaling her disapproval.
“Parkinson is here, Gabe,” she said.
“Thank you, Mavis, I’ll be there in a minute.”
She nodded, glanced at Lissandra and shook her head.
“Tell her the truth, Gabe, all of it. Or this will never work.”
With that, she turned and left them alone on the terrace.
“Oh my God, she knows, doesn’t she? I thought she was nice and I could trust her. Oh, I’m such a fool.”
Lissandra tried to get past him, but he stepped in her way.
“Lissa, don’t.” She pushed against his chest in a vain effort to make him move and then glared up at him.
“Don’t you dare call me that. Only Mama ever called me that. Don’t you fucking dare…” She slammed her hand over her mouth and shook her head. Misery and despair rolled off of her in waves, and Gabe had to fight the urge to take her in his arms. She wouldn’t welcome that move right now, if ever, and now was not the time.
Instead he crossed his arms over his chest, widened his stance, and simply looked at her.
“I’ll call you anything I damn well, please, little girl, and you will lose the attitude. I told you last night, you’re mine now, so you better get used to it. As for Mavis, she is the most loyal person I ever met. Without her, I doubt I would have survived my childhood, so you be nice to her, do you hear me?”
“Or what? You’ll kill me, too?” The mumbled reply grated, and he took several deep breaths to calm himself.
“If I wanted you dead, you’d be six feet under already, girl. After the hit on your father went wrong, I’ve never trusted anyone else to do the killing for me ever again.” He waited for that to sink in, and sure enough her head came up, and she stared wide-eyed, confusion evident on her face.
“I thought… it wasn’t…”
“No, little girl. I’m not such a bastard that I would rob a child of its mother, especially when that mother’s only crime was falling in love and staying with that fucker, Andrini. Besides, I prefer to kill with my hands. Much more satisfying.” He uncrossed his arms and wrapped his hands around her slender throat. Her heartbeat jumped under his palms, and he squeezed just once before he released her. “To feel the life draining out a piece of scum that crossed me … that’s sweet.”
“You’re a monster.” Her whispered reply made him grin.
“Yes, I suppose I am. You better get used to it, little girl, and don’t get any silly ideas of crossing me. You behave and do as you’re told, and we’ll get along just fine.”
She swallowed hard, but gave the tiniest nod, and that would have to do for now.
“Good girl, that wasn’t so hard now, was it?”
“So, you’ll kill me if I don’t behave?” She mimed quotation marks around that one word and nudged her chin up in a move of defiance that simply served to make him harder. It would be fun to tame all that passion, indeed, and knowing that he would be the first man ever to touch her, to teach her … fuck, what a turn-on that was. Gabe had never cared much about being the first. He wasn’t possessive over the women he fucked. That would mean he cared about them to be anything more than a convenient set of holes to sink his dick into, but this was Lissandra Andrini. His revenge and he was fast beginning to realize his destiny, too. Whether she’d also prove to be his downfall remained to be seen.
“Killing is too easy an out. That’s the only reason Andrini still lives. I want him to suffer, to wallow in his own filth. Death is too good for the likes of him. As for you…” He paused and smiled. “I’ve already told you what I’ll do to you. And once that ass of yours is red raw I will fuck it, so, maybe I’ll kill you after all with the petit mort, at least.”
Her sharp intake of breath almost sounded like a moan, and acting on instinct, he stepped closer, and shoved his hand under her robe to cup her mound. Wet heat greeted his palm, and he smirked, while a blush suffused her pale skin.
“What are you? You can’t … oh…” She tried to clamp her legs together, but one shake of his head stopped her. He forced himself to remove his hand, looked at the glistening evidence of her arousal on his palm and held it up for her to see.
“Protest all you want, Lissa. Hate me if you must, but your body doesn’t lie.” He licked the wetness off his hands and immediately regretted that, as her feminine musk hit his nostrils. Damn, she smelled good.
“I do, I hate you.” Her denial was too breathy to be truly effective, and Gabe laughed.
“No problem, my sweet. You don’t have to like me to enjoy fucking me. Now, go and get dressed, and meet me in the living room in ten minutes. Don’t make me wait, or so help me I drag you out there like this or maybe naked.” He grinned at her simmering outrage. “I’m sure my men would enjoy the view.”
“You wouldn’t dare?”
Gabe threw his head back and laughed.
“Oh, my sweet, never dare the monster.”
****
Oh, that man. Dumbfounded, Lissandra stared after his departing back. He had to be lying. Her father wouldn’t have used Mama as a shield…
Even as she thought that, desperately tried to think back to that awful day, those frightful moments observed through the glass of the limo, she knew Gabe had spoken the truth. She’d known it then, in that awful moment, when her mother had screamed, and the red stain had appeared on her chest.
Lissandra closed her eyes and took deep breaths to quieten her rioting emotions. At least Gabe hadn’t been the one to kill Mama. She knew instinctively that he wouldn’t lie about that. In fact, she was as sure as she could be that everything he’d said to her had been the truth, which also meant he would make good on his threat to parade her stark naked if she didn’t get dressed.
Her pussy clenched at that thought, and Lissandra rolled her eyes and put her hands on her hot cheeks. She couldn’t be turned on by that notion, could she? Yet, as she hastened back to her room to pull on some clothes, the wetness between her legs called her a liar.
How fucked up in the head was she that she lusted after her captor? Stockholm syndrome, eat your heart out, only, she was painfully aware that she hadn’t been his captive for long enough to attribute this raging attraction she felt to the man to any sort of syndrome.
Had she met him in any other circumstances, she would have lusted after him just as much. So, what did that make her? Not frigid, as her last disastrous attempt at going out with someone her own age had suggested.
While she’d known deep down that the boy, who’d called her that, after his kisses had left her cold had been wrong—if you could call a twenty-five-year old scientist a boy—she laughed out loud. Compared to Gabe he had been a boy. Even men closer to Gabe’s age seemed mere imitations, compared to Gabriel Henshaw’s overwhelming presence. The truth of the matter was she simply melted under Gabe’s dominance. That damn online test, which Chantelle and she giggled over when they’d both been worse for wear just before she’d left to return to London, had been spot on.
Lissandra was a natural submissive that thing had claimed. Chantelle had hooted in laughter. “There, you go, that explains everything. You need whips and chains and all that shit to get off, right. Damn, had I known that, I’d have hooked you up with Pierre. He’s into all that stuff.”
At that thought they’d both dissolved into flood of giggles. Pierre might be into all things kinky, but he was also ugly as fuck and even shorter than Lissandra.
“More like he should be at the receiving end of it,” Lissandra had said once she could talk again, which had caused another bout of hysterics.
God, she missed her friend. What she wouldn’t give to have her here, but Chantelle had taken herself off for some fun with her newest boyfriend, backpacking around the world. According to the latest update she’d received—a garbled one via someone’s satellite phone—they were somewhere in the Himalayas right now.
Gabe’s raised voice coming through the shut door of her bedroom made her jump. She couldn’t make out what he was saying, but he sounded pissed, so Lissandra hurriedly pulled on some underwear, leggings and long t-shirt, bundled her hair up in a messy bun, and yanked open the door.
“I just don’t think this is necessarily the best course of action, Mr. Henshaw. I would be failing in my duties as your solicitor if I didn’t point this out to you.”
Gabe’s short, somewhat cruel laugh sent shivers down her spine. She wasn’t going to like whatever those two had concocted, that much was clear.
“Duly noted, Parkinson. However, I pay you the big bucks for your expertise at getting things done, not your opinion.”
“But, sir, the girl is so much younger, and marriage is a big step.”
Lissandra gasped, and both men turned as one to watch her approach. She was dimly aware of a middle-aged man in a suit bowing his head in greeting to her, before all her attention was taken up by Gabe. He looked equal parts pissed and determined, while the lazy way he gave her attire the once-over made her toes curl in her sandals.
“You’re late, girl.” He made a big show of studying the Rolex on his wrist, and tutted. “At a swat a second, I make that a tally of thirty-nine I need to inflict on that backside of yours. Come here.”
He pulled out one of the chairs around the dining table, covered in official looking documents, and Lissandra froze.
“You wouldn’t. No, I won’t.”
“You, girl, will do as you’re told and get yourself over here now, before I add to that. You really must like pain.”
The solicitor made a rough sound at the back of his throat, and adjusted his tie, while he looked anywhere but at her. Gabe had no such compunctions. The intensity of his stare on her pinned her in place, bent her to his will, and she’d taken several steps toward him before she even realized what she was doing.
“You’re not going to spank my behind. You have no damn right … err … Sir.” She added the title, to soften her denial somewhat, all too aware that she was literally pulling the tiger by the tail, and she had some self-preservation left.
Much to her surprise and utter relief, Gabe laughed. His eyes softened as he looked toward her, and he shook his head.
“As tempting as that thought is, I pulled out this chair for you to sit and sign these papers, so sit, now.”
This time she didn’t hesitate, and her throat went dry when Gabe pulled out the chair next to her and sat down, too. Parkinson also seated himself, offered her a tight smile, and held out a fountain pen for her.
“If you’d like to read through the papers and sign where I marked them, both of you, and all the documents, please.”
Lissandra took the pen off him, saw him pass an identical one to Gabe and then promptly dropped hers when she saw the titles on the documents.
Marriage agreement
Non-disclosure contract
Limits list
“Is everything all right, Miss Andrini?” Parkinson’s voice sounded tinny, far away, and then Gabe’s heavy hand on her shoulder pulled her back in from the brink.
“Breathe, Lissa. Helps with the whole being alive thing.”
She dutifully pulled air into her lungs, and that strange buzzing sound in her ears faded.
“What is this? Why do you want me to sign these?” She grimaced at the high-pitched squeal she managed to produce, and Gabe shrugged and pulled his hand away. Strange though it seemed, she immediately missed the contact. He was the only somewhat familiar presence in this alternative universe she seemed to have been dumped in.
“Read and sign, especially this one.”
He pushed the limits list toward her, and Lissandra knew she resembled a beetroot right now. Her cheeks sure felt hot enough to fry an egg on.
“Perhaps we should give the girl a minute, sir.” The solicitor’s somewhat strained voice broke through her paralysis, and she looked up.
“She’s had all the time she needs. Read and sign, girl. I haven’t got all day.”
Gabe’s voice right next to her ear held an edge of steel she couldn’t help but respond to, and she made a hasty grab for the pen.
Her head hurt just looking down the limits lists. How on earth was she supposed to know what half of this meant, let alone if she liked it?
Parkinson sighed and looked most uncomfortable while Gabe laughed.
“That’s why there’s several boxes, sweetheart. Just tick don’t know if you’re not sure.” She jumped and wanted the ground to swallow her whole when it dawned on her that she must have uttered her thoughts out loud.
“What if I don’t want to do any of this? Are you really into all of this stuff?”
Lissandra inwardly groaned at the needy, breathy whisper she managed to produce. Gabe put his large hand over her trembling one.
“Most, but not all, no. Would it help if I crossed out the things I won’t do and starred my favorites?” he asked.
Lissandra swallowed hard. Gabe nudged her chin up, and the concern she read in his dark gaze made her feel slightly better.
“Breathe, little one. This doesn’t need to be scary, but it helps to clarify these things beforehand. Also,” he glanced at the documents on the table, and smirked. “I find it somewhat telling that you freak out at this list, and not the marriage contract or the pre-nup.”
She couldn’t help her jerk in reaction, and he nodded.
“Okay, freaking out at all of it then.”
“I’m not freaking, I just…” She cleared her throat, disgusted at that squeak she managed to produce. Gabe’s smile deepened, and the hold he had on her chin turned into a caress. His thumb traced the outline of her lips, and she leaned into his touch, craving the reassurance right now, his gentleness so at odds with this whole fucked up situation.
“Just what, little Lissa? Tell me.”
“I don’t understand any of this? You’ve got me. My father all but sold me to you, so why do you want to marry me?”
Gabe’s eyes flashed in silent fury when she mentioned her father, and for that one second, she saw the ruthless killer before he smiled. It didn’t reach his eyes, and it made her insides clench in fear and arousal. Why the danger he presented turned her on so much, she had no idea. His hand slid down to her throat and stayed there. An obvious claim of ownership, which helped calm her. She couldn’t do anything but submit to his will, and with that knowledge came peace.
None of this made sense, but as his whole focus shifted to her, she knew deep down that he wouldn’t hurt her, even though he could. After all, she’d half expected him to force himself on her, yet here they were, discussing marriage, and limits, and she was so out of her depth it wasn’t even real.
“I made a promise to your mother before she died, girl.” She gasped at that revelation, and he nodded. “I promised to make sure you’re safe. To keep you away from your father’s machinations, and while you were out of the country you were safe. You’re not anymore. Andrini is up to something, and until I know what that is, your place is by my side. As my wife you have protection. Should anything happen to me, the boys will take care of you.” He paused and tightened his hold on her throat just long enough for her to get worried. She gulped in air when he let go. “Also, locking you in marriage to me means there’ll be consequences if you betray me. Your father’s blood runs in your veins, and I’m not stupid enough to trust an Andrini, no matter how much I want to claim that curvy body of yours. I’m not proposing marriage out of love, sweetheart, but like I said before, we don’t even need to like each other to fuck.”
“Mr. Henshaw, really.”
Parkinson’s exasperated voice interrupted Gabe, and he looked over the table to where the solicitor looked as though he wanted to be anywhere but here. Lissandra almost felt sorry for the man. Sweat dotted his upper lip, and his eyes shifted left to right behind their steel-rimmed glasses.
“You’re here to witness the signatures, that’s all, Parkinson. Leave your moral compass at home, but if it makes you feel any better, I can assure you that anything my wife and I will be doing will be entirely consensual.”
He leaned back in his chair, crossed his big arms over his chest, and smiled.
“In fact, sweet little Lissa can walk out of here right now, if that’s what she chooses to do. I’ll expect Ollivanti will pounce on her the minute she does, but, hey, maybe she’d prefer his hands all over her before he puts her to work in one of his brothels. Andrini owes him money, too, I understand.” He tipped his chair back on its back legs and regarded his solicitor through narrowed eyes. “Perhaps that will work better for your morals, Parkinson?”
Parkinson opened his mouth to say something, but nothing came out, and Gabe’s chair came crashing back down onto the wooden flooring with so much force Lissandra felt the vibration under her soles. Oh lordy, he was pissed.
“I wasn’t suggesting that, sir, at all.” Parkinson dropped his gaze, and Gabe’s short laugh broke the tension.
“Good to know.” He picked up the pen, snatched up the limits list, and started to star and cross out various items on the list before he passed it back over to Lissandra.
“Over to you. What will it be?”