Page 38 of Empire of Lust
I don’t know what pisses me off more. How wrong she is about what I’m capable of or how she reads my mind where it pertains to her. I only know I have no choice but to grab a handful of hair and yank her head back, glaring down at her while reaching for the gun resting against my lower back.
“You’re still that deluded?” I snarl, holding the pistol up for her benefit.
Her already tear-filled eyes bulge, focusing on it. She’s near hyperventilation with her quick, shallow breaths. “Please…”
“Please, what?” I touch the muzzle to her cheek, and she whimpers, then shudders as I drag it over her jaw and down her neck. “Please, don’t blow my brains out? It wouldn’t be the first time I’ve done it. And accidents happen all the time. You could just as easily disappear without a trace.”
“Please, don’t,” she pleads in a tiny squeak of a voice.
“Maybe you’d rather have it someplace else.” I trace the curve of her tit, the flat plane of her stomach. She’s shaking harder, her breaths coming in sharp gasps. “Is that it? You want to feel it in your pussy?”
Once I reach the hem of her dress, I work the fabric up, pressing the steel against her thigh. She goes still, and her breath catches. “What? You usually cream your panties when I touch you here.”
It’s like studying a work of art, watching terror take hold. I stare into her eyes as the pupils dilate until there’s hardly anything left but black emptiness gazing back at me from her ghostly white face.
“I know what this is all about,” I whisper in mock surprise. “You can’t stand the thought of being away from my cock. That’s it, right? If you really want it that bad, I could bend you over the desk and claim your sweet pussy right now. Would that make you happy?”
She remains silent, and it’s not her silence I want. I tug her hair harder, forcing her to answer. “No.”
“No? No to what? You don’t want me to fuck you?”
“No.” Her voice is a little stronger now, but just barely.
I pull her closer one last time. The impulse to kiss her is almost too much to resist. Even now, I want her enough to make me hate her. “Then why the hell are you still here? This is your last chance. Go.” I release her again, hating myself even more.
I know she got the message loud and clear this time. Like a lamb running from the wolf stalking her, she hustles out of the office. Once she’s gone, I can breathe. The tension in my muscles releases, and I fall back into the chair, scrubbing a hand down my face. I need to get over this, to get away from her. We can’t be together or do whatever the fuck it was we were doing.
If she hates me, she hates me. That’s how it should be. How it needs to be. I’m too old for her. Too dark. Too dangerous. And I doubt she could hate me more than I hate myself right now, anyway.
BIANCA
My stomach churns as I roll through the front gate, like it has every night for the past few weeks. The guards let me in without question. Everybody’s used to me coming and going by now, though it’s not like I was a stranger before this. They all seem happy I’m here, like this is where I belong.
Everybody except for one person, who I’ve barely set eyes on since that awful night in his office. The one person I can’t get out of my head.
The scene replays in my mind as I stare at the house, looming larger with every turn of the wheel. I would call it a gilded cage. Only I can leave whenever I want. Dad would let me move in with him in a heartbeat, no questions asked. But that would mean exchanging one cage for another, and at least this cage gives me space and freedom… even if the freedom is an illusion. Callum might not ask a million questions and monitor my every choice, but I still feel his presence looming over me. Everything’s a trade-off in the end.
Living here, I can come and go as I please without having to explain to anybody what I’m doing.If that’s the case, why do I always head straight back here after picking up something for dinner?I could hang out with some of the people from the office. I could stop at Dad’s for dinner. He’s been dying to catch up on how work is going, and it’s been a while since I’ve checked in on him. Sure, he manages to get through his days, but I have the sneaking suspicion he’d live on coffee and fast food if there wasn’t somebody around reminding him to eat a green vegetable every once in a while.
So why don’t I?I could see a movie, go shopping. I could do whatever I want, and yet I choose to come straight here.
Because even though Callum has avoided me as much as I’ve avoided him, I can’t shake the sense of being watched. Like now, as I get out of the car. The hair on the back of my neck rises. I can feel his gaze on me. Watching my every move, wondering what took me so long to get here.
Or maybe I’m just going crazy.
Around the office, I’ve been able to pretend that everything about my life is normal. No one has to know I spend my free time locked in the empty wing of an enormous mansion. They don’t know I scurry into the house with my head down, eyes trained on the ground, before dashing to the bedroom and locking the door behind me.
They don’t know I eat dinner alone at the desk in Tatum’s office. Or that every night I lie in bed, staring at the ceiling, wondering if this is the night Callum comes for me. He hasn’t, and maybe he won’t. Maybe he was serious about wanting nothing to do with me anymore.
It would be for the best if he was. As exciting as he is, there’s a difference between the sort of danger that makes my heart race and my nipples hard and how he spoke to me. The way he touched me and threatened me with that gun.
Even now, my blood runs cold at the reminder. There was a second when I thought for sure he was going to kill me because I was a liability. He wouldn’t want Tatum to know for sure the sort of things he does, so I was certain—panicked, confused, horrified—he would want to shut me up permanently.
He might have calmed down since then, but I can’t forget the way it felt. The terror in my veins. There was a monster staring down at me with no light in his eyes. No life. I hardly recognized him. Deep down, I knew I was in the presence of the real Callum Torrio. A man so used to violence and intimidation that it meant nothing to threaten me with a gun.
So leave, then. God, how many times have I told myself that? There’s nothing keeping me here but pride—which is ironic, considering I don’t have enough pride to leave after he threatened to kill me. The more I think about it, the more confused I become, and the angrier I get with myself.
It’s easier just to sit down with my salad and binge something on my laptop and wait until it’s time to go to bed. My life is sleeping, going to work, and coming home to a handful of beautiful rooms that aren’t actually mine.