Page 128 of Little Blue

Kirill’s jaw pulses, his eyes darkening. “I’ll be keeping Ruby, brother, thank you.”

Ruby! So, he does have her. In a roundabout way.

“Yeah, I’m missing something,” Kane mutters, but he doesn’t seem too bothered by it as he settles in. “No bother. I’ll get the full story eventually.”

Fifty-Three

Ilya

I close the door behind me as we enter the house, instantly hearing a thud from the floor above. A little shadow with glowing yellow eyes appears from the stairs, meowling loudly in protest at being left alone for the couple hours he’d had the house to himself.

“Lucy,” Irelynn bends to give the cat with the ludicrous name a scratch. “I missed you.”

The cat gives another answering meow before he turns and struts off into the darkness.

As I instructed Polina and Daniil when I bought them their stay at a luxury hotel for the night, only one lamp illuminates the space. Luka is spending the night in one of the houses, leaving me and Irelynn the only ones inside.

“Weird.” Irelynn pulls her scarf from around her neck, hanging it in the closet. I swipe the remote I’d requested be left on the console table, slipping it discretely into my pocket. “It’s so dark in here.” She takes off her jacket and pauses. “Where is everyone?”

“I gave Polina and Daniil a night away.”

“Oh.” She smiles sweetly. “How nice.”

Oh, nice has nothing to do with it.

I catch her wrist as she begins to walk away, giving her a firm tug. Her back connects with the hard wall of my chest. A gasp falls from puffy pink lips, and her head tips to the side and up. There’s a question in those beautiful blue eyes, moments away from reaching her lips.

I dip my head, rumbling dangerously into the skin of her throat. “So, you like it when I chase you, Little Blue?”

She shivers. Her breaths begin to fall a little louder, a little faster. “Ilya…”

“I’ll give you a five second head start. Just know, all the exterior doors have guards posted. If you try to leave this house, they will give you to me.” That’s a lie, but I don’t want this going outside. Not tonight. “If you manage to get yourself safe inside a room, door closed, I won’t punish you. But if you fail…” I let that hang in the air, my hand squeezing her waist as I growl with intent into the soft skin of her neck.

I can’t imagine not wanting this woman.

“What if I succeed?”

“You won’t.”

Her chest is rising and falling hard now. She’s panting.

Is she wet for me already?

“But what if I do?”

When I asked her what she wanted for Christmas, she said she wanted a buddy for her cat. I’d shot that down hard. Now, I use it. “If you succeed, I’ll let you adopt another cat.”

She gasps in sweet delight. Fuck, I’m getting another cat.

“And I get to name it?”

“Fuck no.”

She laughs, rolling her hips back into my raging hard-on. “Deal.”

I squeeze her teasing little ass. “Five seconds,” I warn. Then I give her ass a slap. “Run, Little Blue.”

She lets out an ear-piercing scream that has her cat’s nails scratching against the wood floor a moment before she nearly trips over the black blur as it darts up the stairs. It’s perfect timing, though, because she’d been about to take the stairs. Now, she pivots and runs past them. I stroll leisurely behind her as she begins rattling doorknobs, her panic turning more and more real as she tries door after locked door.

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