Wretched (Never After Series)(57)

He snaps his fingers. Brayden and Zeke both move, walking to the corner of the room where there’re five large black duffel bags. They lug them over and drop them down on the tabletop.

“Consider this a gift in good faith,” Dad says.

Giacomo scans his eyes over me one more time. “Is she a gift too?”

My smile drops, black starting to edge in around my vision. I tilt my head, placing the cigar into the ashtray. “My sister might be more to your liking.”

My father stiffens and satisfaction runs through me. That’s what he gets for making deals about my production without me.

“Somehow I doubt she holds a candle to you.” Giacomo laughs before tipping his chin at Dad. “We’ll try the product and you’ll hear from us soon, but you should know if we agree, you work for us.” He stands, buttoning his suit jacket before staring down at both of us. “That means I want to know who I’m working with. Who I’m buying from.”

There’s no way my dad will agree. Years I’ve been doing this for him, and in all of that time, not a word. That’s the deal. It keeps me protected; out of the spotlight, and it gives us leverage where otherwise we would fall short.

My father grins and shakes his hand. “You have my word.”





30





NICHOLAS





I adjust the cuff links on my arms, trying to ease the tension that’s been racking my body since stepping onto this ridiculous fucking boat. I hadn’t expected Eveline to show up to the meeting and when she did, my stomach flew to my throat, praying like hell she wouldn’t fly off the handle.

She didn’t, but now I’m pissed for a different reason. That motherfucker had his eyes all over her, and his hands were way too grabby. A possessive fire pulses through my veins as I walk past the auction in the dining hall and head to the back deck. I walk to the wall of French doors and step outside, immediately thankful there’s no one else here except for one lone figure.

Eveline.

Now that the immediate threat has passed, I have time to soak in what she’s wearing, and when I do, my lungs cramp and my cock springs to life. She’s flawless in a green gown that flows along the curves of her body. Her hair is curly and off her neck, and while I know she doesn’t act like the rest of the Illinois elite, damn can she dress the part.

Her back is to me, and I drink up the view of her naked skin, the gown backless and draping along the curve of her ass. I move forward without thought. Her hands are wrapped around the metal railing that lines the back of the ship. The wind whips off the water, swirling across the deck, and the bottom of her dress rustles, small wisps of her hair fluttering around her neck.

“Don’t jump.”

Her body tenses and I walk closer, wondering why she doesn’t have a quick comeback the way she normally would.

I step up next to her, noticing her closed eyes, then moving my gaze down her goose bump–covered arms and finally to where her knuckles are blanched from her tight grip on the railing.

“You okay?”

“Shut up,” she snaps, squeezing her eyes tighter.

She peels one lid open timidly, staring down at the dark lake. Her chest rises and fall faster and she slams it closed again.

Is she scared of water?

I move without thinking, partially because she needs me, and the other part because I’m desperate to touch her, just to prove I can after watching another man lust over her and being unable to stop him. I step behind her, not quite flush against her, but close enough the heat of her body radiates off her back.

She’s out here, all alone, and her entire family is inside like they don’t realize she could be struggling. Like they don’t even know she’s afraid.

Maybe they don’t.

It’s an off-putting feeling seeing her this way.

I press a soft kiss to the small freckle on her left shoulder and remove my jacket, draping it over her. Then I cage her in, my body surrounding her and my hands resting on the railing.

Her breathing stutters, but she doesn’t open her eyes. I pry her grip from the metal, threading my fingers through hers so she can hold on to me instead.

“Bright star, would I were stedfast as thou art—not in lone splendour hung aloft the night. And watching, with eternal lids apart, like nature’s patient, sleepless Eremite.” I whisper the words softly into her ear.

Her body presses back into mine.

“The moving waters at their priestlike task, of pure ablution round earth’s human shores, or gazing on the new soft-fallen mask, of snow upon the mountains and the moors—”

Her breathing evens out and her head relaxes against my chest, and I probably should care about who could see, about where we are and what we’re doing, but I don’t. The only thing that matters is her.

“Pillow’d upon my fair love’s ripening breast, no—yet still stedfast, still unchangeable, to feel for ever its soft fall and swell.” I bend my head down until my lips graze her neck, and I breathe her in, my cock hard and my heart pounding. “Awake for ever in a sweet unrest, still.”

She presses into me, a soft moan leaving her lips when she feels my hips tightly against her.

“Still to hear her tender-taken breath, and so live ever—or else swoon to death.”

The tension swirling around our bodies is overwhelming, and I don’t know what it is I’m feeling, only that nothing else has ever felt like it. Opening her eyes, she twists in my arms to look up at my face.