Claire: The Forced Virgin Of The Billionaire
Chapter 44

“What?”

“Your face! It looks worse than last night.” I felt the tenderness on my eye and l*p and knew Claire’d given me a doozy of a shiner.

I grabbed a silver pan off the counter and turned it over and caught my reflection on the back and sure enough, it looked worse. In addition to a black eye and a slightly fat l*p I had nail marks streaked down my cheek, too. Great.

We were expected at my family’s or what was left of it for dinner today. Rosita’s face changed and I didn’t need to be a mind-reader to know she was thinking I deserved it.

“Where is she?” I asked, leaning out to see by the pool.

Rosita shook her head blankly, “She’s not up yet.”

“She’s what?” The look on my face made her blanch.

I practically flew to the front door and hollered for Marco and Nino, the guys on patrol and we soon figured out they hadn’t seen her. My b***d was about to boil, “Where the f**k is she?”

Claire’s POV

In the basement I found a huge man-cave room with another pool table, ping pong table, two old school arcade games, foosball, a pinball game, home theatre with a sectional and those cool recliners with the cup holders and speakers in them, big poker table with the green felt, and a long fully-stocked bar, as well as a home gym with every piece of workout equipment I’d ever heard of plus a sauna and bathroom.

There was also a big storage room lined with shelves.

The storage room was empty except for a few boxes and garbage bags of clothes right inside the doorway. I opened the boxes and without giving it another thought, started going through the items, not thinking in the least that I was probably invading Azriel’s privacy.

What the f**k did it matter anyway?

How much worse could it possibly get for me in here?

Report cards, post cards, boxes of clothes, books, CDs. A photo album that seemed to belong to his mom, the similarity in both of them was impeccable.

I felt an overwhelming surge of emotion for my own Mom.

I obviously didn’t know who some of the people in the photos were. I sat down and flipped through the book and in the back there were a few loose photos that i felt like I’d seen before.

I looked through them and one was a photo of his mother when she was younger, and a young guy, both dressed up and they were holding hands. His face looked familiar. I turned it over and saw Carlita + Tom Clarke. There was a heart drawn in red pen under the ink as well as dotting the curve in his Mom’s name.

Azriel’s father looked eerily familiar to me but I didn’t give it much thought.

I heard someone coming down the stairs. A man, maybe in his early to mid-30’s, rushed into the room, the man from the driveway this morning. He was a giant, had to be almost 7 feet tall, had a reddish goatee, he had a shaved head, had tattooed hands, and pretty much looked like a badass biker but was dressed in a suit.

His facial expression was filled with relief. He leaned on the door frame, as if catching his breath, pulled out his phone and dialed, then said, “She’s in the basement! Storage room. Yeah.”

I was sitting on the floor cross-legged in Azriel’s shirt and Azriel’s robe with papers around me and piles of folded clothing and after what felt like a too-long awkward moment with the giant biker guy, Azriel was behind him with eyes that were crazy scary. Azriel was dressed in just a pair of track pants that sat low on his h**s and nothing else.

“Okay,” Azriel said and the guy left.

I felt the overwhelming urge to turtle, to totally cower and that’s not me. He’s got me turned into a nervous wreck. I was sure I was staring at him like a timid rabbit.

I felt my chin start quivering. The anger seemed to drain from Azriel’s beat-up looking face (f**k, I did that! Me!) and then he fell to his knees in front of me and let out a deep breath, looking me right in the eyes with tenderness.

Tenderness?

Was I reading that right?

I felt my face crinkle, confused. He grabbed me and pulled me against him. His heart hammered against me. I stiffened.

“I thought you were gone,” he said softly into my ear and squeezed tighter. I didn’t know how to respond.

“I’m sorry about yesterday, baby.” he said into my ear so low it was barely audible.

Then he leaned back and his hand curled around the back of my neck. He looked at my face and his eyes travelled from my eyes to my mouth and then my eyes again. Then his mouth was on mine and he was kissing me like he’d kissed me at the beach.

I didn’t want to respond. He didn’t deserve having me respond after all he’d done so far. But for some reason…. very f****d up reason, I did.

His tongue darted deep into my mouth and his other hand was on my rear and I could feel he was hard. He was hard whenever he was against me. He gently took me down so my back was on the floor and his hand travelled underneath the bathrobe, underneath the shirt of his I was wearing, and he was rubbing a n****e with one hand, the other hand travelled up my body from my h*p to my shoulder and then rested to cup my head.

I looked up at him and chewed my lower l*p. He didn’t have anger on his face at all. He was looking at me with some other expression; I didn’t know what it was.