Owned By The Psychotic Billionaire (Mafia BL)

Chapter 142: From Over A Hundred Angles

WHAT ORION SAW...

I reach down, sliding one arm smoothly under his knees and the other behind his back, lifting him off the stone bench in one clean movement. I pull him up into a princess carry against my chest and turn toward the doors of the mansion.

"Put me down!" he whispers fiercely, his small hands immediately clutching at the wool of my jacket. His face lights up with frantic embarrassment as he looks around the dark courtyard. "Someone might see us!"

"It’s night," I say, stepping smoothly across the gravel without slowing my pace. "Even if anyone sees, what is the problem with it?"

He is my husband. He belongs in my arms, in my house, and in my bed. I do not care if every guard on the estate sees me carrying him through the halls.

As I push through the grand side entrance, I can feel his heart hammering like a trapped bird against my ribs.

His fingers twist tightly into my coat, his body going stiff as I carry him up the wide marble staircase. I can feel the panic spiraling through him with every step I take.

He is overthinking again. His mind is spinning out of control, picturing all the dark, terrible things he thinks a man like me will do to him once we are behind closed doors.

I reach my bedroom, pushing the heavy wooden door open with my shoulder. I step inside, holding his weight easily with one arm while my free hand pushes the heavy door shut behind us, turning the lock with a sharp, decisive click.

Against my chest, I feel Adrien flinch violently at the sound of the key turning. His breath hitches in his throat.

A subtle twinge of amusement twitters in my chest, but I keep my face neutral. I walk across the vast, dimly lit room toward the grand bed.

I do not throw him down. I do not drop him like a piece of cargo. Moving with a careful, deliberate gentleness that feels almost strange to my own hands, I lower him onto the dark sheets. I ease his back down until his head rests softly against the plush pillows.

He scrambles back slightly, his dark eyes wide and panicked as he looks up at me from the mattress. He looks like a cornered animal waiting for the blow to fall.

He is probably wondering if I am going to order him to strip, or if I am going to use him roughly despite his body still healing from the crash seven days ago.

I know what his skin looks like right now. I know where the purple and yellow marks are mapped across his ribs, his shoulders, and his hips.

I have spent the last week monitoring every scratch, every bruise, making sure the doctors treated him with the utmost care. I am not going to ruin seven days of healing just to satisfy a sudden burst of impatience.

As I stand at the edge of the bed, Adrien’s eyes dart past my shoulder, scanning the room. His gaze lands on the space directly above the marble fireplace.

A massive canvas hangs there, framed in simple dark wood.

I watch Adrien freeze. His breath catches sharply in his lungs, his lips parting in sheer shock.

It is a full-body portrait of him. He isn’t wearing the pristine academy uniform from our youth, nor is he wearing expensive designer clothes.

He is wearing simple, faded clothes, standing casually on the side of a dirt road under a soft gray sky, his dark eyes looking directly out of the frame. I captured every detail— the slight arch of his brow, the subtle tilt of his shoulder, the way his dark hair fell messily over his temple.

The all encompassing beauty of him.

Adrien raises a pale, trembling finger, pointing right past my head. "Am I fucking hallucinating, or is that a painting of me?"

I turn my head slightly, glancing up at the wall, then look back down at his wide, terrified face.

"Oh yeah," I say casually, resting my hands in my pockets. "I think I did that four years ago. I took up painting. It was a very nice hobby."

"And you painted a portrait of me?" he asks, his voice pitching higher in pure disbelief.

He stares at the canvas as if it is a living demon hanging on the wall. He doesn’t understand.

He can’t fathom why a man who searched for him for seven years would sit in a room four years ago, mixing oils on a palette for hours just to recreate the exact shape of his nose and the delicate slope of his collarbone from memory.

To him, it is eerily amazing and completely terrifying. To me, it was simply a necessity. When the itching in the back of my skull got too loud, painting his face was the only thing that made the noise quiet down.

I look back at the portrait, then give a light shrug. I have a hundred more locked in a room somewhere in this mansion, but he doesn’t need to know that too.

I step closer to the bed, leaning down and bringing both of my hands onto the mattress on either side of his head, trapping him beneath my frame. I hover over him, keeping my chest from pressing down on his healing torso.

"I thought I brought you here to show you something," I whisper, my eyes locking onto his trembling ones. "Let’s not get distracted now."

His throat tightens. He swallows hard, his pulse fluttering wildly against the side of his neck.

I lower my head and press my lips against his.

I feel him brace himself. He stiffens beneath me, clearly expecting a wild, frantic assault like the desperate kiss we shared in that dark janitor’s closet all those years ago, or the ones we’ve shared since I’ve gotten my hands on him again.

Instead, I keep my touch soft.