Bound By His Vow: His Final Bargain / The Rings That Bind / Marriage Made of Secrets. Майя Блейк
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dark gaze smouldered as it held hers. ‘Wouldn’t lady of the night be more appropriate?’ she asked with a pert hitch of her chin.
A line of steel travelled from his mouth and lodged itself in his eyes. ‘What do you want the money for?’
She gave a careless shrug and shifted her gaze to the left of his. ‘The usual things—clothes, jewellery, shoes, salon treatments, a holiday or two.’
He captured her chin and made her look at him. ‘You do realise I would have paid you much more?’
Her stomach quivered as his thumb grazed the fullness of her bottom lip. ‘Yes…I know.’
He measured her gaze with his for endless, heart-chugging seconds. ‘But you didn’t ask for it.’
‘No.’
‘Why not?’
She gave another careless little shrug. ‘Maybe I don’t think I’m worth it.’
His thumb caressed her cheek as he cupped her face in his hand, his gaze still rock-steady on hers. ‘Why would you think that?’
Eliza felt the danger of getting too close to him, of allowing him to see behind the paper-thin armour she had pinned around herself. She had to stay streetwise and smart-mouthed. She couldn’t allow him to see any other version of herself.
The real version.
‘You get what you pay for in life, wouldn’t you agree?’ She didn’t pause for him to answer. ‘Say my price was a million pounds. I figure this way you only got a quarter of me.’
His gaze continued to hold hers unwaveringly. ‘What if I wanted all of you?’
Eliza felt a momentary flare of alarm in her chest. She had experienced his ruthless intent before. It was dangerous to be inciting it into action again. What he wanted he got. He wouldn’t let anything or anyone stand in his way. Hadn’t he already achieved what he’d set out to achieve? She was back in his bed, wasn’t she? And it didn’t look as if he was going to let her out of it any time soon. She held his look with a steady determination she wasn’t even close to feeling. ‘The rest of me is not for sale.’
His thumb moved back and forth over her cheek, slowly, mesmerizingly, that all-seeing, all-knowing gaze stripping away the layers of her defences like pages being torn from a cheap notepad. ‘So which part have I bought?’ he asked.
‘The part you wanted.’
‘How do you know which part I wanted?’
‘It’s obvious, isn’t it?’ She brazenly stroked a hand down his naked chest to the elastic waistband of his track pants, giving him her best sultry look. ‘It’s the same part I want of you.’
She heard him suck in a breath as her hand dipped below the fabric. She felt his abdomen tense. She felt the satin of his skin, the hot, hard heat of him scorching her fingers as they wrapped around him. Her body primed itself for his possession and she didn’t care how sweet or savage it was going to be.
She yanked his track pants down further and bent her head to him, teasing him mercilessly with her tongue. He groaned and dug his fingers into her scalp but he didn’t pull away, or, at least, not at first. She drew on him, tasting the essence of him, swirling her tongue over and around him, making little flicking movements and little cat-like licks until finally he could stand no more.
‘Wait,’ he gasped, trying to pull back. ‘I’m going to—’ He let out a short, sharp expletive as she went for broke. She had him by the hips and dug her fingers in hard. Her mouth sucked harder and harder, wanting his final capitulation the same way he went for hers—ruthlessly.
He came explosively but she didn’t shy away from receiving him. He shuddered and quaked, finally sagging over her like a puppet whose strings had been suddenly severed.
Eliza caressed her hands over his back and shoulders, a slow exploratory massage of each of his carved and toned muscles. He had loved her massaging him in the past. And she had loved doing it. He had carried a lot of tension in his body even back then. There was something almost worshipful about touching him this way, with long and smooth strokes of her palms and fingers, rediscovering him like a precious memory she thought she had lost for ever. ‘You’ve got knots in your shoulders. You need to relax more.’
‘Can’t get more relaxed than this right now.’
‘I’m just saying…’
He lifted himself up on his elbows and locked gazes with her. ‘We’re doing this the wrong way around. It’s not the way I usually do things.’
She tiptoed her fingers over his pectoral muscles. ‘You’re paying me to pleasure you. That changes the dynamic, surely?’
He pulled her hand away from his chest and sat upright, his expression contorted with a brooding frown, his gaze dark and disapproving. ‘I know what you’re doing.’
‘What am I doing?’
‘You’re playing the hooker card.’
She gave a little up and down movement of one shoulder. ‘If the shoe fits I usually wear it. I find it’s more comfortable that way.’
‘Is that really how you want to play things?’
Her brow arched haughtily. ‘Do I have a choice?’
He held her gaze for a long pause before he let out a breath and got to his feet. He scraped a hand through his hair before he dropped it back down by his side. ‘The money is in your account. I deposited it an hour ago.’
‘Thank you.’ She gave him a look. ‘Sir.’
There was another tight pause before he spoke. ‘I have to go to Paris on business. Marella has agreed to be here to help you with Alessandra. I don’t expect you to be on duty twenty-four hours a day.’
‘How long will you be away?’
‘A day or two.’
‘Why don’t you take us with you?’ she asked. ‘It’s a shortish trip. It shouldn’t be too hard to organise. It would be a little adventure for Alessandra. It will build her confidence to travel and mix with other people other than just you and Marella and me.’
His jaw tightened like a clamp. ‘Maybe some other time.’
Eliza suspected his ‘maybe some other time’ meant no other time. What did he think was going to happen to Alessandra if she stepped outside the villa for once? How was his little girl supposed to live a normal life if he kept her away from everything that was normal? ‘You can’t keep her hidden away for ever, you know.’
‘Is that what you think I’m doing?’
‘No one even knows you have a child, much less that she’s blind.’
‘I don’t want my daughter to be ridiculed or pitied in the press.’ His gaze nailed hers. ‘Can you imagine how terrifying it would be for her to be hounded by paparazzi? She’s too young to cope with all of that. I won’t allow her to be treated like a freak show every time she goes out in public.’
‘I understand how you feel, but she needs to—’
He stabbed a finger in the air towards her, his eyes blazing with vitriolic anger. ‘You do not understand. You don’t have any idea of what it’s like to have a child with a disability. She can’t see. Do you hear me? She can’t see and there’s not a damn thing I can do about it.’
Eliza swallowed unevenly, her heart contracting at the raw emotion he was displaying. He was angry and bitter but beneath all that was a loving father who was truly heartbroken that he could do nothing to help his little daughter. Tears burned in the back of her throat for what he was going through. No wonder he was always so tense and on edge. ‘I’m sorry…’
He drew in a tight breath and released it in a