Puppet Master

Chapter Six

Obviously, he followed her, although some measure of calm seemed to have fallen over him as he quietly watched her pace around her home, trying to make sense of the last ten minutes of her life. “What are you doing here? How the hell did you even get into my flat? “

“Nathaniel is your guarantor,” infuriatingly, he shrugged, and turned to hang his trademark leather over the back of one of her dining room chairs.

Make yourself at home, she thought.

The worst thing about the way she felt for Jayden was the fact that angry as she was, no matter what he did, and it was completely true, he could be a selfish bastard when he felt the need, the worst kind of tyrannical “protector”, the very epitome of control freak, she could never take her eyes off him for long. She was too completely terrified he’d disappear, and that she wouldn’t even get these, the moments where he made her want to pull out her hair in clumps, and throw heavy objects at his head. That she wouldn’t even get to see steel in his eyes, that he’d just never bother, and he’d leave her here in a complete tangle of wasted wants and dreams.

She’d forgive every second of this torture to see a little bit of it reflected in his steely gaze.  

So every second she looked into his eyes, she turned her own to steel, so that he would never see even a tiny glint of what she was feeling while he stood there, his long legs in twisted, faded, old denim, and his white t shirt clinging like a second skin to every nuance of muscle in his chest and his arms.

Not a bloody glint of it, she thought, pulling back her shoulders and gritting her teeth angrily.

“I know, which would explain why Nate was in my house. He’s not.” She looked around pragmatically, and then lifted one of her manicured eyebrows in a sardonic expression, “You are.”

Clenching his jaw, she watched him closely as he approached her from across the small lounge area. She stood, uncrossed her arms from her chest, suddenly self-conscious in her confrontational pose, as he pushed her back the last few inches until the small of her back hit the large mahogany captain’s desk that she’d bought from a local antiques store. She loved the contrast of this traditional furniture against the cosmopolitan background of the city skyline view that she had from the large window behind it. Suddenly, though, it felt like a prop, as though she’d put it in this position, for this purpose, whether she’d meant to or not, and she struggled with her new role in this conversation. She couldn’t stay unaffected if he was getting up in her face like this, and panic gnawed away at her insides, with a little frisson of curiosity, as she realised their stand-off wasn’t exactly going according to the plan. Whatever the plan was, she couldn’t actually remember once the scent of his aftershave dove into her nostrils, once she had literally pulled the very essence of the man into her soul, because it was the only soothing balm it could ever need. She’d have thought herself quite pathetic, had he not smelled so fucking divine!

“Did you fuck him? You will answer me when I ask you a question, Vittoria.” Her eyelids sprung open, unaware that she’d been wallowing in the feeling of his body so close to hers. Pathetic, her subconscious was sneering at her. And she’d wallowed, but he’d been intent on answers. And wasn’t that the same old fucking story!

His lips were so close to her own, no more than a breath away, and the intensity in his eyes had doubled, she was dancing for him in her mind, wearing harem outfits, jumping off bridges, anything he wanted. It was like a magic that spun them together, so that she was just an extension of him, a puppet, a slave. And the mere thought brought a rush of sweet juices in between her legs, so hard that she had to bite her lip to keep inside a little cry of surprise at his words.