Page 32 of Dangerous Deviance
My chest tightened, thinking of what this new information meant. Someone had been hunting the women from Ellie’s gym, and it wasn’t clear if it was linked to her sister. The fact that a few other women had been found in the woods made me believe that whatever was going on, had just started.
By the time I returned to the penthouse, it was quiet and dark. I had a habit of staying at Jimmy’s until the early hours of the morning, but lately, I delegated the tasks to my men, wanting to go to the penthouse early. I wanted to be around Ellie, to make sure she was safe. Being alone in the world without any of her memories must have been scary as hell.
But perhaps restoring these small memories would help.
Usually, she waited until I spoke, but this time, she turned towards me immediately.
“The woman?” she asked.
My heart sank. She cared for this stranger, a woman she didn’t know. Because she saw herself inside of her.
I wasn’t capable of caring about someone I didn’t know. I would never let myself; I was born to be selfish, to only care about my family’s power. Opposite of me, Ellie had nothing in the world, and yet, despite that, she was good. She wanted to help a stranger.
It was hard to understand, but I admired it in her.
“Being treated as well as can be expected,” I said. This was Axe, after all. At least Ellie didn’t understand the full extent of what that meant.
Her shoulders sank. “Good,” she said to herself, lowering her eyes. “That’s good.”
I watched her, staring off into nothing. Closing her eyes, then opening them again. The moon was full, lighting the rooftop patio in a haze whenever it poked through the clouds, tinting Ellie’s skin blue, the red hilled tattoo on her neck shaded purple. She met my gaze and shook her head. Before she opened her mouth, I spoke.
“Your sister, Julie,” I said. Ellie visibly perked up. “She disappeared about six months before you did.”
Ellie opened her mouth, then pressed her lips together. “That sounds right.”
“Do you remember anything about a gym?” I asked. “You had a membership there. A social club or something? Maybe you took classes there?”
She looked down at her fists. “Martial arts?”
“That doesn’t ring any bells?”
She paused for a moment, but her eyes flicked away from mine. She couldn’t look me in the eyes and say her answer. “No,” she murmured. “I don’t remember anything like that.”
A gut instinct twitched inside of me, wondering if she was lying. Perhaps she was full of lies, and all of the women in the woods were working together, making us think that they were vulnerable, when in reality, they were anything but. And yet another part of me believed one thing about Ellie, and that was that her sister mattered to her more than anything in the world. If I could win her loyalty through her sister, she would be mine.Truly mine.
But until then, I could test her.
I fingered the knife in my pocket, coming towards her slowly. She looked up at me, the cloud-covered moon shining in the pools of her eyes. Deep, waiting to burst.
“We’re going to find your sister,” I said.
“I know,” she whispered.
I leaned down, putting a hand behind her back, lifting her up, and pulling her closer to me. Our lips met, full and passionate, my tongue caressing hers, beckoning her on. With one hand on her throat, I licked down her neck to her collarbone, and when her muscles tensed, I savored the moment, enjoying the way she melted to my touch. She might have hated me at first, but attraction didn’t lie. She liked being put in her place.
I ran my hands down the sides of her body, savoring her soft skin over that hard muscle. None of that came easily, and I respected her for working hard at it, even more so now that I knew she trained at a gym. She was a strong woman, both in her mind and her body, which made it all the more pleasurable to force her to kneel.
I gripped her shoulders, pressing her body against me, my cock growing hard at the contact. My fingertips skimmed over the top of her shirt, and her nipples hardened. My dirty toy wasn’t wearing a bra. I grinned.
“Tell me you hate it,” I murmured.
She closed her eyes. “I hate it.”
“How much?”
I pinched her nipples between my fingers, ripping through the fabric straight to her skin until her face contorted into a grimace. “I hate it,” she whimpered, “so much.”
I twisted her nipples until she cried out, then I grabbed her hair and pulled her down to lie on the couch. Holding myself up above her, I put a hand in my pocket, running my fingers over the knife. I gazed down at her lying there, then removed the knife and flicked it open. She held her arms across her chest and looked away.
