Page 25 of Malevolent King

Even scarier was that I’d written my father’s number on the dirty cab door when Nikolai hadn’t been looking. A dusty scribble on the unwashed surface that I hoped the trucker would see later, and call. A tiny, pitiful cry for help? Or a call for my owner to collect me? I could hear Nikolai’s mocking voice in my ear.

After last night, I needed to get away more than ever. The tangled emotion over what had happened in the small hours was sending me crazy. Guilt crowded my head and crawled across my skin whenever I remembered Nikolai rocking against me. I hadn’t wanted to get away. I hadn’t wanted him to stop. That was the awful, terrifying truth. There was a landslide of want inside me, threatening to break free. He was the only man who had ever threatened to smash the walls I’d built and never cared about the consequences. I had to get away from him before I stopped wanting to.

“Well,what’s the grand plan now?” I asked Nikolai hours later when we stood in a small, clean motel room.

He moved around, checking the locks on the windows. He looked utterly exhausted.“We get cleaned up. Do you want to shower first, or do you want me to go? Answer quickly before I decide we should save water and do it together.” He turned to me and raised an eyebrow.

“I’ll go first,” I blurted.

Peering into the bathroom, I was disappointed to find there was only one tiny window, which was nothing more than a slit near the ceiling.

“Leave the door open,” Niko called, sitting on a chair and working his boots off.

I paused. “Excuse me?”

“Did I stutter? Leave the fucking door open.”

“But… you’ll see everything,” I said faintly. Maybe I was exhausted, too, because my brain was clearly lagging.

He appraised me in a lazy inspection. “I promise not to look.”

Something simmered in my blood at the heat in his eyes. It wasn’t fear, not by a long shot, and that scared me more than anything.

“Come on,lastochka, we don’t have all day.” With that, he stood and stripped off his black t-shirt.

I froze as I took in the multitude of cuts and dark-purple bruises, visible even under all his ink. A slow, dripping wound decorated his side.

“You’re hurt,” I heard myself say. That had better not be sympathy in my damn voice.

“On any given day, just assume I’m bleeding from somewhere.” He sighed and then undid his jeans, pushing them down in one fluid movement.

Holy crap. A glimpse of long leg muscle and rounded, grabbable ass in black boxers seared across my eyes as I turned around quickly and moved behind the door. My heart pounded, and this time, it had nothing to do with the thought of getting away.

I took my clothes off quickly, leaving my underwear on. Moving to the shower, I pulled the curtain aside and turned on the rusted taps. In the mirror, I saw Nikolai. Sitting in just underwear, he had lit a cigarette and was smoking lazily. I risked a glance over my shoulder and met his eyes.

He was watching me.

I didn’t dare look lower to see his nearly naked body, even though I wanted to. I climbed behind the curtain and took my underwear off, washing them under the warm shower and rubbing at them with a little bar of soap.

I showered as quickly as I could, painfully aware of Nikolai outside the door. I wrapped the towel around me and tucked it between my breasts. Stepping out of the tub, I glanced at Nikolai’s broad, tattooed back as he sat at the table, fiddling with a dismantled gun. I turned to the mirror. My eyes were wild and huge. I didn’t look like myself at all. I looked—I searched for the right word—excited.

No, that couldn’t be it. It couldn’t. If it was, I was as messed up in the head as the psychopath in the next room.

“Beautiful,” Nikolai said quietly, a purr in his voice.

He was leaning in the doorway, naked except for black boxers. I tore my eyes from his sculpted body with effort. I had the motel comb in my hand. It was a flimsy piece of plastic that would break a second into combing my long hair.

Nikolai eyed my tight grip and smirked.“You had a better chance with the screwdriver, prom queen.”

I flushed, embarrassed to be reminded of last night.“Right. What’s the point of having a weapon if I don’t have the killer instinct? Looks like Antonio was right after all,” I muttered, rambling to deflect but only heading deeper into vulnerable territory.

Nikolai’s eyes narrowed at me, and he sauntered into the room. His body was a mess under the ink. He was hurt in multiple places; blood crusted his side, and his wrists were a gory sight. I tensed when he passed behind me, looking over my shoulder at my reflection.

“You call your father Antonio? Is there no love lost between Daddy Tony and his precious little princess?”

“Why do you care? Want to bond over our daddy issues? Didn’t you kill your father a few days ago?”

Nikolai smirked. “Jealous?” He leaned in and caged me against the counter with an arm on each side, his skin scorching hot against my bare shoulders. “Do you want to be me when you grow up?”

---