Page 24 of Sinful Desires
I opened my eyes and tried to gasp, but my lungs wouldn’t listen.
The body collapsed at my feet with a sickening thud, twitching once before going still. Blood was splashed in delicate arcs across my cheek, my neck, and the neckline of my shirt.
For a second, I thought maybe I was dreaming, or hallucinating.
Or having a psychotic break in the middle of a slutty afternoon.
But then I saw the brain matter staining the hem of my bed skirt, and I knew this was real.
“What the fuck, LeRoy?”
He calmly pulled out his phone, called Alexsei, and in that deep, dry, judgment-laced voice of his said, “You can call the Vatican. Miss Harper just tried to break her vow of celibacy. Spectacularly.”
Then he slipped the phone back into his pocket and slowly turned to me. His gaze locked on mine, like cold steel and something quieter, darker.
My mouth snapped shut. Every insult I had queued up shriveled and died at the back of my throat. I took a step back on instinct.
“Miss Harper,” he began, his voice soaked in lethal calm. “When I left the Navy, my generalsbeggedme to stay. Men who’d seen war, death, andeverything in between, on their fucking knees.”
A pause stretched between us.
“Do you know why?”
I didn’t answer. Couldn’t. My mouth was too dry, my legs too busy trying not to tremble.
“Because I was the best. The kind they can’t replace. I could find anything, erase anyone, protect what mattered, no matter the price. Ineverfailed. Never flinched. Never broke a vow.”
He took a slow step forward.
“There isnothingI don’t see. No lie I don’t hear. No secret I don’t feel crawling through the walls.”
Another step. Close enough now that I could smell his cologne—a mix of dark amber, cinnamon, andwrath.
“I have instincts sharper than most people’s reality. So whatever clever little games you think you’re playing behind my back?” He tilted his head slightly, the smallest smirk curling, if you could call it that.
It felt more like a death sentence.
“That was your last fucking one.Compris?”
I nodded, thankful for the few French lessons my parents had forced me to follow in high school.
He then crouched and grabbed the dead man by the collar.
As he began dragging the body toward the hallway, blood leaving a dark smear across my cream carpet, he said, “I’ll let you clean your mess.”
And just like that, he was gone.
I had spent the next two hours on my knees, soaked in vinegar and shame, scrubbing until the floor stopped bleeding and my hands stopped shaking from my humiliation.
Asshole.
After that incident, I’d been trying to lay low and focus on more important things, like protecting my sanity from that terrifying, murderous monster.
Victoria pretended to check my dress one more time, leaning in to adjust a diamond that didn’t need fixing just to buy enough time to hear the insults I was whispering under my breath, all aimed at him.
But I wasn’t looking at her. I was looking past her.
Athim.
