“Yes, you are correct,” I say with a nod. “I don’t need her help, nor do I want it. I did it on my own before, and I can do it again. If she tries to help me, I’ll tell her that you’ll be the first to know about it.”

“I appreciate that.”

I pause, wanting to ask a personal question, but not sure if I should probe.

I decide to, anyway.

“Does it bother you,” I say, “that she and I were so close?”

“No,” Victor answers truthfully. “Not in the way that you might be thinking. I trust Izabel alone with you—with any man—if that’s what you’re referring to.”

“In a way it was, yes,” I say. “But really I meant it in every way. She kept things from you in order to help me.”

“You are her family,” he states. “She’s never really had one. I’m glad that you’re there for her. You can give her things that I may never be able to give.”

I shake my head once, rejecting his words with all due respect.

“Not anymore.”

He doesn’t look surprised.

“You do know that it’ll crush her if you push her away.”

I nod.

“Better to push her away now than to be the reason she ends up dead later.” Part of that was also meant for Victor to heed, but I may never know if he understood the hidden message.

Victor leaves it at that and gestures his hand toward the tall, heavy wooden door behind me.

“It’s good to have you back,” he says.

“Thank you.”

Izabel stops me in the hallway lined by off-white walls and shiny floors. Victor walks in the opposite direction, leaving us to be alone.

She waits until he rounds the corner at the end of the hall before she turns to me and says, “I know he probably threatened you because of me, but look, Fredrik—”

“He didn’t have to threaten,” I stop her. “I told him that if you ever try to help me that I’ll tell him about it right away. And I mean that.” I hold my unwavering gaze on her.

“But you’re…Fredrik, I’m afraid for you. I just want to help.”

“And you can by staying out of my way and out of my business.”

A flash of hurt and conflict passes over her face.

“Why are you doing this?”

I start to walk down the hall, stepping around her.

“Fredrik. Stop. Please.”

Finally I do, but only to let her get it all out, to say whatever’s on her mind now because it’ll be the only chance I ever give her.

I stand still with my back to her.

“I’m not going to let you destroy yourself,” she says with buried anger and not-so-buried determination. “I don’t give a shit what kind of face you want to wear—tell me to f**k off, I don’t care—but I won’t let you fall away. From us. From me. From yourself.”

I turn around to face her with my hands folded together down in front of me, my wrists touching the fabric of my fine black suit.

“You’re a little late for that, I’m afraid,” I say, turn around and walk away; the sound of my dress shoes tapping against the floor left in my wake.

Chapter Thirty

Fredrik

Baltimore, Maryland

Yanking back on the woman’s long, dark ponytail, I ram my c**k inside of her, my hips thrusting powerfully against her ass cheeks, her hands grasping the hotel bed sheet in a fit of pleasure and desperation.

“Holy f**king shit!” she says with one side of her face pressed against the mattress. She wrenches her bottom lip between her teeth as I slam into her harder, my c**k swelling inside of her.

She gasps, parting her lips, unable to close them. “Oh my god, please…don’t stop! Don’t f**king stop!” She’s nearly crying. I can feel the tension and anticipation tightening around my c**k as if to keep me from pulling out of her before her explosive moment. I slam into her cunt harder and lean over and across her body, sticking my fingers into her opened mouth, hooking her cheek. Pulling back her ponytail with the other hand, her neck arches stiffly and awkwardly—if I pull any harder her neck might break. I thrust in and out of her violently, satisfying all of my demons, but not myself. Not yet. She begins to whimper, forcing her ass toward me so that she can take me deeper.

A tear rolls down her cheek and discolors the sheet beneath her face.

I stop and pull out of her when I sense she’s going to come and I stand up from the bed, my c**k throbbing painfully against my lower stomach. I take it into my hand and work on it myself slowly to maintain, but decelerate my own climax.

The woman, still with her ass raised in the air, lifts her face from the mattress and looks across the room at me as if I’d just punched her mother.

I snap the condom off and toss it in the trash next to the nightstand.

“Why’d you—”

“Come here,” I tell her, jerking my head back once and taking a seat on the chair at the small table by the window.

With slight protest on her face, she still gets up from the bed and does as I tell her. Standing naked in front of me with that perfect body and nicely rounded ass and curved hips, I really do want to f**k her some more, but that’ll have to wait.

“Get on your knees,” I tell her.

She does, and already assuming she knows what I want her to do, she takes my c**k into her hand without my direction—gawking for a moment at the size, I suppose—before she begins to lower her mouth down on it.

“Did I tell you to do that yet?” I ask her, looking down at her under hooded eyes and an even expression.

She shakes her head, looking up at me with green doe-like eyes and with my c**k still in her hand.

I make her wait a few long seconds as I study her knelt between my legs, the way her ponytail rests against the center of her bare back, the heart shape of her bare ass. She looks the same way I imagined she’d look naked when I visited her at the diner and thought about f**king her.

She never once lets go of my cock. She wants it and she doesn’t care where. She likes having it in her hand. And I don’t mind one bit.

“Now put me in your mouth,” I say. “Slowly,” I add just before her lips begin to slip over the head.

My c**k fills her mouth, stretching her lips around it—also like I imagined. I tilt my head back and groan a little as she takes me into the back of her throat.

I raise both of my hands to the back of my head and interlock my fingers as I watch her between my splayed legs. I’m turned off when she stops to apologize for scraping me with her teeth—not because she scraped but because she apologized. I say nothing and let her get back to work.