You Are Mine (14 page)

Yet looking into that hot, amber gaze, she sensed a will as hard as an iron bar, as inexorable as the pull of the moon on the tides. Titanic. Implacable. A will she'd never had to deal with before because she'd never crossed him, not in any real way.

He let you win. He's always let you win …

This man in the perfectly pressed suit and leather gloves, the calm, controlled, soft-spoken gentleman, this wasn't Zac. This man was a front. A mask.

She couldn't breathe all of a sudden. Who the hell
was
Zac Rutherford? The man behind that front? And, more to the point, did she want to know?

Fear, comfortable and familiar, nestled her heart.

“Of course I'm sure,” she forced out, her voice thin and reedy. “Why shouldn't I be?”

He tilted his head, the cold light from the outside sheening his glossy black hair. “Do you even know what I'm talking about?”

Blind temper coiled inside her. “Jesus, I'm not some innocent virgin. I've been screwed in pretty much every way you could imagine, so yeah, I know exactly what you're talking about.”

Do you? Do you really?

He leaned forward, the movement almost imperceptible but she noticed it nonetheless. And it made all her muscles seize. “Sexual desire, angel,” he said, as if she hadn't spoken. “That's what I'm talking about.”

You don't know. You've never felt it.

She tried not to listen to those insidious thoughts. Tried not to acknowledge the truth of them. She'd been only sixteen when she was taken, and had never had a boyfriend. Didn't even want one, not given the shitty life she'd led with her father. It was enough just staying alive, let alone struggling with romance too.

And then afterwards, after she'd escaped, the thought of letting anyone touch her …

She found she was breathing fast, hard.

You have no idea.

“It's when you're aware of the person you want,” Zac went on, his voice quiet, rough-edged. “Physically aware of them in every way. And you're desperate to touch them, to be touched in return. To have their hands on your body. On your breasts, between your thighs. To have their mouth on yours. It's an ache, angel. A hunger you feel deep inside.”

She tried to keep her gaze on his. Tried hard. But for some reason she couldn't do it. His words seemed to grab onto something inside of her and tug, pulling at whatever it was as if trying to drag it from her.

Eva turned away, looking sightlessly out the window. It had begun to snow, white flakes drifting in the air, so clean and perfect. Before they settled on the dirty street, turning gray and slushy.

No, she hadn't ever wanted someone like that. Hadn't ever felt … hungry for someone in the way Zac was describing. She'd been given physical pleasure, not at first, it was true, but later. Sometimes she'd even had an orgasm.

That he forced on you.

Her eyes felt dry and sore. As if she might cry.

There had been boys at school that she'd thought were cute, but she'd never gone beyond that. Never imagined kisses or touches. And then she'd been taken, and …

“That's what I want from you.” Zac's voice had deepened, become even softer, like mink fur. She could sink into it, close her eyes, let the warmth of it lull her. “That's what I want you to feel. I want you to be hungry for me. I want you to ache for my touch. I want you to be desperate.” There was a slow heat to the words now. A heat that curled around her like a hand gripping on to that thing inside her, pulling harder. “I want you to beg, angel. And when you finally surrender everything you are to me, I want to hear you scream my name.”

Eva kept her gaze out the window. But she didn't see anything. Wasn't conscious of the snow falling or of the traffic outside, or of the sounds of horns or sirens.

It felt like every sense she had was focused on the man opposite her. On his voice.

And it came as a shock to realize that for the first time since she could remember, she wasn't cold.

That heat in those words had done something to her, settled over her skin like a blanket. And it didn't feel like it was pulling on whatever it was inside her now, but thawing it. Melting that ever-present kernel of ice that sat in her gut. Warming her right through.

She took a breath, forcing out a hard, brittle laugh. Breaking the spell. “Wow, that's some ego you've got there. I never imagined.”

“Look at me, Eva.”

She didn't want to. Because if she did, he would know she was pretending. That she was denying the strange warmth inside her. He would see what a liar she was. But then if she didn't, that would give something away too. Damned if she did. Damned if she didn't.

Eva braced herself and met his gaze, because in the end she wasn't a fucking coward.

Tiger's eyes. Wolf's eyes. They burned right through her, molten gold.

“You will come to me,” he said with such certainty it was as if he'd already seen the future and knew exactly what it contained. “I can show you everything you've been missing. Everything you're curious about.” That gaze of his was like the sun, she could barely look at it. “And everything you're afraid of.”

She swallowed, unable to speak. It was taking everything in her to not look away.

“I can take your fear from you, Eva. You only have to give it to me.”

You could. You could let him take it from you. Give you freedom.

Ah, Jesus, no. He just didn't understand. That was the one thing she could never do. Because in order to give him her fear, she first had to admit that she was afraid, that she'd been afraid all her life. And she couldn't do that.

Denial was all she had, a wall between her and her past and all the pain there. Denial was survival. And she couldn't give that up, not for him, not for anyone.

It kept her strong, kept her fighting. And without the fight, she'd be destroyed.

Eva finally broke his gaze and turned away, pulling up her blanket higher. She didn't need his voice or his words to keep her warm, not when she had cashmere.

“Well thanks,” she said, knowing it sounded inane. “I'll be sure to keep that in mind.”

 

CHAPTER SEVEN

There was no fire in the grate of their usual meeting room at the Second Circle, but the central heating had taken the chill off the room so it wasn't exactly cold.

Eva paced restlessly in front of the fireplace, her hands in the pockets of her jacket.

She hadn't spoken a word to him since they'd arrived, and he supposed he couldn't blame her. He'd been very clear about what his needs were, and she wouldn't be ready to hear that. Then again, she had to know.

He'd told her he wanted to own her. He hadn't lied.

He wanted her submission. Her surrender. Nothing else was going to do, not with her, not after seven years. But she had to be willing. He wasn't going to compromise on that either.

He just hadn't realized that desire was a foreign concept to her.

You should have known that, given her experiences.

Yes, he really should have. She'd been so young when she'd been taken, barely old enough to know what sexual desire was all about, let alone having experienced it for herself. At least not in an adult way and certainly not in the way he wanted.

Then she'd been taken to that house and … used. No wonder she didn't have the first idea what he was talking about in the car, despite what she'd said. Jesus, even though she technically wasn't a virgin, she was such an innocent.

Eva wasn't looking at him as she paced, her head down, her silver ponytail falling over one shoulder.

She didn't know desire. Probably didn't know pleasure either.

He stood behind the couch, his fingers digging into the material almost hard enough to rip it.

All those things she should have had. Desire. Pleasure. Safety. Laughter. Love. They'd all been taken from her, torn from her. Left her this prickly, frightened, shell of the woman she should have been. So wrong on so many levels.

Evelyn Fitzgerald was going to pay for what he'd taken from her. With his life.

The door opened suddenly and Alex came in, Katya at his heels. His eyes were bright, glittering with anger, determination. He didn't sit down, coming to stand next to Zac, looking first at him then at Eva.

Eva stopped pacing, standing to face Zac and Alex, her features carved from ice.

“I'm going to kill Evelyn Fitzgerald,” Alex said with relish. “Very fucking slowly.”

So. Gabriel must have shared the name with Alex.

A pale, long-fingered hand crept up to rest on Alex's shoulder: Katya standing behind him. “What do we know about him?” she asked.

Zac kept his gaze on Eva. On her pale, set features. As he watched, she turned away and began pacing again.

“The Fitzgeralds are one of New York's oldest families,” Zac said, when neither Alex nor Eva seemed about to explain. “Rich. Powerful. They have connections right across the country. In the White House. Everywhere. Evelyn is the current patriarch, with all sorts of fingers in all sorts of different pies. Mainly real estate from what I've managed to discover.”

Alex pushed himself away from the couch and walked over to one of the armchairs, throwing himself down into it without a word. The expression on his face was impenetrable.

Katya went over and stood by the chair, looking down at him. As Zac watched, Alex tipped his head back and met her gaze. Something wordless and intensely private passed between them.

Discomforted in ways he couldn't quite pinpoint, he looked back at the woman pacing in front of the empty, cold fireplace.

Silence sat like a black hole in the room, dense and heavy, sucking away all sound.

Behind him, Zac heard the door open again then close with a thunk.

Gabriel.

“‘Fitz',” Gabriel murmured cryptically as he went to stand next to Zac. “I always wondered what Tremain meant.”

Zac turned his head, met the other man's dark eyes. “What are you talking about?”

Gabriel leaned a hip against the back of the couch, folding his arms. He glanced first at Eva, still pacing, then at Alex, who'd pulled Katya down in his lap and was now holding her as if afraid she might be torn from his grasp at any second.

Zac found the pair vaguely disturbing so he kept his gaze on Gabriel instead.

“The night I went to the Lucky Seven,” Gabriel said after a moment. “When Tremain turned up. He thought I was someone else. He said, ‘Fitz. Is that you?' He must have thought I was Fitzgerald.”

“Tell me what else you found out, Zac,” Alex demanded suddenly. “I want to know.”

Zac didn't much like being ordered to do anything, but he'd give Alex a pass on this. It had taken the other man a long time to confront what had happened to him in the bathroom of the Lucky Seven casino, but he'd done it in the end. And that deserved respect.

Gabriel said nothing, eyeing him.

“Where's Honor?” Zac asked. “We have to be careful with this information. I don't want to have to go through it all again.”

“She's coming. She had a meeting she couldn't reschedule on such short notice, so she'll be a little late.” Gabriel shifted against the couch. “Don't worry, I'll fill her in.”

Zac was aware that Eva had stopped pacing and was watching him. No doubt she was concerned about her secret.

Are you going to force me to stand up in front of them and tell them all about what happened to me too?

He'd told her he would and he'd meant it. And if that made him as bad as the man who'd taken her, then too bad. He was ruthless. About time she learned that. The lives of their friends were too important for either secrets or scruples.

“Bryson told me that Fitzgerald used to take him to the Lucky Seven,” Zac said, keeping his voice level, calm. “And as far as what happened with Alex, Bryson said he was ordered to stand outside that bathroom.” Zac shifted his gaze to meet Alex's intense, blue eyes. “But not by South. By Fitzgerald.”

“Bastard,” Alex said softly. “That fucking bastard.”

Katya shifted in his lap, lacing her fingers through his where they rested on the arm of the chair.

Gabriel was silent, the look on his face hard. Then at last he said, “He's part of this. He and Conrad, working together from the looks of things. Jesus, were the rest of them in on it too?”

“Dad knew,” Alex murmured. “He tried to stop Conrad. And then he was killed.” He paused, one hand twining in Katya's hair, his thumb stroking one golden strand over and over. “On Fitzgerald's orders?”

Gabriel's head turned toward him. “The Apocalypse game. That mercenary, Elijah. He told you to stop investigating, threatened Zac and Eva. Could he be working for Fitzgerald?” He turned sharply to meet Zac's gaze. “Fuck, maybe this prick is the one pulling all the strings? Maybe he's the one dabbling in a little bit of human trafficking?”

Zac could feel Eva's tension like a physical force.

What had happened to her
was
important. It was a link to what had been going on in Conrad's casino. Because if Gabriel was right, if Fitzgerald was behind all of this, then it looked like the Seven Devils had been more than a rich boys' club running an underground casino. They'd been building an empire. Or at least Fitzgerald was the one building the empire. Since of course, that's what rich men like him did. They weren't content with what they had. They had to have more. Wealth was an addiction all its own, and Zac knew all about addiction. He'd had a grandstand view.

“We don't know that for certain,” he said. “All we have is the testimony of this bodyguard.”

“Is he telling the truth do you think?” Gabriel asked.

“Yes,” Eva said unexpectedly, her voice sounding thin. “He was.”