His blonde highlights catch the unnaturally bright lights of the medical room that’s been built into the back of his sprawling Beverly Hills home. He’s been in the Bratva’s employ for almost two decades now.
Judging solely by the pricey furniture we saw on the way in here, it’s going pretty well for him.
“You’ll live,” Sokolov says mildly. “I just need to put in a few stitches.”
“Gently, please,” Cillian says.
“Don’t be a bitch,” I scold him.
Sokolov grabs his head and pushes it front facing. “No moving. No talking, either.”
I catch Cillian’s eye from where I’m sitting in a nearby armchair. “Do you need me to hold your hand?”
“I had to drink for you and me both since you were being a baby tonight,” he retorts. “Can’t feel a thing.”
“Ah, the beauty of youth and alcohol,” Sokolov chuckles. “Don’t worry. I’ll clean you up and finish the stitches. Shouldn’t take more than half an hour or so.”
“You don’t need to stay,” Cillian tells me. “Contrary to what you might think, I don’t actually need you to hold my hand.”
“I’m not convinced,” I smirk.
Cillian flips me off. “For real. I’m good. Fuck outta here.”
Grinning, I grab my jacket. “Okay then. Call me tomorrow and let me know how you’re doing.”
“If you insist, Pops,” Cillian replies, with that shit-eating smile of his.
“So much for the hooker in a sexy nurse costume I was gonna send over to your place as a get-well-soon present.” I get up and make for the door. “Make sure those stitches hurt when you put them in, Doc!”
I call a Bratva car to pick me up and drive me back to the apartment.
Esme’s probably asleep by now. I tell myself that my need to check on her is purely business, nothing more.
But I don’t even sound convincing. Not even to myself.
When the elevator doors open to my penthouse, I notice the lights are still on in the sitting room.
I move forward and turn the corner. The room kind of melts into the background as my eyes focus on the woman lounging on the sofa with her legs kicked up.
She straightens up a little when she sees me and flips her dark locks for effect.
“There you are,” she says, with a raspy familiarity that doesn’t immediately register. “I’ve been waiting all night.”
I stare at her, confused by what I’m seeing. Esme stands slowly, a wicked little twinkle in her eye as she gives me a smile that makes my cock twitch.
It would have been completely hard by now…
If it weren’t for the fact that she’s wearing the ugliest lingerie I’ve ever seen in my life.
As though she knows what’s running through my head, she fingers the frilly fabric that ends just below her pussy and gives me an elaborate twirl.
“What do you think?” she asks, as though it’s a serious question. “You like it?”
It looks like a moomoo with sporadic cutouts dipped in neon green paint and sewn together by a whole factory’s worth of baby doll frills. And then there’s the purple leopard print patches…
I’m literally speechless.
What kind of sick fuck can take something as sexy as lingerie and make it… this?
I can tell that Esme’s enjoying the moment. She picked it out for this exact purpose, I’m sure.
Trying to fuck with me. Get inside my head. Seize back control of whatever you’d call this dynamic between us.
She’s made one mistake, however.
She let me see the fire in her eyes.
That’s what does it for me. What’s always done it for me.
Bare-faced, bright-eyed, she looks as sexy as she did the night I met her at The Siren.
If I block out that disgusting lingerie and focus only on her face, I’m as hard for her as I’ve ever been.
“Well?” she pushes.
I cock my head to the side. I know I need to be very careful. More careful than usual, even.
Because when it comes to Esme Moreno, I’m not as in control as I like to be.
“You chose that for me?” I ask faux-innocently.
“I did,” she murmurs, her eyes flashing dangerously, despite the smile she wears. “I thought it was important you see me in this.”
“Oh? And why is that?”
She comes forward, moving gracefully despite the ugly thing she’s wearing.
She stops only inches from me. Her perfume fills my nostrils, and it only serves to make my cock harder than ever.
She’s at least a head shorter, but by the way she’s looking at me, you’d think she was twice my height.
Gazing right up into my eyes, she lets a teasing smile play across her lips. Subtle, tempting, delicious.
Then the smile drops off her face and her hazel eyes turn gold with anger.
She hisses, “So you know that I’m not your fucking china doll.”
There it is, I think.
The fire.
The fury.
Fuck—I love it.
“Who the hell do you think I am?” she continues.
The sexy whisper is gone. Her voice is rising into a fever pitch now.
“How dare you send me off to a fucking lingerie store to tart me up like one of your whores? You’re not the boss of me, Artem Kovalyov. You’re not anything to me. You may command every brainless puppet in this city, but I’m not one of them. I’m not your little fuck doll and you don’t get to dress me up like one.”
I just stand there, still as a statue, and watch her rage at me.
My eyes land on her lips first. I fucking love the way she says my name—I don’t even care that it’s in anger. Honestly, that makes it better.
Her cheeks burn red with fury. Her eyes sizzle with passion.
And my cock is so damn hard that it’s fucking painful.
“Did you hear me?” she asks. “I’m not your goddamn fuck doll!”
I stare at her full breasts rising and falling with exertion, baby doll frills moving right along with her.
In the end, that’s what does it.
That’s the straw that breaks the camel’s back.
I can’t abide the sight of that horrendous piece of filth anymore.
