ENRAPTURED: A Dark Billionaire Romance (The Devil & His Dove Book 2) Read online

  She sways as I release her. I cross the floor, shutting the door. Taking the key from my pocket, I insert it into the padlock hanging outside the door. I school my features, control my breathing and use my years of experience acting like I’m normal to mentally prepare for the charity visit waiting for me outside. A dozen special needs kids from the school specializing in autism outside of town are here. No one was there for me as a child. I was a lost cause. But I won’t let these kids suffer my fate. I do what I can to support them. My mother would’ve been proud. I do it to honor her memory… making up for all the dark things I do. Like become a kidnapper, a felon, and sometimes a thug.

  My barn manager, Will, is autistic himself. He’s forty years old and has a way with horses that’s uncanny. I pay him well and he in turn minds his own business, taking care of the animals. I paste a smile on my face, open the side door and step out into the sunlight. “Mrs. Bates! It’s good to see you again. Let’s get these kids saddled up to ride.”

  A dozen faces peer out the bus windows. Some look at me, others can’t make eye contact. That’s okay. I understand these kids more than anyone. I too, know what it’s like to be locked inside your own mind.

  “What in the fuck is going on?” I whispered to myself, bewildered at the scene below. Christos is swinging children in his arms, his smile so dazzling, his beauty blinds me even from where I stand watching him. He places them one at a time on a pony while another man I haven’t seen before leads them around a ring. I’ve never been on this side of the house. Never even knew there were horses here.

  More cars come down the driveway. People get out snapping photos, some scribble notes as Christos speaks to them. Reporters. They must be. A white tent is set up outside the ring. Food trucks tumble down the drive.

  He’s throwing a party for these kids?

  I bang my hand against the window, yelling for help. Yelling that I’m trapped here inside. But no one looks up. No one hears me. Except him. The smirk that tilts up one side of his lips tells me he sees me up here. I’m invisible to everyone but him.

  I kick chairs. Tumble boxes. Enraged at the sick power he wields over me.

  It’s unfair.

  I sit for hours until the last sleepy child climbs back on the bus. No one ever came to give me food or a bucket. I sat chewing my nails, pacing; my confused, twisted heart making a mess of what I thought I already sorted out. I knew he was a good man, despite everything. No devil would spend his day with children like this. I saw the words painted on the side of the bus as it turned around. These were all special needs kids. He does have a heart. So why does he refuse to acknowledge it?

  My head spins with more questions.

  My heart wants something I forbade it to have.

  My body burns for his touch.

  And as I wait to be released from the tower, I wonder which will win.

  CHRISTOS

  SHE’S PUNCTUAL FOR ONCE. Gliding into the room in kitten heels, black velvet pants and a loose cream blouse. I turn away from the mantle to hold out her chair.

  “Did you have a pleasant afternoon?” I goad, knowing she spent it pounding against the attic window. I wonder if she’ll try to cut me with the steak knife if I was to tell her the double glass practically makes it soundproof.

  She turns hopeful eyes at me. Bloody hell. She thinks there’s still a chance.

  “What was today about?”

  “Nothing. Charity,” I shrug.

  “It didn’t look like nothing. You care about those kids, Christos.”

  “It’s a tax write off,” I toss back my whiskey before meeting her gaze. “Using the horses as therapy once a month for the autistic children allows me to label my inheritance as a farm.”

  “Liar.”

  “You of all people shouldn’t be deluded into thinking I have a beating heart. Are you still hopeful of that, little one?”

  “It’s a full moon tonight.” She responds, changing the subject.

  “So?”

  “I want to go back to the attic. I found a telescope. Contrary to what you might think, I’m not spending my days pining over your black heart or anything else of yours…I’ve been reading. Teaching myself all the things I’ll never learn in a classroom.”

  “So, tonight is astronomy, eh?”

  “Do you know what happens to a star when it burns out? Their life cycles are fascinating.” She prattles on about theories, planetary alignments, not even stopping to chew her food.

  Amused by her, I cut my steak. She hasn’t chatted this much with me…since the day we picnicked on the beach last summer. I nod my head, pretending to listen attentively, but all I can think about is fucking her mouth again. She swallows her food and I remember how she looked swallowing my release.

  Theos. My poor dick is raw from the amount of jacking off I’ve been doing. I need her already. I haven’t gone this long without sex while having a woman so near. But I know if I’m to win her back for the long-haul I have planned she needs time to get over Fiona. And time is the ultimate edging. For both of us.

  She pushes her plate forward. “Can I go?”

  I stand. She hesitates. “I-I was hoping to be alone.”

  “Why? You have me intrigued to see these stars of yours.”

  I lead her back up to the attic. It’s a goddamn mess. “I-I’ll clean it up,” she offers, afraid I’ll take her night of stargazing away or worse, I’ll punish her with my dick.

  “Leave it.”

  I step around spilled boxes to the tripod where she already set the telescope in. She stands next to me with an astronomy book in hand. “My mother gave this to me on my fifteenth birthday.”

  “I didn’t know. I’m sorry…”

  “Don’t be. I never used it. I’m sure she’d be pleased to know I’ll finally use it now.”

  She bends, peering into the scope and adjusting the settings. “It’s so beautiful. Do you know what a dark star is Christos? Here come look.”

  She steps away, beckoning me to take her place.

  “I don’t see anything…”

  “Do you see a cloudy ball. It’s murky, dark gray with a few speckles shining.”

  I nod, squinting my eye, looking again. “I think I see it.”

  “You’re a dark star Christos. I always thought of you that way…ever since that night on board Oasis when you told me this is where we’d end up.”

  “And you shine so bright, chrysí mía. Don’t let me burn out completely and die. Orbiting alone. Help me. Be my light.” My voice cracks. I’m never venerable with her but I am now.

  “I can’t Christos. I already tried.”

  “Try again?”

  “This was a bad idea. I’m going to bed. Alone.”

  I let her go this time, she walks out slipping through my fingers again. I feel her moving farther away. I sit alone in the attic wondering if I’ll ever outgrow being a lost little boy.

  HE’S GOING TO COME again tonight. I’m certain of it. I’ve already showered after eating my dinner here. A television appeared in my room a few days ago. It only has Netflix, but I’ll take it. Binge watching my favorite shows.

  I haven’t seen Christos during the daylight for days. I stopped coming down for dinner. This isn’t beauty and the beast. No teacups dance, no French chefs whip up delights. The longer I’m here the more I feel my old life slipping away like Jessie Montgomery never existed.

  But I feel him everywhere or maybe I’m just paranoid he’s watching me from hidden cameras. I’ve looked for them but so far haven’t found any. I’m slowly gaining strength and weight back. But hating myself for it. I couldn’t stomach food in Greece. But spending time with him as I have this past month is tearing me apart. I miss him. Who he was…who he could be. I miss myself…the woman I was…the woman I might not ever get to be. I’m eating just about everything his shrew of a housekeeper puts in front of me. If I didn’t know better, I’d think I was pregnant. My mind is a constant state of chaos.

  Christos became a
ghost. Haunting me, feeling his oppressive presence. His cold warmth enveloping me in the late hours of the night. He comes to me in darkness; hot lips finding the back of my neck.

  I pretend to be asleep, caught up in dreams, hiding behind the pretense as I moan, sigh and melt into unwanted caresses. Something shifted in me since that day he helped the children. I tried to fight it, but he snuck in. Part of me might always hope for the golden angel to come back. As I watched him smile and laugh with those children, I glimpsed that man. It’s dreaming about that man that heats my blood, turns me on and has me wishing for impossible things.

  He doesn’t press for more than touches and whispers. In fact, he often leaves me burning between my thighs. His hands never roam lower than my hip or higher than my stomach. He has supreme restraint in this new version of a familiar game. He’s seducing me slowly like a virgin in the Victorian age. Becoming a secret lover who slips under the covers hidden by shadows and leaving before first light. Like those late-night touches never happened, our breathy sighs were just the wind blowing down old chimneys.

  But I know better.

  The burn of his touch never leaves with the light.

  It stays.

  A brand, an invisible tattoo that the devil had his hands on me. I place my brush down and slide under the covers half-hoping he comes tonight, half-hoping he doesn’t. Instead of the lace teddies and wisps of silk nightgowns, I’ve chosen to sleep in my yoga pants and old Chargers T-shirt. He let me keep my clothes this time. I was grateful to have pieces of me here; reminders that I’m still Jessie from California even if that girl seems as if she lived lifetimes instead of months ago.

  My senses are on alert. Every creak of the wood floor or banging of an old pipe keeps me on edge. Last night, the wind picked up knocking a branch against the window. My fists gripped the covers wondering, waiting for him to come. Despite my best efforts to keep my eyes open, they always fall shut. It must be the hot tea they make me drink before bed every night. The tea bag says chamomile and I pour the water in the cup myself. He’s not drugging me to sleep. I can only blame myself for giving in to it, knowing it’s only then that my dark beast comes to see his pet.

  Somewhere between the states of consciousness he comes. I’m in a different plane. “You’re mine agápe. Forever. Someday you’ll understand…I did what I had to do.” Hot lips find my shoulder. Hands skim up under my shirt, cupping each breast as fingers lazily circle my nipples.

  My breath hitches.

  He hasn’t touched me like this in so long. My thighs rub together restlessly. My neck arches waiting for his kiss.

  The beast’s low laugh at my throat sends shivers down my spine as his lips and teeth nip their way up behind my ear. One hand falls, sneaks under the elastic of my pants to delve between my legs.

  “Christos,” I moan, riding his hand, hips gyrating back and forth.

  “Yes, agápe. Let go. You. Are. So. Wet.” A finger curls up, entering me as his fingers play with my folds rubbing my clit back and forth.

  I cry out. Biting my lip in shame as I come apart for him. I’m wide awake now, he’s still but by his harsh breathing, I know he’s on the brink. The beast wants the sweet release he just gave me for himself. His hands come back to my breasts, he moves his hips forward, letting me feel him against me.

  He toys with my nipples and to my great shame…I grow wetter and wetter. Needing him rooted deep inside me to relieve the ache. His hands fall to the waistband of my pants, tugging them down.

  “No, Christos.”

  He stills, hands flexing by my hips. For a second, I expect to hear the spandex tearing in his hands. But he stops, one hand slips to the back, caressing my hips and buttocks, kneading the flesh. “Do you remember, how good it felt? How I stretched you so full? Theos, I could come right now remembering how tight you felt.”

  I swallowed hard. “Of course, I remember. Dimitri had the tongue of a god. I should’ve gone with him.”

  He grabs a fistful of my hair jerking me around. It’s dark, so dark in the pitch-black room, I can’t see his eyes but feel his stare on me. He lets go, only to force me on my back. He inserts a knee between my legs, pins my hands over my head, and leans down. His hot tongue slides over my collarbone. He lets my arms go as he grabs my pants, yanking them down hard. My mouth opens to protest, but nothing comes out as he buries his head between my legs, finds my swollen clit and sucks it hard forcing me to cry out. He surrenders the tiny bud, “Don’t ever speak his name again.” He shifts his body, forearms come up, pinning me under him. His head dips. I miss his kiss. I hate him. Hate myself. I’m right back where I started with him coming full-circle.

  My lips part, dying for him. I’m always dying for him one way or another. But as his head descends, I turn my head refusing him. He swears in Greek, reaches down and frees himself. The thick meaty tip of him, slides up and down my slit, butts against my clit. “Tell me you want me. Admit you miss this,” he continues to guide himself with one hand through me while his other arm keeps me locked in place.

  “I miss a man who never existed. I was falling in love with a man who I never thought would cheat on me.”

  “I didn’t cheat on you agape. I told you to leave. I threw your freedom in your face. You refused to take it. Don’t blame your poor choices on me. You took it upon yourself to breach confidential medical records that weren’t yours to share. You chose to stay. You chose to throw your drink in my face in front of the most powerful DOM’s in the world.”

  “I didn’t choose to be here now. I was recovering. You let me fall into the bottom of the pit. In Greece with Yaya…I started to stand. I almost found a way out.”

  He chuckles in the dark bringing both hands to the sides of my face. “You’re starting to speak like me, little one. So poetic.” His mouth finds my temple, his cock shudders against me.

  I’m soaked.

  Leaking for him.

  But not for him.

  He’s conditioned my body to hunger for his dark love while my heart and mind is still shattered from it. I dig deep, scrapping together the last bits of strength I have. “I don’t want you. Please stop. You promised you’d never force me.”

  “But you’re so wet for me agápe mou.”

  “Stop calling me, my love. I’m not your love. I’m your prisoner. And yes, I won’t deny our intense physical attraction to one another. But I’ll never forgive you for Fiona. I don’t want you inside me. Leave.”

  He hisses through his teeth. The head of him poised at my entrance. The strain of holding back makes his forearms tremble next to my head. Sweat falls off his brow and lands on my face. “If I could miss anybody. I’d admit I missed you.” He dips his head kissing me softly. His words stunned me, and I missed my chance to move my head. I moaned remembering his taste. The female in me wanting to surrender to him. He’s so manly, dominant, and it turns me on. I need a strong man since I was always such a strong woman. He makes me feel soft and feminine in a way no one else ever has.

  My mouth opens, I accept his slow burning kiss. But as the tip of him slides forward, I push my hands against his chest and roll out from under him. “I told you I can’t.”

  “You will.” His voice is hard, as it moves through the dark. I adjust my clothes and spring off the bed crossing the floor in the dark until my hands find the light switch.

  Heaven help me.

  He’s the dark fallen angel. Cheeks slashed with red as his broad shoulders bunch with tension showing me every thick ripped muscle of his back. His silk pajama pants tent. He’s breathing hard as his dark eyes slay me with anger and…hurt by my rejection.

  The monster is angry and sad. My nails dig into my palms. Something in his eyes makes me want to run across the floor, climb on his lap and kiss away his pain. Let him ravage me like I know he can.

  “Don’t look at me like that.”

  “Like what?” I shake my head.

  “Stop playing games agápe. You deny me, but I know you’ve been feigning sle
ep every night I crawl in this bed. You let me pet you…touch you…knowing it makes me burn. Then you deny me. Tell me you don’t want this.” He strokes himself through the silk from root to tip.

  “I did want it. All of it, once. But not anymore.”

  “Liar.” He shudders at my words continuing to stroke himself. “Come here.”

  “No.”

  “Do you want me to beg?”

  “Would you?” My eyebrow rises. Despite how much I hate him…I enjoy this. Our game of power.

  “I might for you little dove.”

  “Liar,” I mock him.

  He stands, drops his pants, standing gloriously naked in front of me. But I’m not afraid. I’m wet as fuck. Wondering what he’s about. He lays back down on the bed. “Take off your shirt.”

  “No.”

  “Do it.” He growls. “Or I’ll cut them off you.”

  I bite my lip, still wanting to please him. Tears threaten. My fingers shake. I’m still enslaved by him, enraptured by his dark gaze as it falls on me.

  My shaking hands reach the hem of my shirt, slowly lifting it off, baring my breasts for him.

  “I want your pants off next.”

  I can’t look him in the eye. I’m ashamed. He’ll see the need still there to please him. On auto-pilot, I shimmy out of my yoga pants, my breath hitching, awaiting his next command. I know what it’ll be, to crawl on my knees to him… take him in my mouth and I want to. There’s nothing I want more.

  “Come closer.”

  But I can’t move. I’m mesmerized by him. He’s beautiful as he pants, breathing hard, dark eyes melting me as he strokes himself. “So good, agápe. You felt so good. It turned me on, watching you come for me while someone else’s hands touched you.” He bites his lip, my eyes are trained on his tip, leaking. The veins protrude. He’s so big, powerful—I sway remembering how he made me feel.