Page 61 of Kings of Violence

Nikolai looks pissed, though, and I know he’s not going to just “chill out.”

“Go on.” I make a shooing motion at James, wishing I could do the same to Nikolai — who’s probably going to be even clingier now that he realizes someone else wants to pay attention to me.

Good thing my social life dwindled down to practically nothing when I started dating James, I guess.

James casts a glance at me. “We’ll talk later,” he says.

“You will not,” Nikolai counters.

They give each other another look, and the person at the doorway clears their throat.

James finally relents. “Answer your damn phone, all right?” He turns, stalking away with the air of a cat who just got dunked under water.

I breathe out slowly, stepping out of the way of the person trying to enter the room. They barely register, though, because Nikolai is giving me a hard look.

“Your boyfriend?” Nikolai asks with a hard edge.

“Ex-boyfriend,” I correct him. I wave a hand. “But he’s not important. Look, I have a break between this and my next class. Let’s go to the library so I can look over this syllabus and get an idea of my course load. You can drop the fake Russian thing and everything now.”

It’s Nikolai’s turn to grab my wrist, and he yanks me out of the room even as I hiss out in pain.

“What the fuck, Nikolai?” I hiss at him. “You’re hurting me.”

“Fake Russian?” he growls. “I am as Russian as Kotya and Yura.”

Oh, for fuck’s sake. “I didn’t mean it like that. I just meant the accent?—”

“Come,” he interrupts me, starting to drag me down the hallway. It’s bustling again with students going to their classes, but I don’t dare do anything to draw attention to us.

I don’t know what Nikolai would do if someone tried to get in between us.

I go along passively, but no one’s paying attention to us anyway. Even if I was in real danger — and I’m not sure I’m not — no one would even notice.

He pulls me into a bathroom, and the woman washing her hands at the sink squeaks as she sees the murderous look on Nikolai’s face. She scurries out of the room with a quick, apologetic glance at me, then we’re left alone.

Nikolai flips the lock on the door then boxes me in against thewall. “You have a smart mouth, zaya,” he says in a low, measured tone. The Russian accent is all but gone.

I don’t point that out.

“I thought you had a smart mind, too, but maybe I was wrong. Maybe you’re too stupid to go out in public, too, to these classes. Maybe I should tell Kotya it made you forget yourself,” he continues.

I shake my head quickly. “No. No, I’ll behave. I’m sorry, all right? I was… I was stupid.”

“Yeah,” he says steadily. “You were.” He reaches out, starting to unfasten my jeans, and I freeze.

“Nikolai, we’re in public,” I plead with him.

“We are,” Nikolai agrees, and his tone of voice makes it clear that this is not a deterrent for him.

It’s a feature, not a bug, one might even say.

I brace myself against the sink and shake my head. “I have class?—”

“Your next class is in an hour,” Nikolai interrupts. His hand traces the curve of my ass. “Your schedule is nice and spaced out. Because you want an excuse to stay away from the house?”

“Because that’s how my classes fell,” I retort. “They’re advanced classes. I don’t set the times, and they’re not offered every hour on the hour like freshman courses are.”

He squeezes my ass cheek then goes back to my jeans, unzipping them and yanking them down past my ass. “You’re lucky Kotya agreed to this. He shouldn’t have. It means me and Yura have to take time out of our days to come out here with you. If you’re going to be a little brat, maybe that’ll change.”

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