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She lifts her chin, and the defiance rumbles before she opens her mouth. “I don’t answer to you.”
“Like hell you don’t.”
Without another word, I drag her off the floor to an elevator that will bring us to a private garage, where a car is waiting to take her to my apartment at Huntsman Lodge.
Like it or not, tonight Alexis Clarke will be answering to me.
5
RAFAEL
“Where the hell is your security?” I snarl before the elevator doors close.
“In London, I suppose,” she quips, flipping her hair over one shoulder, like a diva.
I want to shake her but settle for a scowl. “You suppose? Have they informed your father that you’re missing yet?”
“They won’t. Me going missing reflects poorly on them. They like their job. It pays well.” She shrugs, examining her deep-purple nails. “They also want to remain among the living. They won’t breathe a word until it becomes necessary.”
What kind of fucked-up establishment is Will running? The man has more enemies than anyone on the planet. Even more than we do. If what she claims is true, she essentially has no security. There’s no fucking way that’s going to continue.
“The guards might not tell your father, but it’s the first phone call I’ll be making.” I don’t give a damn what Will does with those guards. They’ll get what they deserve.
Lexie marches closer to me, a hand on her hip. “I forbid you to call my father,” she hisses.
I don’t give a shit how sweet her mouth tastes—or her cunt, for that matter—haughty princesses don’t get to forbid me from acting in their best interest.
With too many emotions swirling inside, I flip the switch to stop our descent and inch toward her until she’s backed into the far corner of the elevator, cornered but still daring me to defy her wishes. I’m not sure if I want to lift her dress and fuck her against the dirty carriage wall or take her over my knee and spank her ass until it’s a lovely shade of red.
I pull in a long breath through my nose and let it filter through while I regain some modicum of control. “You forbid me? Really?”
She lifts her chin and stares me straight in the eye, not giving a damn that I’m towering over her and furious.
“Let’s get something straight,” I tell her with all the calm I can muster. “You ditched your guards. Hooked up with an underage principessa and some flesh traders, then showed up at my club. You don’t get to forbid a damn thing.”
“Fine. Be an unreasonable ass,” she huffs, scrolling through her phone so she doesn’t have to look at me. “But I’m an adult, and the least you can do is hear me out before you call my father.” Her head pops up and she captures my gaze. “I think you owe me that. Don’t you?”
It’s a sharp barb from a woman who knows how to deliver a little pain. And guilt. I deserve it. I took off her clothes, buried my face in her pussy, and enjoyed her in ways that I shouldn’t have. Then I ghosted her instead of facing her like a man and reminding her that she was too young for me, and there were too many threads that connected our families—we could never do that again.
It’s not that I didn’t have the balls to have the conversation, but I didn’t fully buy into those excuses—although they were true.
There are almost eight years between us and long-standing family alliances that shouldn’t be tested. A one-night stand, or even a stolen weekend, had the potential to create a lot of problems. Those were facts. Although there was something else too. Something I couldn’t, or wouldn’t, own up to then.
In addition to being sexy as fuck, Lexie is smart, and brave, and restless, and too damn willing to take risks—that characteristic alone has the potential to destroy me. I didn’t trust myself to be around her after that night. I still don’t trust myself.
The worst part is that, even knowing she could be my ruin, I want her. I wanted her then. And I want her now.
She lifts her brow triumphantly, like she’s won. I hope she doesn’t think that a few pointed words will make me crumble.
“I don’t have time to listen to excuses about your reckless behavior,” I grumble, “unless it’s something pressing, or directly related to the traffickers.”
Lexie shakes her head. “It can wait. But promise me you won’t call him until we talk.” She touches my arm, and her fingers sear my skin until all I can think about is owning her hot little body.
Her expression is soft. Pleading. The walls are closing in, and I’m having trouble remembering why I can’t have her. Before I do something stupid, I pull my arm away to restart the elevator—and put some space between us.
“Rafa,” she whispers in a throaty voice, and my traitorous dick remembers that’s how she begged for it the night of the wedding. Sprawled on the desk, breathy little whimpers tumbling from her luscious lips. I grazed on her like she was a sumptuous feast, while she whispered my name into the sultry air.
Don’t go there, Rafael. You can’t.
