Page 65 of Hate Mates

I was so caught off guard at her question. “Huh?”

“Do you want to dance, introduce me to any friends or acquaintances, or?—”

“I’d like to go outside. Let’s go to the courtyard.” Once we were outside, she was the one to look amused. “What’s so funny?”

“So you go to parties, but don’t hang out with the guests once there?”

“Something like that,” I responded.

Glancing up at the sky, I noticed the moon shifting on the canvas of black. I turned back toward Ekaterina just as a sliver of moonlight fell across her face. For as stunningly beautiful as she might be, I knew how venomous she was, too. What she didn’t know, but soon would, was that she’d finally met her match. Princeton had been infatuated with her like any seventeen year old boy would be, but I was a man, and one used to very dark things. Although she was nothing more than a pawn on the board, it didn’t mean she’d willingly play my game. Not now, but she would.

At Daniro’s party, a plan had come to mind, and I’d spent most of that night planning it out. I woke the next morning with renewed purpose. Everything was falling into place, and I was truly anticipating the moment when I’d kill her. A part of me wanted my cock in her when it happened. I’d jacked myself off to that particular scenario twice today already. I’d make her orgasm off the fear, then squeeze her dainty throat until the last breath fell from her lips.

It was all I could do to erase that vision from my mind. When she looked up at me, the way her head was slightly tilted and her lips partially parted, I knew she wanted me to kiss her. Maybe it was subconsciously, or maybe it wasn’t.

I glanced into those dark eyes of hers, and our gazes held for several long seconds until I dropped mine. I saw her shiver as my eyes slid down her body. The dress she was wearing had a sleeve on the left side, but the other had been cut off just above her right breast. I stepped in closer, then reached out and lowered the side to release her breast. Her soft moan only made me harder, especially when she whispered my name as I rolled the tight nipple between my fingers.

“Kingston,” was all she said before she smacked my hand. “What the hell are you doing,” she seethed through gritted teeth.

I released her, then watched her quickly right her dress once more. “It’s okay to admit that you want me on some subconscious level.”

“I don’t,” she lied, but I could tell by her body’s reaction to me that it didn’t match her words. My gaze raked over her, and I smirked as I took in the heaving of her chest. “If you so much as touch me again, I’ll break your hand.” I was very unafraid, and she knew it. “And if you continue to look at me like that, I’ll scratch your fucking eyes out.”

“I’d rather you wait and scratch them down my back when I’m fucking you.”

She gasped. “You’re very vulgar.”

“I don’t see the problem, unless you’re one of those ice queens.” I stepped closer to her, this time making her back up a few steps. “Is that it? Do you need me to talk dirty to you in order to melt that ice around you?”

“I’m not an ice queen,” she retorted.

“Prove it!”

“I don’t have to prove anything to?—”

And I didn’t give her a chance to finish as I grabbed her by the throat, then slammed my mouth down on hers. At first, she put her hands between us to push me off, but she either realized her surrender was inevitable, or she realized what I knew and that was that she was attracted to me because she finally slid them up my chest.

I deepened the kiss, which she returned. Then, in a sudden reversal, she wrapped her own hand around my throat as the other hand moved to my balls. I had not anticipated either action, so she succeeded in making me stop. After I ripped my mouth away from hers, she smirked. “Looks like I got you by the balls now. You might do best to remember that in the future.”

Once she released me, I watched as she turned to leave. “Do you have Aram Grigoryan by the balls, too?” She froze at thatmoment. “He’s been looking for you which is why you’re here in New York City. A single call would be all it would take to put you in his crosshairs.”

SIX

Ekatarina

At the mention of my betrothed, I squeezed my eyelids closed. Kingston knew about him, and now he had something to hold over me. Judging by the pride in his voice as he threatened to call him, my hard exterior finally cracked.

“No, please,” I said to him as I turned around and grabbed his arm. “What do you want from me?”

I couldn’t believe that in a matter of seconds I’d gone from feeling on top of the world in this little game between us, to now pleading with a man for mercy. A golf ball sized pit formed in my throat that burned as I forced myself to swallow it down.

“Will you do anything I want, Ekaterina?” he asked me in a low tone.

“T-that depends on what you want me to do?” I countered.

“We need to go inside,” he told me and as he moved past me, I found myself chasing after him.

I inwardly cursed him the entire time, and once back in the lobby of the hotel, he moved to the elevator banks instead of the ballroom where the event was being held. “King?—”

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