His cock stood ready at my entrance.

“If you say yes”—

I opened my legs as wide as I could.

“You won’t be able to walk away. Not again. Not ever again.”

He thrust. He wasn’t waiting for my answer, not really.

And I wouldn’t have said no.

I cried out, and he held still inside me.

“Open your eyes, Gia. Look at me. I’m right fucking here.”

I did, trying to move my hips beneath him but unable to.

“Hear me, Gia. You won’t be able to change your mind. I won’t let you walk away again. Do you understand me?”

I nodded, arching my back. “Please. I need—”

He pulled out and thrust again, I gasped, biting my own lip, tasting blood. Blood. With him, there would be blood.

“More,” I said.

He smiled, pulled out, and impaled me again.

“You fucking left.”

He was angry and furious and sexy as fucking hell.

“I won’t ever let you walk away from me again. Fucking never.”

I bit my lip again, harder, until I tasted more blood, and I came. I came with him watching me. I came watching him. My pussy throbbed around his cock, and he never even blinked until I’d squeezed every drop of pleasure from him, taking from him what he gave, knowing this sealed our pact, knowing that when he moved again, when he fucked me and I watched him come, that I was his.

I was his forever.

27

Dominic

“What did you have to do with Angus Scava’s arrest?” I sat on a stool at the kitchen counter peeling an apple, watching her as she made coffee. Although she had her back to me, I saw her stiffen.

“Nothing.”

“Liar.”

She poured two cups of coffee out of the old-fashioned machine and set one before me. She sipped from her mug and stood on the other side of the counter, her eyes on mine. I could see her thinking as she worked out how to answer. Did she think I hadn’t realized the flash drive with the recording had disappeared when we’d left for my father’s funeral?

I picked up my mug and waited.

“Nothing,” she said again, turning away.

I sipped from the mug. “Christ. What is this shit?” I looked at the dark-brown water in my mug. That’s exactly what it tasted like: fucking dirty brown water.

“Don’t be a snob. The coffee machine was here when I moved in. It’s fine.”

She took another sip, but even I saw how she had to force herself to do it.

“You get used to it,” she said.

“I’m not getting used to it.” I stood and walked around the aisle to the sink and dumped my mug down the drain before taking hers and doing the same.

“What are you doing?”