Page 11 of The Savage Heir

JEWEL

Ice-blue eyes stared down at me.

I jolted up in bed, waking up with my hand clutching my chest.

My gaze swiped right, left, right. The room was awash with sunlight coming from the sheer curtains because both my roommate and I loved it that way. Sofia’s bed and desk, clean and tidy, mimicked my own side of the room. Drinking in the view of everything in order, blazing in sunlight, relieved me, and I flopped back into bed.

A prickle of awareness tickled down my spine. My eyes darted across the compact dorm room. I had to reaffirm that no one was there. What was this guy doing to me? Nicu was long gone, although his scent still lingered in my bed. There were the unmistakable hints of bergamot from his cologne mixed with his seed, which he’d shot over me and my bed. A moan slipped out as I took a long whiff. I already loved that scent.

I might be alone, but there was no doubt that those were Nicu’s eyes, hovering over me. Damn him for infiltrating my sleep. His eyes weren’t the color of the brilliantly warm sea off the Greek island where I went on vacation with my parents, either. No, this was a shivery cold tint of blue. I imagined they mimicked the color of an icy sea, like the North Sea. A stunning blue, indeed, but with a distinct chill in it. Better yet, his eyes resembled the Black Sea, which was more fitting since that body of water wrapped around the coast of Romania, where his family hailed from.

I stared at the poster of bell hooks’s words of wisdom on the wall beside me. The moment we choose to love, we begin to move toward freedom hovered above me. Those words usually gave me solace. But not today. Guilt slammed into me. Today was the first time I woke up haunted by the eyes of a guy I’d just hooked up with. And Nicu wasn’t just any guy, either.

He was Cat’s fiancé. Cat, my best friend of six years. Cat, my other half. Cat, my savior. I’d been flirting with suicidal thoughts when Mother dumped me at school in the middle of nowhere after the catastrophic year when Dad was arrested and we lost everything. Family, home, life as I knew it. All of it was gone.

Gone.

I clutched the gold medallion hanging from my chain, reminding me that my visit to prison was coming up. Dad had gotten it for my tenth birthday. Inscribed in the center of the medallion was “The Perfect 10,” because I was obsessed with gymnastics at the time. I’d gone pro by then, even taking a trip to Texas to the Karolyi Ranch for training. So I was familiar with Romanians even before meeting Cat. After my father’s fall from grace, I stopped practicing. I stopped everything. If it hadn’t been for Cat…

I slapped my hands over my eyes and groaned. God, I’m an awful person. The worst. While I knew my bestie didn’t care a fig about Nicu, it was still disloyal. I, better than anyone, knew what it felt like to be betrayed by someone you loved and trusted. It didn’t have to be on purpose or targeted for it to have a lasting impact. The only silver lining of this whole mess was that I’d never be foolish enough to go for a guy like Nicu and break my father’s cardinal rule: never fall for a criminal. And there was no doubt about Nicu’s criminality. Besides being a prince in one of the most notorious crime families in the city, the man oozed savagery.

I rolled over to my side on my narrow twin bed to check my cell for a text from Cat, my head splitting from the movement. I wasn’t a big drinker, what with being underage and all. Besides going to bed after three in the morning, the fact that I’d tossed and turned for a long while before falling asleep didn’t help matters any.

As I scrolled through my social media for any sign of life from Cat, I shifted my legs and felt a twinge, reminding me of last night. Of how big he was. All over. Of how well he’d taken care of me. Thank God I’d had the presence of mind to kick him out before I got addicted to his mouth and cock. I squeezed my eyes shut. Shit, who am I kidding? I was already halfway there.

While poking my phone, a text from Cat came through.

MISSION ACCOMPLISHED, B-YACH.

I let out a sigh of relief and quickly shot off a reply. She’d go on to marry Luca, even if I fucked her cheating-ass fiancé. Guilt doused me like a bucket of freezing-cold water. I had to be the worst friend ever. Normally, I’d text that I’d had someone in my bed as well, and we’d go back and forth, but I couldn’t. It was the first time I had to hold something back, and it felt awful. Just awful.

I’d really messed up, but from now on, I would do better. Glancing down at the sheets, I knew I had to get rid of Nicu’s scent, a combination of his cologne, his natural fragrance, and his come, which I’d shamefully but greedily inhaled. I’d rolled out of bed and grabbed my pillow when the tip of my big toe butted against something stiff yet silky. I wiggled my toes and grasped the item beneath my bed. I leaned back and got a look at the mystery item, already guessing what it was.

His tie. It was a saturated Egyptian blue that enhanced the sky-blue topaz color of his eyes. I squeezed my own eyes shut, trying in vain to block out the image of his as he drove his cock into me, stretching my tight flesh because I hadn’t had sex in a long time. I remembered the thick slabs of his pecs moving in sync with his driving hips as he held himself above me. Or before that, when his head was nestled between my legs. His grip kept my thighs spread for him to feast on me, an expression of bliss permeated his face. He was clearly enjoying himself.

A moan escaped. I bit down on my bottom lip and grabbed a folder from my desk and began fanning myself forcefully. It’s like he’d put a hex on me the moment he cast his hauntingly arctic gaze my way. the sexy blue-eyed devil. When we’d gotten back to my room, he was so damn cocky that I taunted him to prove himself. And he had. By God, did he ever. With his tongue and his cock. In fact, I can’t think of a single time a man’s cock had pleasured me so well. He had skills, there was no doubt about that.

And the wanton slut I’d turned into… I distinctly remember screaming at him to fuck me harder as I slammed my heels down on his ass to spur him on. I mean, who was that? I had a normal teenager’s appetite, but it had never been so savage before. I hadn’t experienced it yet, but the kink was there, right under the surface. I saw the way he’d looked at my bed, his tie hanging from his hand as his head tilted to the side as if trying to figure out how to tie me to it. There was no doubt in my mind that, next time, he’d swat my ass. Maybe even with a belt.

Next time. What the hell was I doing? Reminiscing about last night and pining for a “next time.” Those thoughts hit me with another wave of guilt. Not only for Cat, but because of my father. Nicu was a criminal. I repeat, he’s a criminal. I needed to bitch-slap myself back to reality.

The guy had never held down a real job in his life. Not that I was one to talk. Many of the men in the refined society I came from didn’t necessarily work. They could if they wanted to, but they didn’t have to. And if they did, they usually worked in their family’s business. Much like Nicu. No, not like Nicu! They directed a hedge fund or managed real estate. They didn’t sell weapons to dictators or whatever it was the Romanian mafie clans did. And I’d already seen what criminal activities did to families. It destroyed them, that’s what it did. I could say, without a shred of doubt, that it had destroyed mine.

A one-time fuck was one thing, but anything else was out of the question. One would think that because my father was currently incarcerated, I might be more understanding, even forgiving, about a man who’d committed crimes as a way of life. The opposite was true. My father lost everything. He lost my mother and his social standing. His partners and closest friends turned against him, going so far as to testify against him during his criminal trial. His life was a cautionary tale. Much like the original Brothers Grimm tales, not the sanitized Disney cartoon version. The real fairy tales were sinister and, at times, gory but with a hard lesson behind them.

With that thought firmly at the forefront of my mind, I dove for the tie. Crushing it in my hands, I tossed it into the small wastebasket underneath my desk. Staring at the offending piece of clothing cradled in a nest of crumpled paper, I felt a sudden sense of glumness. I stood there, moodily contemplating this new feeling as the sounds of the traffic on Broadway drifted in from the windows I’d left open during the night.

I grabbed my robe hanging over the chair at my desk, draped it on, and tied the belt. I’d lost my virginity, but I tended to give relationships a wide berth. That was my MO, soI didn’t want to fall for a guy. It must be the incredible sex talking. Maybe it had caused some alterations in my brain chemistry, because I normally flew from intimacy like a bat out of hell.

Anyway, Nicu had to marry a mafie princess. Despite the fact that he was pissed when I kicked him out last night, I was deluding myself that he would even approach me for seconds. Unconsciously, my hand dipped into the wastebasket. My fingers clenched around the crushed silk, and I dragged the tie up. Clutching it to my chest, I decided to keep this memento precisely because nothing would ever happen between us again.

That’s right. I’d likely never see Nicu again.

I glanced at my bed.

I was still stripping the sheets, though. I wasn’t that much of a masochist.

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