Page 29 of Shadow

I hummed and reached up to play with the lobe of his ear. “Then consider yourself pierced, baby.”

23

Malik

Icouldn’t believe I’d fucking agreed to this. I blamed it on my dick. I always agreed to stupid shit when my dick was hard.

I blew out a soft, nervous breath as I watched Rurik sterilize the needle he would use to pierce my ear. He had alcohol wipes set out along with some kind of saline spray that he said I would need to use for a few weeks while my piercing healed. And sitting on the nightstand was the earring that would go in my ear—an R with tiny, glittering diamonds.

When he’d said he was marking me, he hadn’t been fucking joking. While I’d been napping after taking more pain pills earlier, he’d apparently gone out and gotten all this shit. When I’d woken up, he’d been sitting in a chair beside my bed, his eyes on his phone. But he knew the moment I woke up because he’d set that phone aside and gave me his undivided attention, only asking one thing: “You ready?”

No… No, I was, in fact, not fucking ready to be goddamn stabbed in my fucking ear.

“Do you even know what you’re doing?’ I asked, frowning at him, tension bubbling in my gut. “Have you ever pierced someone before?”

“Nope,” he said, even going as far as popping the P. And while that freaked me out a little, I also refused to look too closely at the relief that flooded me. While I was a bit terrified of being pierced by someone that hadneverpierced someone before, I was also happy that he’d never touched anyone else like that.

He had me all fucked up… and dammit, I didn’t hate it.

He turned to face me, and I sucked in a sharp breath when he suddenly straddled my thighs, though he didn’t sit down. Instead, he gripped my chin with his free hand and turned my head so my right ear was facing him. I gripped his thigh with my one good hand and blew out a soft breath, hoping it would calm me.

It didn’t.

“I swear to fuck, Rurik, you better know what you’re doing,” I muttered.

He didn’t answer me. I listened as he tore open an alcohol wipe and began to sanitize my ear. Then, he was gripping my earlobe. My fingers tightened on his thighs, my grip no doubt leaving bruises. But I couldn’t bring myself to care. He was about to stab me with a fucking needle, after all.

“On three,” he told me. “One. Two.”

“Fuck!” I barked when he stabbed the needle through my earlobe. “What the fuck happened to three?!” I shouted at him as he slid the earring into the hole he’d put through my flesh.

“You would’ve tensed,” he said as if I was overreacting. I growled at him as I glared at the floor. He cleaned my ear and stepped back, a dark gleam glittering in his blue eyes as I turned my head to face him. “Fuck, you look hot as fuck, Malik.”

I reached up to touch the earring in my ear, and my heart jolted all while my cock thickened. Before I could open my mouth to say anything, I suddenly heard my mom shouting from downstairs. My face paled a little.

“Oh, fuck,” I whispered, that sense of calm I’d found immediately leaving me. She soundedangry.

Rurik chuckled. “Man up, baby, and go face her. You’re the one who hasn’t called her. You think when you went silent for days, she wouldn’t find out what happened?”

“Malik fucking Quinn Carter!” Mom bellowed, calling me by my full name. I winced. Yeah, she was pissed alright. “You get your ass down these stairs rightnow!”

Sighing, I stood from the bed, hurrying to the door. Steeling myself, I made my way downstairs. Mom was standing in the middle of the main area, her hands on her hips as she glared at me. I grimaced.

“Hi, Mom.”

“Hi, Mom?” she echoed, her voice shrill as she raked her eyes over me, taking in my arm, which was in a sling. I hated the damn thing, but Rurik forced me to wear it when I was awake because otherwise, I moved my arm too much for his tastes.“That’s all you’ve got to fucking say to me after gettingshot?!” she shouted. “I think you took twenty damn years off my life, boy!”

I sighed and reached up to scrub a hand down my face. “Ma, I’m sorry. To be honest, I’ve been kind of out of it. The hospital kept me doped up, and the pain meds keep me really tired.”

“I don’t give a single fuck,” she snapped. “I should not have found out you were shot from Rurik.”

I spun around to face the traitor in question, who had one shoulder propped against the wall at the bottom of the stairs, his hands shoved into the pockets of his perfectly pressed slacks. His lips quirked in amusement at my glare. “What, baby?”

“Oh, you fuckingasshole,” I growled.

His eyes lit up at my rage. “What? She called me asking if you were okay when you didn’t answer her calls. Did you think I would lie to my future mother-in-law?”

“Future mother-in-law?” I spluttered, my mind fucking spinning. “What thefuck, Rurik?”

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