I head toward the hallway. “This way.”
“I really, really hate you right now.”
I ignore that and walk deeper into the penthouse. Several seconds later, the sound of her footsteps padding after me makes me smile. Even when she’s fighting me tooth and nail, there’s a core of submissiveness there that draws me, a moth to flame. Being burned to death isn’t on the agenda. I’m in control, and the sooner she learns that, the smoother this will go.
The spare bedroom is rarely used. I’m not in the habit of allowing people into my home, let alone inviting them to stay for any length of time. When I fuck, I do it in the Underworld. It saves me the trouble of anyone getting the wrong idea.
The spare bedroom is as neutral as the rest of my home. Clean lines, stark colors. The order of it soothes me. I hold open the door and stand aside, watching her expression as she takes the space in.
A small line appears between her strong brows. “What do you have against color, Jafar?”
“It’s messy.”
She arches an eyebrow, apparently forgetting that she’s naked in my home. “Messy,” Yasmina repeats. “You think color is messy.” She shakes her head and moves forward to investigate.
From tigress to curious kitten. All she needed was something to explore. I file that information away for later and content myself with watching her move through the room. She runs her hand over the comforter, testing its softness, and walks to poke her head into the walk-in closet.
The bathroom is what gets her.?4 I knew it would. Balthazar might have been an asshole of a father, but he indulged his daughter’s material desires without limit. Whenever she wasn’t in her usual haunts, she could be found down by the fountain in the middle of his hedge maze. The whole thing is rather overdone for my tastes, over a square mile of curving paths and little courtyards, but it fit Yasmina’s fancy. Or maybe she simply needed to pretend she wasn’t walled in, and the maze was her way of doing it.
I’ll ask her eventually. Not today, though.
I wait for her to walk back into the room to speak. “I have business to take care of.”
She waves that away as if it’s not worth knowing. “You always do.”
Now’s the time to establish what this relationship will be. “When I get back, I want you naked and kneeling at the front door.”
She stops short. “Excuse me?”
“You heard me. Naked and kneeling. That’s an order.”
“When are you going to be back?”
I almost smile but muscle the response down deep. “I’ll be back before dawn.”
“Before dawn,” she echoes, understanding washing over her expression. “You want me to wait for you. For an unknown amount of time. Naked and kneeling.”
I permit myself a tight smile. “Yes, Yasmina. That’s exactly what I expect.” I turn around and head for the elevators. The thrill of the push and pull with her, the fighting and resisting—it makes me so fucking hard, I can barely see straight. If I had my way, I wouldn’t leave her alone to stew over everything that’s happened tonight, but business has to come before pleasure.
Even if pleasure with Yasmina is business.
I step into the elevator and ride it down to the parking garage. Jeremiah, my second-in-command, meets me there. He looks a little worse for wear, his suit rumpled and his normally perfect dark hair askew. I note the blood spatter on his shirt. “It’s done?”
Jeremiah nods. “We ran into a few complications, but nothing the boys and I couldn’t handle.”
“Good.”
He glances behind me at the elevator. “You got your princess?”
“Among other things.” I head for the car, and he falls into step next to me. “We’re ready for the next part of the process.” To put that little upstart six feet under.
He makes a face. “Ali slipped the net we cast for him.”
I pause. “Find him.” I wasn’t exaggerating when I called Ali a monster. He and I might have started in similar places—fighting our way up from nothing—but the few lines I refuse to cross are ones he tramples over with glee. His penchant for violence is only surpassed by his pride.
Taking Yasmina and dismantling his power grab will piss him off, and Ali is most dangerous when he’s furious. The man is a loose cannon, and he’ll try to take Yasmina back. To take her from me. She’s a toy ripped away from him before he got it out of the packaging, and it will only add to his rage. And if Ali can’t reclaim her?
He’ll kill her.
