I’d have a better chance of coercing her to dance with the devil if I hadn’t marked her with my teeth.
After soothing the angry red welt on her fleshy skin by sucking it into my mouth, I ask, “Do you want to leave,Ahren? Or shall you stay and let me play?”
Shock is the first thing registered on her face. It’s quickly chased by innocence. “Leave.”
Her reply is short, but it does little to douse the fire roaring in my gut. I can smell the excitement slicking her skin and feel the lusty heat blazing through her body. She wants this; she’s just too afraid to admit it.
“If you truly want to leave,Ahren, all you need to do is say goodbye.”
Goosebumps follow the trek my hand makes when I drop it from the throb in her throat to the one between her legs. I don’t touch her without permission; rape is Vladimir’s pleasure of choice, not mine, but I keep my fingers a mere inch from the area I feel growing more heated with every second she spends pinned to the door.
“You have to the count of five.” I’m being lenient. Usually, I don’t issue a warning before ending someone’s life, but since this is different, I more want to steal her life than cut it short, I’m open to trying something new. “If you haven’t bid me farewell by then, I’ll start my weekend by discovering if you’re a true redhead. Five... Four... Three—”
“Goodbye.” Her voice is as impish as the devil on my shoulder goading me to listen to him.
You don’t ask, he says.You take.
“Louder.” Because if an angel can’t steer me in the right direction, she won’t leave this room in one piece.
Justine’s throat works hard to swallow before she mutters, “Goodbye, Nikolai.”
I groan. It’s full of disappointment.
I’m not the only one disheartened. When I step back, unpinning Justine from the door, her sigh has the devil on my shoulder calling me a soft cock.
I’ll show him.
“Turn around. No one says goodbye without a farewell kiss. Not even your boss could leave this room without putting his lips on you.” My tone is the one that generally comes out of my mouth. It’s gruff and full of command. “Hurry,Ahren. The courts close in five minutes, not only trapping me in here for the long weekend, but also costing you the chance to have Carmichael I'm-going-to-gut-him-alive Fletcher defend your brother.”
Justine sucks in a sharp breath, shocked I know about her brother’s incarceration. I don’t know why. I haven’t taken my eyes off her for a second, so I know every word Carmichael and her shared.
“Now four and a half minutes.”
Unsure on the authenticity of my threat, she spins around to face me. Since I’m standing so close to her, she can’t rotate with grinding herself against the area of my body still maintaining its own pulse.
When her eyes lift to mine, cockiness thunders through me. If she wants me to believe her wish to flee me is legitimate, she needs to have a word with her eyes. They’re flaring with hope, although it’s barely seen through the yearning clouding them.
Smirking, I tap my index finger on my right cheek. Not needing further prompting, Justine leans forward to press her lips where I’m pointing.
Incapable of reeling in my domineering personality, I crank my neck to the side in just enough time to force her mouth onto mine. My gall causes Justine to freeze like a statue, but her lips remain planted on mine, no doubt to relish the revitalizing zap sparking through her body from the joining of our mouths.
The bolt is so intense, she physically shudders. I’m not going to tell you my body’s response, or the only person I’ll be killing today is myself.
The jerking movements of Justine’s body causes her head to bump into the door I had her pinned to. She barely taps the glass, but it’s enough to alert the officers’ standing guard outside the door that she’s in trouble.
Not as much as they’ll be if they don’t slow down their charge.
They race for the door so fast, I have no choice but to brutally rip Justine away from it. She releases a whimper from my cruel tug, but if I hadn’t pulled her out of the way, her woozy head wouldn’t be compliments to our childish kiss.
“Thank you,” Justine whispers, startled by the door careening past her head at a speed fast enough to whip her hair off her neck, exposing an additional two scars I hadn’t noticed earlier. They’re large and round and reveal an immense amount of force would have been needed to create them.
Although I hate that she was hurt, I find her scars as attractive as her angelic face. Only the strong are marked because the cowards who give in are dead.
When the red dots of two high-powered assault rifles mark my chest, I free Justine’s wrist from my grip before pacing backward. While sneering at the guards who’ll suffer the death of a thousand, I pick up the chair Justine knocked over during her sprint for the door before sitting on it.
“Your disrespect won’t go unnoticed,” I warn the cowards standing across from me, frustrated by both their interruption and carelessness. “?? ?? ?????? ????????? ? ??????? ? ?? ????????.”
I continue scolding them in Russian, only stopping when the man responsible for the heat sluicing my veins fills the doorway of the holding room a few seconds later. When Carmichael’s eyes float over Justine, the ownership in them is way too fucking superior for my liking. He sees in her what I do: a woman dying to break free of her miserably bleak existence, but thank fuck he doesn’t have the means to free her.
