His hand comes up to the side of my face. His fingers are still warm and tacky with the drying blood. The pad of his thumb rests against my cheekbone, right over the spot where the concealer is covering Raymond’s handiwork.
He scoots closer. Or maybe I do. Hard to say. The gap between us shrinks to nothing and his head tilts down toward mine. I can smell him—cool and clean, as if dark green had a smell, something that reminds me of rain on pine trees. My eyes close on their own.
His breath is warm on my mouth. My hand—the one holding the ring—rests against his chest. I can feel his heartbeat through his shirt.
Our noses touch. His lips are right there. A centimeter. Less.
And then?—
Matvei’s breath fans over my face in a surprised grunt. My eyes fly open. His face looks stricken, eyes wide with surprise, mouth pressed into a grim slash. “Matvei, what…?” His gaze falls down, and mine goes with it…
… That’s when I see the knife sticking out of his rib.
5
CASS
I thought I was overwhelmed before. But I was wrong.
Now,I’m officially freaking out.
Five seconds ago, I was hurtling toward a kiss with a man who, let’s be honest, I definitely shouldn’t be kissing.
But let’s be honest about the other part, too: We all know it was going to be an absolute fuckingbombshellof a kiss.
Giana always used to say that you could tell if a man was good in bed if you took him to a single yoga class. She used to force all her dating prospects to join her for an hour of sweaty vinyasa in that 105 degree torture chamber of hers. She was merciless about making them sit through the whole entire thing, too—“even though I can always tell from the first downward dog if they’re gonna make me cum or not.”
Savage. You can see why I loved her so much.
And yeah, obviously, the activities that Matvei and I have partaken in tonight are pretty much the polar freaking opposite of yoga, spiritually speaking. But maybe I need to amend Giana’stest, because watching a man throw you over his shoulder, beat up some assailants to defend your honor, and then tend to your wounded knee isalsoa pretty good measure of his prowess in bed.
I just know it. I know it in my bones. Matvei’s got the goods.
Unfortunately for me, though, he also now has Mr. Refrigerator’s ugly little oyster-shucking blade jutting out of his torso.
I look past Matvei to see the man responsible for the stabbing. He’s lying on his back just behind us, gasping like a beached whale. It looks like the last of his strength was used to crawl up and deliver this final, sneaky littlefuck you,and he’s now ready for the sweet embrace of death.
Just to be sure, Matvei turns around and stomps on his throat. Shit goes crunch, and the breathing stops.
Goodnight, Mr. Refrigerator.
And good fucking riddance.
But it’s looking like it might be goodnight for Matvei, too. Because as soon as has he stomps the final sparks of life out of our mutual friend, he sags against me. One hand goes to the weapon in his side and comes away red with leaking blood.
“Oh, fuck,” I stammer. “Oh, fuck. Ohfuckohfuckohfuck.”
Matvei grimaces. He looks down the alley to be sure that there aren’t any more bladed threats coming our way, but the other two goons are dead. “Bastards.” He spits on Mr. Refrigerator’s lifeless face.
“Okay,” I babble, hands flittering around the knife handle. “Okay, okay. We need— We need a hospital. Right? Hospitals are where stabbed people go. That’s the protocol. And to get to the hospital, we need an ambulance. So…”
“No ambulance,” he grits out.
“What do you mean, no ambulance?! Matvei, there is aknifein you!”
“Funnily enough, I’m aware.”
“Are you? Because you seem very calm about it. Unreasonably calm. I feel like I’m actually displaying the appropriate level of concern here and you are the one who is worryingly?—”
