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All of my blood rushes to my cheeks when the memory flashes through my mind as savagely as he is.
“What are you thinking about?”
My eyes pop back open and rest on him. “Whose house is this?”
He pushes off the counter and closes the distance between us. Every single step he takes, my chest feels heavier. “Mine. Next question.”
“But—” I look around the kitchen. “How?”
The stool scratches against the marble floor. “Are you saying you don’t believe it’s mine?”
I sigh, massaging one side of my head. “Look, I can’t be bothered with mind games, okay? I’ve dealt with them enough since you left. Luca is—”
“Going to be dead,” Niko answers matter-of-factly. Too confidently, actually. As if he has a target on his back at this second and at any minute he could pull the trigger.
“If only it was that simple.”
Niko chuckles, and I’m painfully aware of how close he is to me. If I moved to the side a little, my arm would brush against his. “It’s cute.”
“What is?” I ask, finally stabbing into the waffle that Jer made.
I only just wrap my mouth around my fork when Niko finally answers. “The fact that you really don’t know who I am anymore.”
I slowly chew on the fried batter and manage to make it through one piece and two strawberries before I slide the plate back across the counter and turn to face him. Niko is a big boy, he always has been. He’s well over six feet and I’m, well, around five-five—and that’s being generous—so whenever I’m near him, I look like a child. And he has an uncanny way of making me feel like I am too. Not in the same way as Luca did. Luca used his size to intimidate, Niko is more like a weapon.
“How did you get this house?”
He doesn’t turn, casting me a side glare before sipping his coffee. “I bought it.”
“With your money?”
“No, with fucking yours. What the fuck, Mer? You’ve got me alone and these are the kinds of questions you want to ask me?” He places his coffee down on the counter and finally turns.
Oh no.
His thick thighs spread to the outside of mine and his large hands grip beneath my chair, lifting me with ease to place me directly between his legs. Now I feel more like a toddler and less like a child. “My turn to ask a question.” His cloudy eyes narrow sharply, and I know the next words that are going to come out of that sinful mouth are going to be ones I don’t want to hear, much less answer.
“What the fuck happened, why do you owe Luca your life, and why the fuck have you never reached out to me for help?”
“Are you joking?” I stare up at him, blinking. “Ask you for fucking help!” My voice hits a new note as I fight the urge to swing at his face. “I didn’t know where the fuck you were, who you were with, or if you were even still alive, Niko!”
His hand is on my face in a flash, and my heart drops to my stomach at not only the connection, but at the way his jaw tenses on either side.
“What the fuck did I always tell you when we were kids, Meraki, and answer carefully without that smart-ass mouth or I’ll feel inclined to fill it with something else other than the bullshit you’re spewing.”
My lips pucker out when he squeezes tightly, while his eyebrows cross into the center of his forehead as he struggles to disconnect from his focus on my lips. He releases, but only enough for me to talk, and having his hands back on my body ignites a power surge that long since died when he left.
“That we’re not for everyone.”
“And?” Niko asks, and I watch as his lips move around the word. He sneaks his tongue out, dampening his bottom lip. Fuck.
“And that’s because we’re only for each other.”
He releases my face and I fall forward a little. “Yeah, and yet you forgot that.”
I glare at him. Is he fucking serious? I won’t ask loudly again because obviously that question sets him off, but is he serious right now? “You left to do what?” I roll my eyes around the room. “Build a pretty little mansion and do whatever illegal shit you’re clearly doing to get you here.”
“Wanna know what I do, Mer?”
He grabs me by the hand and pulls me to my feet. As he drags me through the threshold of the kitchen, I faintly hear the front door open, but he doesn’t stop. We pass another hallway with more art hanging on the walls, until we’re down a long, dark pathway that leads to three doors.
“Niko, you have visitors at the front,” a voice calls out from behind us, and I shift to turn around, but Nik tugs me tighter, choosing the middle door and opening it wide before grabbing me by the shoulder and shoving me inside.
