You're mine

Chapter 14

"Hello Luca," she whispered softly, standing awkwardly still as she tried to figure out what he was going to do. He didn't reply. "What do you want?" she asked, suddenly conscious of the fact that her breasts were poking out of her half unbuttoned shirt.

Luca snorted derisively as he pushed himself away from the door and stalked towards Ashley. She raised her chin in defiance and refused to back away. He stopped in front of her, so close that his chest almost brushed against her breasts.

"You know why I'm here, my little slut," he growled softly in Serbian. He slid his hand to her cheek and gripped painfully. "You lied to me, and you set me up. And you're going to die." Ashley slapped his hand away from her cheek, then landed another blow to his left eye. He caught her wrist before she could hit the other side of his face and bent it behind her back painfully. She whimpered, then kneed Luca in the balls in an attempt to escape. He grunted, his grip relaxing on her arm as he bent over in pain.

"Let's get a couple of things straight Luca," Ashley said, kicking him again as it looked as if he might straighten up. "Yes, I lied to you. It was my job. As for setting you up? I did that too. But if I hadn't done things the way that I did, you would be dead right now, and you know it."

Luca straightened slowly, then shoved Ashley against the wall, pinning her down. "Am I supposed to be grateful?" he growled, his hand holding her jaw still.

"That I risked my own life to save yours?" Ashley replied. Luca raised an eyebrow at that, unimpressed. "Yes, you should be. You were supposed to turn up to do your job and get slaughtered with the rest of them, but I stopped you from going. My employers are not exactly forgiving, Luca. If they find out what I did, they'll kill me."

Luca was silent for a moment. He hadn't dared let himself think that perhaps Ashley hadn't wanted him to get hurt. The thought niggled at him, but he pushed it aside coldly. "Don't worry," he replied, sliding his hand to her throat and starting to squeeze. "I'll save them the trouble."

"I understand that you're angry Luca," Ashley said. "That you feel as if I used you. But we didn't exactly have a traditional honest and loving relationship going on. I still didn't want them to hurt you, though. I need you to understand that I did what I did because it was the only way I could stop them from killing you. And that was all that was important to me."

He didn't believe her, he couldn't. He'd spent too long being as angry as hell over her making a fool of him, and he wasn't about to let her do it again. So he ignored the look of pain on her face and chose to think only about the fact that everything else she'd ever said to him had been a lie. He gradually tightened his grip on her neck until she started to squirm desperately.

Ashley wasn't going to accept Luca's punishment without a fight. She punched him in the stomach and he grunted in pain, his grip loosening on her throat enough so that she could push him away from her. She hit him again in the jaw, but he grabbed her arm and held her still, a backhander to her cheek causing her to stagger in pain.

Luca was slightly surprised by Ashley's return to her original more aggressive self. He wondered how much of her submissive behaviour had been an act to make him feel secure enough to trust her. It had certainly worked. He pulled her against him and slid his mouth to her ear.

"All that time you spent screaming for me," he whispered. "All the times you writhed around underneath me and moaned my name. Was doing your job really worth being a whore for me?" Ashley frowned at Luca's hard description of past events.

"That wasn't a part of my job," she whispered, and Luca sneered. He didn't believe her. He wouldn't.

"Was doing your job really worth leaving?" he growled. Ashley's breath caught in her throat. How was she supposed to answer that?