Red Handed(51)
“Yes, the great and powerful Master Cole is human just like the rest of us. Asking for help doesn’t make you weak.”
“I realize that.”
“No, I don’t think you do.” She laid her hands on his hips and looked up at him. “Putting your faith in the hands of those you love takes strength, but giving up your dreams of having a family is cowardly.”
His face hardened. At once, she realized she’d made a detrimental mistake by accusing him of being a coward. “I’m sorry to disappoint you, but my dreams have never included marriage and kids. You being here doesn’t change that.”
Like a pointed arrow, his words pierced her heart. Tears sprung to her eyes, and she immediately stepped back. “Wow. Thanks.”
He reached for her, but she sidestepped him. “Don’t be like that. Stay with me—”
“Will you take me upstairs to your bed?”
“No.”
“So nothing’s changed. I’m good enough to break your rules and fuck, but not enough to share who you are outside of Benediction. Then why should I bother staying? So you can fuck me once more before you send me to my room?”
Looking sheepish, he shoved his hands into his pockets. “Let me take you.”
She shook her head and put up her hands in front of her as a barrier. “I can find my own way, thank you. And if not, I’ll ask a slave for help. That’s what they’re here for, right?”
She pivoted on the balls of her bare feet and stormed out of the gallery, carefully avoiding any of the broken glass or debris from Cole’s meltdown. She honestly didn’t know why she bothered.
The shattered mirrors and frames’ jagged edges couldn’t hurt her any worse because making love to him tonight had nothing do with saving Tasha. At some unknown moment between arriving at Benediction and now, she’d fallen for him. Not the silly teenage idea of him, but the real man. But even now, after she’d given him her body and, sadly, a piece of her heart, he wouldn’t take her to his residence. Her plot to seduce Cole in order to gain entrance into his private residence had backfired in more ways than one.
She only prayed that Tasha wouldn’t pay for her failure.
Chapter Nineteen
HE SCRUBBED THE blood off his hands in the bathroom sink, still high from his climax.
The bitch hadn’t cried or screamed like he preferred, but the fear in her eyes as he told her his plans for her had set him off like a grenade. This was just the stress reliever he’d needed.
No one understood what it was like for him. His wife didn’t care what he did as long as he continued to pay for her glamorous lifestyle and went to church with her and the kids on Sunday morning. He loved his family so much that he’d made a pact with the devil to protect them. He’d never lay a hand on them, but a guy had to get his releases in some way, and no one missed the whores he recruited.
He’d kept his sadistic desires to a minimum over the years, but lately he’d required more. More pain. More blood. He spent hours inventing and trying out new ways to torture his sluts with electricity and especially liked using his defibrillators. Unfortunately, some of them died before he could truly enjoy them.
As he dried his hands with a towel, he wondered if there was a woman out there who would last beyond twenty-four hours of torture. Danielle’s curvy body sprung to mind. All the ones he’d played with previously were thin. Perhaps someone plump like Danielle, with ample flesh over her bones, would withstand his type of play. She’d surprised him by taking to the BDSM lifestyle with enthusiasm. He’d watched the footage of her over and over, his dick getting harder each and every time.
His mouth watered. He bit into his cheek until he tasted the coppery flavor of his blood. How would Danielle taste as tears rolled down her cheeks?
It was because of Danielle that he’d been indebted to the Russian Bratva for eight years. Her father, James Walker, had fucked him over good. Eight years of having that psycho breathing down his neck as he tried everything in his power to get his hands on the money that James and Cole had hidden in a trust for Danielle in an offshore account. It had taken months to track down which bank he’d used and one dead bank manager to learn that the terms of the trust were ironclad. Only Danielle could claim the money, and even then, she had to be married or at least twenty-five years old. If she died before either of those conditions were met, the funds would be disbursed to charity.
All those lies James had told about losing all his clients’ money. Had James and Cole really believed no one would know they’d hidden the Bratva’s money or what lengths they’d go to get it? She didn’t know it, but she owed him.