‘We can’t,’ she repeats quietly. ‘It’s not that I don’t want to—’
‘But you’d let him,’ I grate out suddenly, disgust filling every syllable. ‘Fucking Will.’
‘What?’
‘Did you give him your number? He just wants to fuck you. He’ll fuck you and cast you aside!’ I throw my hands wide... throwing the contents of a pack of chicken over the floor.
‘And you, Mac?’ she returns, whip fast. ‘Wouldn’t you do the same?’
‘I’d fucking worship you,’ I answer vehemently.
Her neck moves as she swallows, but she’s no longer able to hold my gaze, and her words, when she speaks, are little more than a huff.
‘Even though I’m not blonde?’
‘Especially because you’re not.’ And I suddenly don’t feel so drunk anymore, blood flowing in my veins like pure heat. ‘You’re not fucking him.’ The very thought twists my insides. Makes me grit my teeth so hard, my molars might well turn to dust.
‘You’re right,’ she replies evenly. Then she has to go spoiling it, making me lose my fucking mind. ‘I’m not fucking him. Currently.’
She’s trying to provoke a reaction, and far be it for me not to deliver on that score.
‘You misunderstand me, little girl.’ I try to keep my words light as, abandoning my sandwich, other appetites begin to surge and consume as I stalk to the other side of the island. ‘You’re not fucking him now,’ I repeat, swinging the stool around so she’s facing me. ‘You’re not fucking him ever.’
Her breathing is rapid, her chest heaving between us. ‘Who do you think you are?’ she asks evenly. ‘My dad?’
‘We can play daddy games.’ It’d be a first, but my cock is so hard she could want to call me Santa fucking Claus and it wouldn’t make a drop of fucking difference. Because I want her. In the rawest sense.
‘Just look at you. So pretty, not a lick of makeup on your face, yet so rosy cheeked and lipped.’ I feed my hand through the mass of her hair, and she leans her head into my touch like a cat. ‘Sitting there so prim and so proper like a good little girl. But it’s all there in your eyes. The good little girl waiting to be defiled.’ I’m not sure if it’s my words or the way I pull her head back that makes her breath halt then stutter.
‘You like the sound of that, don’t you, Ella?’ I whisper, bringing my mouth to her ear. ‘Being defiled... by Daddy.’
It’s a risk, sure, but she let the patriarch out of the bag.
The sight of her exposed neck, delicate and so pale, the heat in her eyes, and the heave of her chest is enough to suggest she wants this. That she’s into this. But I need more. I need to hear the words as I tilt her head further still.
‘Do you want to hear how Daddy wants to sink his cock into your pretty pink pussy? Make you so fucking wet and messy that I have to clean you up with my tongue?’
‘Yes.’ Her answer is as tremulous as her breath.
‘Yes, what? Yes, you like the sound of that? Or yes, you’ll be a good girl.’
‘Yes... to all of it.’
Raphaela Alescio, you wee deviant. I think I might marry you.
‘That’s the thing, though. I touch you, and you get cold feet or you change your mind. There’s something you’re not telling me, and until you do, we’re not fucking, either.’
I’m a bastard, I know. A smiling bastard. I also know she can feel it curled into the crook of her neck. What she doesn’t know is I’m deadly serious and about to leave my mark on her in more ways than one.
I drag my tongue to the base of her neck, and a sigh stutters from her chest. I work my way to her mouth, eating her in biting kisses. Cover her mouth with mine as a rush of anticipation runs down my spine. I kiss her hard and possessive, bite her lips while keeping her immobile by her hair.
‘Too bad you’re hiding something,’ I murmur into her mouth. ‘Too bad you’re not a good little girl.’
‘I am . . . I can be.’ Her whisper is hoarse as if she’s run a mile. ‘Please... Fuck me. Fuck me over the countertop.’
‘That’s a very specific request, especially for a girl who, this afternoon... ’ I don’t finish as a thought suddenly occurs to me. ‘You’ve been snooping, haven’t you? You bad little girl.’
‘I was putting the whisky away,’ she pants. ‘The box of condoms just... fell out.’