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She knows the consequences. If they’re involved, he’s dead and she’ll be dealt with.” “You won’t fucking touch her.” The threat escaped me, so calm and deadly it stilled the air. Two goddamn slipups in one day. I could have laughed, but I didn’t find it even slightly amusing that Ace now knew I had a weakness—he now had something to hold over my head. My entire reputation rode on me being untouchable, and this was going to fuck it all up. He watched my face, let out an amused breath. “Well, fuck me running.” And then walked out the door.
I had won the bet. But I was only so happy because the bride and groom seemed so happy. They looked at each other like they were . . . in love. My chest hurt, and my smile fell. I wished love was visible, like the sparkles on Elena’s gown. Or the shimmer of the sun on skin. Then it couldn’t be hidden or faked. I wondered what love felt like. I wondered if it even existed. Another tear dripped down my cheek, and I wiped it away.
“As much as I would love to accept that very specific and generous offer, I didn’t take you home.” I faltered, pausing in the middle of the entrance hall. “But . . . who did?” He only gave me a reassuring smile and walked away.
There’d been strong arms, a warm chest. And two rough words in my ear.
She gave me a Willow Tree—you know, those porcelain angels—every year for my birthday.” My smile fell. “If she only knew I would eventually marry her husband . . .” Shame was a sinkhole I never knew when I’d fall in.
If love were visible, it couldn’t be far from the soft heat in their eyes.
“Oh no, I’ve just remembered I’m parched,” I dead-panned. “Of course you have,” Elena muttered through her smile.
“He’s at home with a nurse. He has pneumonia.” “Ah, I hear that’s a killer for an old man like him.”
His eyes were dark and terrifying; a reflection of skies lit up with smoke and fire. His lips pressed against my ear, words rough and threatening. “Run home to your husband before I make him a widower.”
“Why would you bet on him if you knew he wouldn’t win?” “Wouldn’t you want someone to believe in you, even if you knew you couldn’t do it?”
“Of course I came. It’s Blackie’s last hurrah. I had to wish him well in his retirement.”
“I didn’t ask for his name. He was a bigger guy, intimidating.” Luca. I gritted my teeth to calm myself. “He had a badge on him, made me feel like a criminal just for liking you, if I’m being honest.” Wait, what?
That son of a bitch. I was going to kill him. Murder him in cold blood. Toss his body to the sharks.
Christian’s fury cooled and burned my skin as his gaze skimmed down my body. And then I remembered my dress. My very white, very wet dress.
The Abelli’s face reddened. “I’d get more than that. I’ll tell you how her ass feels, Rus—” Without a look in the Abelli’s direction, Allister pulled a pistol from his jacket. Pop.
“He was annoying me.” Strained silence reigned for a moment, and then Jimmy’s booming laughter filled the room, parting the tension like the Red Sea. My God, this was madness. I stepped back when everyone’s gazes suddenly came to me. “Um . . . I’m just gonna . . . yeah.” I took the stairs two at a time and disappeared out the door.
“Is that what you think we do? Play games?” “I don’t care what you call it. I’m done! With this.” I gestured between us. “With you.”
He slammed the car door. Stalked toward me. “You’ll never be done with me.” He grasped me by the throat, pushed me back against the car, and swallowed my next breath in his mouth.
I worked myself free from his grip, and as if he hadn’t already denied me once, I tried again, only to get the same result. “It’s staying on,” he said harshly against my lips. He wouldn’t let me touch him, not really. And sitting here with my body on shameless display, it suddenly felt . . . humiliating. I pulled away, tugged my dress down, and reached for the door handle.
“All of it, malyshka,” he commanded.
His heartbeat raced against mine.
“Fuck me, Gianna.” He sounded on the brink of control, like if I didn’t start moving then I was going to get fucked, hard. That quickly set me in motion; I didn’t think I could handle him unleashed yet.
“You’re so goddamned lucky we’re in a car right now.” He pressed the threat against my ear, his words heavy with a Russian accent that was beginning to drive me crazy. Evoking such a lack of control from the cold fed was addictive. I wanted so much more.
“You’ve adjusted, malyshka?” With half-lidded eyes, I nodded. “Good.”
“Ty samaya krasivaya zhenshchina kotoruyu ya kogda-libo videl.” “What did you say?” “You’re annoying.” “I would hate to be Russian if it takes that many words to say something so simple,”
This is so sweet, Christian is so head over heels for her
Something thick and wet slid down my thigh. My sex-high liquefied and turned to ice in my stomach. Had I really just had unprotected sex—so unprotected, by the way his come was leaking out of me—with Allister? I did frantic mental calculations in my head, trying to calculate when I ovulated. Which was, of course, now.
I could only imagine if I got pregnant while my husband was on his deathbed and couldn’t conceive with a helper and a bottle of Viagra. Nothing but a whore. Whore. Whore.
I shut my eyes, focusing on the breathing techniques my therapist taught me. “We’ll get a Plan B.” His thumb brushed away the tear running down my cheek. I nodded, shaky.
If he didn’t know the extent of the baggage I carried around before, he knew now. Mortification felt heavy in my chest. Maybe this had been necessary—to make it easy not to speak to him again. Simply because I’d be too humiliated to acknowledge this had ever happened. The panic attack soon ebbed, but it was still so cold between us. Even as he helped me adjust my dress and then used a napkin from the glovebox to wipe the come from my thighs.
Rolled my shoulders to push away the obsessive thoughts lighting up my back. Keep her. Make her want you. Make her need you. Fuck, I shouldn’t have done it.
An obsessive part of me—the one thoroughly fixated on Gianna’s every move—didn’t give a shit about consequences. Knocking her up would make its fucking day. It would finally give me a reason to throw my plans in the trash and make her mine.
In reality, she’d touch my shit. Reorganize my things. Fill my apartment with sugary cereal. And most importantly, slowly dig her way into my past. And when she did that, she’d hate me more than she already did. Maybe even be disgusted. I couldn’t stomach letting her see me in that light.
Why am I crying??
Gianna hadn’t said a word to me since we left the parking garage. She couldn’t have made it clearer that the idea of being stuck with me horrified her—she’d had a full-blown panic attack, for fuck’s sake.
Thats literally not it pookie
“I’m not shipping my child to Russia every summer, Allister.” She wouldn’t be sending him or her anywhere. She’d be in my home, in my bed. I’d give her anything she wanted—anything but my past and some silly notion of love.
Let her have her Vincent Monroe. Because if I touched her again, the deeper this obsession would spread, and I knew where it would end.
“Fortunately, I don’t sleep with my stepsons anymore.” I patted his chest. “Drink?”
He just said, “I’ve got a place.” Me: Definitely not necessary. Me: In any way. Me: Shape or form. Me: At all. Me: Ever. Elena: He says a few men will be over to help you move . . . Me: Will I get out of this alive? Elena: He just smiled to himself. Me: Pray for me.
The photo showed the gorgeous blonde at last night’s Broadway debut, and on her arm was no one other than a dirty blue-eyed fed. My chest tightened. He had a hand on her hip, and she had a hand on his arm—the one I’d run my nails down just last week.
I rarely lost a bet, and I would put a lot of money down on the fact this woman was the one he would finally marry. My pulse missed its next beat. I was sure Aleksandra didn’t have mental breakdowns after sex.
I’d even gone so far as to check for leaky faucets—and that made me even more suspicious. Ace rarely concerned himself with my affairs.
The dirty fed’s narrowed gaze fell from mine to the plate I cradled with two hands. Well played, Ace, well played.
“And here I was,” I muttered, “telling everyone who’d listen that you and I are an item.” His eyes settled on my door. He ran his tongue across his teeth in thought. “I’ve already made it Facebook official. I won’t change it back, Christian. The amount of jealousy coming in has brought me closer to world domination than I’ve ever been.”
“Chocolate?” “Arsenic.” “My favorite.” He took the plate from my hand and slammed the door. I sighed. My neighbors sucked.
finished locking up and turned around with a contrived smile. It didn’t survive when I saw Christian was only wearing a pair of running pants and a gray long-sleeve shirt. My mouth went dry.
Irritation unfurled in my chest. My hand twitched but I wouldn’t let myself react. I hadn’t had to throw a punch in years, and I wouldn’t start now—over a woman, no less.
I turned to leave, but . . . fuck it. “One last thing.” “Yeah?” When I turned to face him, I punched the smirk right off the fucker’s face.
“I’m going to die,” I choked out, not able to drag a deep enough breath into my lungs. “Never, malyshka.” It was soft and vehement. “Come here.”
“What are you afraid of?” “Everything,” I whispered, trailing my finger across the starched collar of his dress shirt. “You’re not afraid of me.” We were so close his cheek brushed my tear-streaked one when he rasped, “And, baby, I’m worse than the dark.”
“It means, to live with wolves, you have to howl like a wolf.” Is that what you did? I wanted to ask, but somehow knew it wouldn’t be well received. “You’ve got to learn how to howl, malyshka. To tell your demons to fuck off. We all know you have it in you; you tell me to enough. And unlike your demons”—his voice darkened—“I can actually bite you.”
“What do I taste like?” His eyes drifted back up to mine. They were so deep and serious they held me captive. His next two words tugged at my heart, even though I didn’t know the meaning. “Kak moya.”
