Page 78 of Reign of a Billionaire
Her cheeks flushed a delicate shade of pink and she gazed up at me through her thick lashes, making my heart twist. It reminded me so much of Louisa.
“You’re a fucking deviant,” she said, her voice breathy. She must have realized it because she clenched her teeth. “If I come into your room, you’ll be dead before your dick has a chance to get hard.”
And there was that.
Since Louisa’s death, my cock hadn’t responded to a single woman. I grieved my sunshine, then turned to celibacy with thefull intention of dying that way. Until this one crossed my path. I didn’t know what it was—her resemblance or her fire—but suddenly my dick decided to play. And it was wrong on so many levels.
The rest of our dinner resumed in silence despite many questions that needed answers.
I sat in my office attempting to handle a few emails and pay some bills. My mother left me a chunk of her inheritance and the empire she’d inherited from her father, but it came with responsibilities. And so did my own wealth I’d built on blood. My skills of tracking down people were highly sought after in the Omertà.
When the grandfather clock chimed midnight, I found myself staring at the laptop connected to my surveillance feed, watching Liana in the library like it was my sole purpose in life.
My heart thumped at the sight of her, and a yearning ache spread to my chest. I needed to understand this growing obsession with Liana, but this—having her nearby—would have to do for now.
I watched her cuddled up on the sofa, her legs folded and a blanket over her lap. She was beautiful, still wearing the same delicate clothes from dinner. Her hair tumbled down her slender shoulders in a cascade of sun-streaked waves. Her smooth skin radiated under the warm gleam of the roaring fire.
Holding the pad with her right hand and using the pencil with her left, she sketched. What or who she was drawing, I had no idea, but every once in a while, she’d throw a bundle of paper into the fire. Both twins drew, but Lou was always better at it,and judging by the way Liana watched her sketches burn with her eyebrows knitted together, hers hadn’t improved.
She’d been in the same position for the past two hours, sketching and then discarding. Switching the pencil between her left and right hand, massaging her left wrist every so often. I’d claim she was pathetic for not giving up on the hobby that her sister excelled at, but I realized I was even more so.
Fuck, this was so goddamned stupid.
I shouldn’t be spying on her through the camera, soaking in every expression that passed her face. I moved to close down the feed, but like each time before it, I stopped at the last second.
She started to hum, the tune distant and faint but enough to make my chest shudder. I wanted to march down the hallway and burst into the library, snatch her up, and carry her off to bed. Then I’d own her noises as I drove into her tight, wet heat, listening to her pleas formore. I wanted to torment her and make her pay for making me feel this way.
Clenching my teeth, I finally exited out of the program and shot to my feet. Again, I found myself bursting with restless energy.
Fucking hell.
Maybe bringing her to my island where there was nothing and nobody to distract me from her wasn’t such a good idea after all. The effect of her presence grew more desperate by the hour, and every dark, primal instinct inside of me taunted me. I wanted to take her, bend her over, and claim her. My balls ached, eager to be buried deep inside her.
I jumped to my feet, walked out of the office, and blindly followed the path to the library. I needed to talk to her, hear her soft voice.
My legs brought me to my destination in record time, and I stalked inside, the door to the library slamming into the wallfrom the force of my urgency. Liana jumped to her feet, her eyes darting around as if expecting someone else here.
“What the fuck, Kingston?” Lightning bolts blazed in her eyes, and her décolletage blotched crimson. My gaze wandered to her breasts. Her next words told me my discretion lacked finesse. “My eyes are up here,zasranets.” Jackass. She really loved cursing at me in Russian. “Or would you like me to dig out your eyeballs?”
I closed the door to preserve the heat in the library and leaned against it, tucking my hands into my pockets.
“Have you done it before?” I asked her casually.
She blinked, her cheeks burning red. “Done what?”
The corner of my lips twitched. Someone’s mind was in the gutter. “Dug out someone’s eyeballs,” I clarified.
She fell silent, her expression darkening before she masked it.
“I have,” she answered, her voice distant and flat. “I’ve stabbed a man in both his eyes and then watched him bleed out for hours.”
The words were like a punch in the gut. Liana had always been the stronger twin, but never psychotic or ruthless.
She sighed, and the heartbreaking sound tugged on the strings of my blackened heart. She wasn’t Louisa, but there was a part of me that craved to protect her and erase all the bad things she’d endured to become this ruthless version of herself.
But then just as quickly, she wiped her expression and narrowed her eyes on me.
“You need to do something about this library,” she grumbled.
