Deal • REWRITE • BOOK 1

15; Devil in Me

"Honey, he might not be your boyfriend but I think he's into you,"

A R I A

I always liked to think that I knew what I was doing.

I was someone who thought things out until I formed a solution, all risks and faults eradicated so that I could work things out smoothly to get what I wanted without any problems.

Most of the time all my answers formed to be something violent and left me with the blood of someone else on my hands, however with the way that I had been brought up in the world I was involved in, it always seemed like the only option.

It was why I was suddenly feeling irritated as I walked past the patio doors and towards the balcony further down the garden, the early morning sun creating a warm glow to blanket the scenery of the garden that was green grass and white stone

My bare feet padded against the white stone paving that led to the balcony which overlooked the pool and the land that my grandfather owned around the property, a steaming mug of hot coffee held between my hands as I shivered and wondered if wearing a silk robe was a great idea in the slightly cold temperature outside.

"Probably not," I muttered to myself when I looked down and saw my nipples poking through the thin rose gold fabric, the material that was lined in the same colour lace tickling the tops of my thighs just as I stopped and leaned against the white stone balcony to see Lucien swimming.

He was doing lengths, exercising the same path back and forth for what seemed to be a number of minutes since I'd seen him from my bedroom balcony the moment I'd woken up thirty minutes ago.

I wondered why he was up so early considering it was five twenty in the morning and the past few days had been hectic since we'd been attacked at the hotel three days ago, the tenseness in his shoulders seen as his back muscles flexed when he continued swimming back and forth.

Despite the way that I could physically see Lucien's anger it didn't stop me from humming satisfyingly, my eyes on his arms and back as the water dipped around him, creating a soft hushing sound of moving water as it overflowed the sides and filtered through the grates in the ground.

He didn't know I was watching as I did so whilst drinking my coffee, my body leaning across the stone as I kept my fingers warm with the heat coming from my drink and tilted my head.

Lucien was a sight to see all tanned, inked and now wet. It was clear that he definitely took pride in his appearance as he kept swimming without getting tired, his stamina something that I personally knew I couldn't keep up with since he had exhibited it easily on the jet.

At the thought my toes curled, a sudden explosive heat burning between my legs when I recalled the memory that had left me breathing heavily, tangled between thin satin sheets all whilst being thirty thousand feet in the air.

Gesù Cristo.

My hand came up to touch across the side of my neck as I rubbed my lips together and pressed my thighs together, my mouth suddenly feeling dry when images of us in the jet changed to us in my grandfather's car, the thought of what happened in it rather than to it being my focus as I inhaled a wavered breath.

I breathed it out easily as I traced the line of my lower lip and felt the heat creep up around my face, my chest suddenly warming when I stared at Lucien for a little too long and wondered about what had happened in the past week.

I would've liked to think that my thoughts were surrounding the issue at hand concerning Jeremy's attack, yet it seemed I was only lying to myself since I was thinking more about his son than anything else.