CHAPTER 42

But his eyes met hers for the brief instant.

And in the look, a shock of fear convulsed into her.

She spun around once more, grasping the lip of the shelf as she struggled to settle her breathing.

Just forget him. Proceed to the cashier, pay, and leave. Simple.

But when she left the aisle, she saw him again behind her, following several steps. And his footfalls were too deliberate to be coincidence.

Her heart accelerated.

She clenched her hand tighter around her coat. Standing in place by the register, with him close, was a risk. No! She was not going to do that.

She stiffly turned into another aisle. Her boots creaked on the floor.

Her plan was to lose him by getting herself back through the aisles to the front.

She moved fast.

But his presence still crept down the back of her neck.

She glanced over her shoulder. He was there. Just a couple of strides back.

He no longer pretended to browse. His eyes locked onto hers. And the lip of a smirk curved on his lips.

Fear tightened its grip around her.

She couldn't stop now.

She didn't care that she looked suspiciously bursting out of the store. She just had to make it to the car. She needed Dario.

She picked up her pace.

Her boots clicked more quickly against the pavement.

The automatic doors loomed ahead.

Nearing the end. Almost free.

If she could only get by.

The man's footsteps quickened behind her. She didn't have to look to know he was gaining ground.

She burst through the doors.

Dario was there—thank God, they hadn't taken him away.

Relief poured through her. But only for a moment.

Because she still had to get to him. She ran halfway. Her lungs were in choked gasps.

"Dario!" she screamed out.

He glanced up instantly. And his expression shifted from puzzlement to alarm. He flung open the door to the SUV and stepped out just as she reached him. "What's wrong?" His tone was hard, defensive.

She glanced over her shoulder, but the man had stopped just outside the store. He stood by the doors, his hands stuck deep in his pockets, looking at her that same creepy smirk. He did not come any closer. But his being there was frightening enough.

"There was a man," she struggled to get out. "He was following her in. She had no idea what he wanted, but…"

Dario didn't require her to go on. He stepped in front of her, bracing his broad body between hers and that of the man.

"Stay here," he ordered.

"No, Dario! Please just leave!" Her voice was a pleading prayer now. She simply wanted to get as far away from here as possible.

Dario paused but nodded. He manhandled her into the backseat, never leaving the man at the doors out of his sight. Once she was seated, he took the driver's seat and locked the doors with a loud click.

As he sped up and the SUV took off, she couldn't help but look over her shoulder. The man remained standing, bathed in the harsh light of the store. He made no move to follow them, to halt them. But his sneer remained, imprinted on her memory like a brand.

With the safety of the moving vehicle, her breathing stabilized, even if her hands shook. The box in her pocket was heavier than it should have been.

"Was he all right back there?" Dario asked, his voice gentler now.

She managed a nod, but she wasn't sure if it was really so. "Yes. Just.let's go home."

He didn't press her further, and thank goodness for that. She knew he'd have to report it to ISAAC, but she just let her head fall back against the seat and gazed out at the city lights streaming by beyond the window. She got away, and that was all that mattered.

"No, they didn't have to host them an engagement party, ISAAC." She sat on the kitchen island. "She didn't want to have to perform for the whole KASH MANCHESTER because she'd do a terrible job of it. He knew she was terribly bad at lying." ISAAC had upped her security detail since the drugstore incident, and the engagement party was in his scheme of making everyone think she meant the whole world to him.

"All MIRO guys threw huge parties when they got engaged. It would not be believable if they did not do that." She shook her head, alarm creeping in. "If he took her to a fake engagement party, she was going to murder him."

He raised an eyebrow at her. "Really?"

"Yeah, really." She nodded emphatically. "Think guns, blood, gore, and candles and teddy bears on the sidewalk."

His face dropped into a frown. "There'd be no goddamn teddy bears if he ever died."

"What was it about him and teddy bears?" she growled.

She felt him as he paced behind her and leaned his head to hers. "They needed to have an engagement party. What about he gave her something?" His warm breath caressed the side of her neck.

She didn't dare look around into his eyes. "Like?"

The silence vibrated between them. She was inhaling.

His tongue skidded up the curve of her neck. "Like he screwed her."

She meant, who wouldn't be able to resist an experience like that? A girl had things to come by after all. But she didn't want him thinking the wrong things about her. "She'd stay at the party for one hour tops."

His lips touched the shell of her ear. "Two hours," he growled, the vibration sliding all the way down to her core. "And he'd go into her closet and choose out her dress. She wasn't going to wear hot-off-the-street crap to their pretend engagement."

"Pretend engagement," she reminded him as she exhaled with a soft pout.

"Deal?" His fingers were inched up under her top, tracing the underside of her breasts.

"Deal," she inhaled a moan. And smiled to herself—because all of the dresses she'd brought to his apartment were all slinky, sexy.and sinfully swiped.

ISAAC

He took her up, and kicking the door shut after him, he swept her off into his arms and kissed her hard. Hard and demanding. Greedy. Wanting her and needing her. He left a trail of kisses along the side of her neck, and she shuddered in his grasp. He pulled the skirt up her lovely legs. And she moaned against his mouth as his fingers danced over the thin fabric on her mound before ripping it to one side.

He inserted a finger inside her.

"Oh God," she groaned as he finger-fucked her.

He required her now. He was needing her more and more. She had hooked him, enslaved him to their shared pleasure, and he didn't want to find his sanity again.

He tore off her clothes and then her thong, his starving fingers on the edge of tearing the expensive fabric. She was fully nude now, and he pressed her back onto the bed. Removing his own clothes, he landed on top of her, kissing her over and over as he tied her wrists to the wrought iron headboard. She looked up at her arms, and he grinned. "All his to enjoy, and all his to please."

Continuing down his line of kisses along her body, he licked along the length of the inside of her thigh to her knee, then bound both ankles to the bedframe, spreading her legs.

He settled in to take her. "She made a hard bargain," he snarled, driving his dick into her when he used the word hard.

She screamed with pleasure. And it was like goddamn music to his ears.

And while he fucked her unrestrainedly, she moaned as he continued to kiss and lick on her breasts, nibbling on her hard nipples with caresses and sucks that he knew brought her to the brink but not to let her cross it.

And while he drove her to the point of climax, he withdrew hastily. "Not yet!" he told her.

She cried out in an outraged tone. "But?—"

"All she could do was take it," he snarled.

She tilted her head up and pinned him with her stare.

He kissed her body repeatedly. She tried straining closer to his mouth. But he was in control. Kissing along her throat, he licked her hard nipple.

She arched for him, struggling against the cuffs. But she couldn't move.".

He grinned. "Like he said, baby. All she could do was take it. Take every bit of pleasure he offered her until she shattered for him…"

And with that, he cupped her breast as he brought his face between her legs.

Eating her out was like nothing else he'd ever done. She tasted so damn good. She was so damn responsive.

She moaned out for him and gasped out his name. And she rode her cunt up against his face as he pinched her nipples.

He dragged each lick out. Taunting her. Enjoying the control he had over her right now.

When she lifted her head to plead, he picked up the pace of his tongue playing her clit. She was seconds from coming, he could sense it.

He pulled away and licked her belly.

"No! She was so close…"

"He knew," he chuckled. "But he didn't offer her permission to come, did he?"

"Oh her fucking God, Valentino!"

"She was such a bad girl invoking the name of a saint and the f-word in one sentence. And bad girls got punished…"

"FUCK. YOU. ISAAC."

"Oh, gladly, baby. Gladly."

She glared at him as she saw him stand up and walk to her nightstand where he knew she stored a Hitachi vibrating wand. Her eyes sprang open wide as he took it out and experimented with it.

"He was in charge here, baby, so she had to beg him if she was going to come," he growled.

He pressed the wand against her clit and went on to palm her gorgeous tits, his hands moving closer and closer to her nipple as she arched toward him.

He turned the wand up to the most intense setting he had.

And she let out a despairing cry. Her hips arched back against him as she begged. "ISAAC!"

"ISAAC, what?" he asked.

She didn't answer, so he doused the wand and pulled it back away from her. It was already soaked, and he carefully licked her liquid off of it.

She stared at him, wide-eyed, flushed face as she panted.

"Let's try again," he suggested after some time had elapsed.

And he kept rubbing the wand on her again and again, working it over her swelling clit and slippery entrance as she groaned, pushing her to the brink again and again.

The third time he did that, he considered giving her her orgasm as she was holding her breath. He shook his head, pleased. "Not this time."

"ISAAC!" she yelled when he took away the wand. She was so close, damn it. "Please, please! She was such a good girl, but she came anyway. She was so close, so wet for him!"

"He knew she was… But she didn't get to come until he was fucking her and slamming her beautiful pussy with his dick. If she came before that, they'd have to start over," he warned.

He brought her to the edge twice more, really testing her determination to submit.

She flailed and tried to hold out until she was nearly in tears and actually started begging him. "Please, ISAAC. Please. She wanted to feel him. She needed him inside her. Please!"

"That's how a good girl begs," he praised, turning off the wand.