The Claiming by Imogen Keeper

Author:Imogen Keeper [Keeper, Imogen]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2019-10-09T16:00:00+00:00

25

like a pet in a fucking cage

TESSA FLOPPED OVER on her stomach. If there was ever a time to suddenly become a good actress, this was it.

The doorknob twisted. He froze at the doorway, holding a tray of food, looking around the room. She’d have sworn he scented the air.

“Did you just wake up?” he asked.

Because, unlike him, she was not a good actress, she just murmured something that sounded halfway between an affirmation and a moan. And because she did know Sanger liked to look at her body, she stretched indolently, spreading her legs in silent, hopefully distracting, invitation.

Those perfect lips curved.

Her throat tightened. Why did he have to be so beautiful? It made it way too easy to forget that less than twenty minutes ago he’d strangled a man.

He set the tray down beside her on the bed.

A spray of magenta bougania with turquoise fronds sat in a small vase on the tray.

She trailed a finger along one of the pointed blooms. “Flowers.”

“There’s a vine outside the kitchen. Made me think of you.”

Her heart pounded, and the breath she exhaled was shaky. The image of his muscles bunching as he pulled at the wire around a dying man’s neck kept flashing in her mind, alternating with Jonan’s bleeding corpse.

His eyes gave nothing away, he was as robotic as ever. “Your heart’s beating fast.”

The signs of heat were so similar to the signs of fear. For good reason. When the body has the power to make a woman forget her soul, she should be afraid.

She couldn’t admit to fear, so she admitted to lust. “I’m getting close.”

On the tray sat a brown paper bag, edges folded back into a make-shift basket full of pastries. He tilted his chin at it, the side of his mouth turned down in a rueful smile. “I had pastries delivered. I didn’t know what you liked, so I got one of everything.”

Why was he pretending to be so nice?

Why toy with her?

She’d be here even if all he did was slap her ass and keep her on her knees. She had no choice. He could do as he liked with her. No one would stop him. She certainly couldn’t, and yet here he was, playing this prince-charming farce to perfection.

A big bowl on the tray held mixed berries. Her mouth started to water. There were varieties of berries there she’d never even seen before—and that was saying something since Manivietto had taken pride in seeing his women well fed, mother, aunts, sisters and wives.

Her hand moved toward it. “Are you eating this time?”

He scratched his jaw. “I had some downstairs.”

There were a lot of pastries, and it was a big berry bowl. He must have intended for them to share, but she wouldn’t argue. If the Boss wanted to be a gentleman and let her eat all his berries and pastries, fine with her. Maybe he’d starve while they did nothing but fuck and swap lies for the next two days.

He kissed her shoulder, and she tried to ignore the way her spine tingled at the raspy drag of his unshaved jaw.

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