She seems happier now than I’ve seen her so far. I chalk it up to exercise-induced endorphin release. I take in her bare legs, the smoothness traced through with the faint lines of her muscles. As she shifts her legs, I look up to her face. She’s looking back at me. I lean back, ready for her to overreact, but she only looks at me. She smiles, slow and reckless.
I want her.
I want to fold her in half and fuck her. I want to pin her down and feel her hips push up against my hips. I want to show her the world without morality or laws, where it’s just bodies creating friction.
I move to the edge of the chair. The motion causes her to jerk upward like a frightened deer.
“I should rehydrate,” she says, avoiding looking at me.
Allison stands up and immediately crumples to the ground. Her hand slaps hard against the floor to steady herself. I’m off my chair before I realize what I’m doing, my hand on her back.
“Are you okay?” I ask. “I can get you the water.”
“No,” she mutters, sliding onto her side and rubbing her calf. “It’s a stupid cramp. This is a sign from the universe that running is a crime against nature.”
“Come on. Let’s get you back onto the couch.”
Her hand presses on my shoulder as she tries to get up on one leg. My arm wrapped around Allison’s petite frame, I help her get back onto the couch and sit down beside her. Her jasmine scent sweeps over me. As I pull my arm away from her, she turns to me. Our faces are so close together, I feel her exhale against my lips.
Her hand touches my chest before her lips do. Her fingers press against my chest as she pushes herself away. Her cheeks are flushed with red.
“I’m sorry,” she mumbles. “Um, I’m getting your couch wet. I mean from my clothes. Do you have any clothes I could borrow?”
I scrutinize her. She’s turned her face away from me, concentrating on the tree outside the window. She turns back toward me when I don’t answer.
“Yes,” I say, and stand up without saying anything more. As I leave the den, I hear her behind me, her footsteps soft as she keeps her distance. As we walk up the stairs, I turn enough to see her clinging to her bag like it’s a gun that’s going to protect her. I keep moving forward, reminding myself that I need her for control over her father and nothing else.
My closet is the room right before my bedroom. I open the door and gesture for Allison to step in.
The closet is octagonal, every wall displaying a different category of clothing. Most of them are very similar name-brand pieces. I have no interest in it, but money makes me look desirable to consumers and women and threatening to my enemies.
I move to the section with my casual clothing. I pick out some sweatpants, a pair of shorts, and a pair of boxers. I toss them to her.
“I don’t think any of those will fit, but you can try them on,” I say.
She sets her bag down by her feet and pulls on the sweatpants. They don’t stay up and the legs cover her feet, creating an illusion that she shrunk. As she pulls them back off, it’s hard to ignore the perfect curvature of her ass and thighs. She could murder me with those thighs and I’d still love them.
She tosses the sweatpants back to me, raising her eyebrow when she catches me looking. “Should I change somewhere else?”
“My bedroom is empty,” I say. She nearly laughs, a smirk sparking on her face before she turns around, pulling on the shorts. The waistband is also too wide. With her hourglass figure, it seems like they should fit, but her ratio doesn’t change the fact that she’s a pixie compared to me.
She pulls the shorts off and tries on the boxers. They settle on her hips. She bounces on the balls of her feet. The boxers start to slide down, revealing the top of her underwear.
“I don’t know,” she says, pulling them back up. I take a gray sweater off a hanger and toss it to her. She catches it.
“That sweater should be long enough to cover your ass.”
She pinches the sweatshirt between her knees and peels off her shirt. All the women I’ve been with in the last five years have had breasts big enough to divide and conquer. Allison’s are smaller but combined with her lithe body, it’s a territory worthy of a war.
She pulls on the sweater. The hemline ends in the middle of her thighs. She spins around.
“How do I look?”
Like you could kill me and I’d love it.
“It’s good enough for now. We should put your clothes in the dryer.”
She bounces on the balls of her feet, the sneakers squishing from the water. “What do you think will happen if I leave with your sweater? That I’ll steal it? You don’t trust me at all?”
I snatch her pants from the floor. “No. The master bathroom is in the room after my bedroom. If you can’t figure out how it works, I’ll be downstairs. Irina can add your other clothes to the dryer once you’re done.”
I walk away as she opens her mouth to argue.
With any other woman, I would have just sent her home in her wet clothes.
But Allison is my future wife. And, unlike the others, I haven’t fucked her yet.
7
Allison
I had only seen the master bathroom in a quick glimpse when Lev gave me a tour before. I wasn’t concerned about the bathroom—I was concerned that I wanted to equally murder and sacrifice myself to one of the worst men I’d ever met.
I’m deeply concerned about the bathroom now.
Most of the bathroom is okay, if the definition of ‘okay’ is heaven on earth. The marble floors, the massive
