LITMIR.BIZ

       CHAPTER THREE

      SHE WAS LIKE fire in his arms. That was all he could think as he strode out of her chamber, her lithe body wiggling over his shoulder as he carried her down the hall.

      He braced one hand on her lower back, gripping her calf with the other. It had been three years since he’d had his hands on a woman. And suddenly, he was conscious of every one of those years. He had been far too lost in the bleakness of it all to think of it in those terms until this moment.

      He had not thought of being with a woman. Hadn’t thought of touching one. He had only been conscious of his bed being empty as far as it being empty of his wife. Not being empty in a way that meant it might need to be filled by someone else.

      But now she was hot beneath his fingertips, smooth, and very much alive. So different from the last time he had touched a woman and found her cold, icy and lifeless.

      He gritted his teeth, clipping his jaw down tight as he continued to cart his protesting captive down the stairs and toward the dining room.

      “How dare you?” she shrieked, pounding one fist against his back.

      “How dare I feed you?” He laughed. “I truly am a monster.”

      “You could have sent me a crust of bread up to my room,” she continued to protest.

      “Yes, but alternatively you can sit and eat with me, and you can have lamb.”

      “Maybe I don’t want to eat a baby animal!”

      “Are you a vegetarian?”

      “No,” she said, sounding small, and slightly defeated in her response. “But still.”

      “If you have serious issues eating small, fuzzy things, you can always indulge in the vegetables and the couscous. Plus, there will be cake.”

      “I could have eaten that in my room,” she said, wiggling, that movement of her body against his sending a jolt of sensation through him. He ignored it.

      “No, agape, you could not have, because it is not on offer.”

      He stepped into the dining room, and set her down neatly in the chair next to his own. She looked up at him, her eyes wide. She truly was beautiful. Her dark hair was captured in a low ponytail, her blue eyes glittering in the dim light, distrustful, but nonetheless lovely. She had full lips, the kind he could vaguely remember enjoying back in the days when he had indulged in such pleasures.

      Then, there was her body, which was pleasingly round in all the right places, as he had observed while carrying her from her room.

      “What do you want from me?”

      “I would like for you to eat. With the dramatics kept to a minimum.”

      She frowned, her expression stormy. “You did not allow me to trade places with my father so that you could feed me.”

      “No,” he said, “perhaps not. I allowed you to trade with your father because you asked me to allow it. And as I mentioned before, I thought, that just maybe you might be of more use to me than a dying man.”

      She recoiled. So completely that it was nearly comical. “What sort of use?”

      There was a time when a woman would have leaned in at such a suggestion, touched his hand, touched his arm, perhaps made things even more intimate by placing her hand on his thigh. But, those days had long since passed.

      He let his eyes wander back to those beautiful rosy lips. And just for a moment, he imagined crushing his ruined mouth right up against them. Yes, she would most certainly take offense at that.

      “Oh, anything I can think of. Propping up a wobbly desk, perhaps?”

      Her eyes narrowed. “Be serious for a moment.”

      “Don’t be silly. I’m always serious.” At least, he had been for the past few years. Until these past few moments.

      But, other than his friends, who he communicated with primarily over the phone, he only ever talked to his stripped-down staff. To Fos, the man who had been his father’s right hand for as long as Adam could remember. And to Athena, his cook. Otherwise, the staff tended to rotate, and they kept out of his way.

      Belle was one of the first new people he had spent any time with in longer than he could remember.

      “Seriously deranged.” She sniffed.

      A few moments later, Athena appeared, along with kitchen staff carrying trays. “Tonight,” she said, casting a swift glance over to Belle, “we have lamb with mint and yogurt, couscous and assorted vegetables. For dessert there is baklava.”

      “Thank you,” he said.

      Athena lingered.

      Adam sighed heavily. “Have you something to say, Athena?”

      “I don’t approve,” she said, her tone stiff.

      “And I don’t care,” he returned. “Leave us.”

      Athena cast him a sad glance, and then turned the same look onto Belle. Then she shook her head and walked out of the room.

      “Neither of your servants approve of you,” Belle said, looking the food over critically.

      “And my captive doesn’t seem to fear me,” he said. “I must be doing something wrong.”

      “I came all the way from California to face you down and get my father out of your dungeon. If I was going to freak out, I would have done it already.”

Скачать книгу