Page 229 of Hateful Games

“Thank you,” I whisper. A fiend for his compliments.

“You only wear any other color for me, Rose,” he growls possessively. “Do you hear me?”

His deep voice in my ear, his scent drugging my senses, I would’ve said yes to anything. “Okay.”

“Good girl.” Rounding to my front, his hands span my waist. With his right thumb, he circles the piercing. My clit pulses as he tugs and twists, staring at the movement with his bottom lip trapped between his teeth.

I watch, starstruck, when he pushes one hand into his suit jacket and pulls out a small blue velvet box. Cartier written on the top. When he flips it open, my breath catches in my throat at the blinding white diamond.

Staring at the size, I know it’s not a ring.

But a belly ring.

Nova did say he will buy me one, but I thought he simply said it in the heat of the moment. My abs contract when he silently and carefully pulls out my old piercing, expertly replacing it with the new and expensive one in the shape of a rose.

I don’t stop him.

Loving the idea of wearing his mark.

“Just when I thought you couldn’t look even more perfect,” he rasps. “And mine.”

Nova loves to spoil.

There’s no doubt about it.

Whether that’s an exception for me or all the women he dates… I don’t know.

I clutch his forearms when he slides his hands upward and shamelessly cups my breasts. His thumb grazing the nipples until they harden from his attention. “These are going to be next.”

If possible, my nipples pucker even more, causing a little smirk to appear on his handsome face.

Closing my agape mouth, he leads me to the cozy and romantic dining table. Charming and a gentleman, he pulls out my chair and tucks it in when I sit down.

“Is this your way of making up for all my dinner dates you ruined?” I amusedly ask as he settles down across from me. My heart rate kicking up when he absently unbuttons his suit jacket before sitting.

Darkness descends and his jaw hardens. “It would be, if I regretted them.”

“You’re not even a little bit sorry?”

“I don’t share you,” he states matter-of-factly. “Not then, not now, not ever.”

I glance away as I reply, “There was one time.”

Perhaps I’m making a mistake bringing this up but ever since confronting me, Nova has been pretending it didn’t happen. Does he care if I regret it? Or does it not matter to him because he’d been sleeping with other women too? The latter I have no clue about.

He waits until I’m looking back at him to coldly ask, “Were you attracted to Malcolm or did you sleep with him because any man, who wasn’t me, would’ve done?”

“Does the why matter?”

“You brought this up, Rose.”

“I hated you. I was mad at a situation that was out of my control. I didn’t want to lose my virginity to a man I despised.”

“Do you hate me still?”

Suddenly I’m incapable of speech because I’m too scared to confess the truth to myself, let alone to him. Hell, I came to Vegas just to put distance between us and get my head on straight. To cure myself of the crush I was—am—developing on him.

Like a moth to a flame, he found me.

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