Total pages in book: 64
Estimated words: 62543 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 313(@200wpm)___ 250(@250wpm)___ 208(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 62543 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 313(@200wpm)___ 250(@250wpm)___ 208(@300wpm)
“Why did you?” she croaks.
“I didn’t plan on grabbing you last night, all right? I was just following you. Learning your habits. But you noticed me. And then those mudaks tried to rape you.”
“You raped me!” She tries to head butt me again, but I move my head to the side. My nose feels slightly swollen and bruised from her earlier attack. “Why didn’t you just…why did you?”
Her confusion guts me. “I’m sorry. You were tripping. I didn’t want the drugs to enhance the trauma. So I waited.”
She stares at me, soaking it in. “You didn’t want… you were saving me from a bad trip?” Water droplets bead on her lashes. Her black eyeliner from last night has been washed clean, and she’s even lovelier this way.
I nod.
“And Nadia is your sister?”
I ease back and let her slide to the shower floor now that the fight’s gone out of her.
“Da. She’s…” I stop myself. I don’t want to tell Kateryna the details of what her father did. It’s bad enough I will be taking him from her. I don’t have to ruin her image of him, too.
“Your father ruined her.” I leave it at that, backing away and closing the shower door.
Kat
I stand under the spray of water, trembling. Stunned by the new information revealed by my captor.
This is revenge for Nadia. His sister.
Whom my father ruined.
Ruined how? I squeeze my eyes shut. I don’t think I want to know. Just like I don’t want to know for certain what happened to my mother. Whether she’s still out there somewhere or if my father ruined her, too.
I open the shower door and find Adrian’s still at his same post against the door. He’s dripping wet, his clothing soaked through, his dark hair sticking flat to his forehead.
“Do you want to come in?” My throat is scratchy from screaming. “The water is still warm.”
He shakes his head. “No. I shouldn’t have mixed things for us. It was wrong. It only makes things harder.”
I nod, suddenly deeply sad. It’s probably just the let down from last night’s ecstasy. My brain’s chemicals have to be completely out of whack.
“Stay in there as long as you like. We have nowhere to be today.”
Damn.
He’s…kind. As I’d suspected last night, under the rough, grumpy exterior is a worthy man.
I keep the shower door open but back into the spray of water. I don’t know if I’m trying to tempt him or just needing to stay connected. “Last night was a job?” I lift my hands to my hair, tracking Adrian’s gaze when it falls to my lifted breasts. “You had sex with me to keep me from having a bad trip. That’s all?”
“I didn’t have sex with you.”
“Yeah, keep telling yourself that. I had your dick in my mouth, and you had your tongue between my legs. That’s pretty damn sexual.”
He grasps the ends of the towel and pushes me against the wall. “I’m sorry, Kateryna. It was a mistake. It won’t happen again.”
He’s saying the wrong thing. I don’t want him to apologize and tell me it was a mistake. I want him to say it rocked his world the way it rocked mine. I want him to tell me he’s the guy I thought he was last night. The sexy grumpy bear capable of everything, fulfilling all my deepest, darkest sexual fantasies. The guy who explicitly asked for and waited for consent but then took charge in the most deliciously dommy world.
And because I’ve had three years of therapy, I also recognize that I’m being childish and needy. I’m trying to attach myself emotionally to a guy who kidnapped me to use me for bait against my father. Believing that I’m somehow going to form a lasting emotional bond with this guy is stupid and foolish.
But then stupid and foolish are kind of my middle names.
“So it wasn’t real?” I press. “You seduced me for my own good?” I let my disbelief show.
He turns stony, his dark glower returning. “For my own convenience,” he snaps. “Get dressed.”
I don’t believe him. He’s purposely putting distance between us. Part of me wants to get pissed–which is what he wants–and let him. The other part wants to keep pushing. Seduce him the way I did last night. Because we both know I was the one coming onto him, not the other way around.
“I need clean clothes,” I assert. I got puke on my blouse this morning, and it smells now.
“You can wear my shirt,” Adrian grumbles, nudging me out of the bathroom and into the small, darkened apartment.
I think about making a run for the door, but I’m naked, and I doubt I’d make it. I felt Adrian’s muscles and show of strength last night. He’s in excellent shape. He brings me to where a suitcase lies on the floor and opens it with his toe.