Reckless Heir (Underworld Kings)

His dark hair was wet and not yet styled, his upper body naked and all those tattoos in clear display. He wore a pair of dark tailored slacks, but the button was undone and I could make out that hard, defined V cut of muscle lining his six-pack.

My face heated as I remembered what we’d done last night just on the couch not ten feet from me. My pulse ratcheted higher as I shifted on the tufted stool I sat on and my thighs protested because Nikolai had kept them open so long and with so much force.

And I felt every part of my tingle when I swallowed and the soreness lingered from when he stuffed his cock down my throat.

“Okay,” I said softly, surprised I had it in me to even answer right now.

I felt my heart thump in my chest when he gave me a slow smile and a long once over, as if he, too, remembered the filthy things we’d done.

When he turned and headed back into the master suite, I exhaled. I heard a phone ringing, then the distinct, muffled sound of him speaking in Russian. That distraction helped bring my thoughts and body back to the present.

It was still early in the morning when I’d woken up and seen Nikolai sleeping soundly beside me. I’d felt his body heat in all the right places.

I’d never slept beside anyone other than my sister when she’d been younger and I let her crawl into my bed after she had a nightmare, so I’d been thankful he’d still been sleeping as I’d snuck out.

And what I’d done couldn’t be called anything but that.

After getting ready as quietly as I could in a pair of leggings and a soft cashmere sweater, I made my way downstairs and into the kitchen. It had taken me ten minutes to figure out the coffee machine, a fact that made me feel ashamed. We’d had servants to handle these things, when this task, as well as other daily, household things, should have been common knowledge to me.

After I’d made myself a cup of coffee that had been so strong, I’d shuttered and coughed, and then had added damn near half the milk and sugar we had in the kitchen, I’d explored the apartment. With the sunlight streaming in the large windows, the penthouse had seemed far more inviting. Nikolai had built-in bookshelves across the room, many of the titles in Russian, some even Latin. I’d spent another ten minutes just pulling books out, cracking spines, smelling the pages, and feeling the leather under my fingertips.

I had picked a random one in English and found a little nook, grabbed a blanket off the couch, and sat on a little plush stool by the window. I stared out the glass and watched the cars and people below. It didn’t matter the luxuriousness of Nikolai’s apartment, once I looked outside all I could see was the broken sorrow that was Desolation.

And although the view wasn’t horrible, with the main street that ran parallel to this building pretty quiet and as clean and taken care of as any place in this rundown city could appear, I couldn’t help but picture all the emptiness I’d seen as we drove through the city to get here.

I heard him coming closer and tried to focus on the book, but the words blurred together. I couldn’t concentrate and found myself reading the same line over and over again before looking up at him through the long fall of my dark hair.

He was on his cell phone, his words deep and low and in that sexy Russian. And God did he sound delicious when he was speaking that other language. He wore a suit, finally tailored, molded to fit his strong physique.

Nikolai could pull off business attire as well as a bad boy in a leather jacket. I’d take him anyway I could get him. And that realization shocked me even though it probably shouldn’t have. I was thankful that I was attracted to him, grateful that so far he hadn’t treated me badly.

I knew things could change at the drop of a hat. I’d only been in his presence for a couple of days. This could all be a farce, a mask he put in place. But I wanted to think it wasn’t. I wanted to hope it was more than anything I could have dreamed of.

But the longer I stared at him, the harder I thought about all the things we’d done. How he touched me, the things he said to me. They all sounded so genuine. They sounded real.

His voice rose, his clear anger picking up with whoever he was speaking with on the other end. And when he got to the bottom of the stairs, he barked out one last word, disconnected the phone, and shoved it in the inner pocket of his suit jacket.

And then he was staring at me and I couldn’t find the strength to look away, didn’t care that he saw me watching him.

“Come here, malishka.”

“Come here, baby.”

I set the book aside and stood, padded over to him on bare feet, the cold wood underneath my soles doing nothing to cool me off. When I stood right in front of him, he stared down at me with an intense expression covering his face, one that I could have construed as angry but I knew better.

I didn’t know how I was aware of something so sure, but I knew with certainty the look on his face was one of dark passion and intense need.

“I have some work to do that will keep me away for several hours, but I’ll be back and we can have lunch together.” His voice dropped lower and he took a step closer. “And by lunch I mean spreading those pale thighs and feasting on your pussy.”

Oh. God.

I took a step back on instinct, the fight or flight instinct at war. On one hand I could feel the beast within Nikolai, having the survival mode running high. But I desired him more than I had the urge to flee.

I couldn’t think, couldn’t do anything but stand there and stare at him with wide eyes and lips parted, chest rising and falling, nipples hard because I was insanely aroused.

Faster than I could anticipate, he reached out and curled his hand around my throat, used the act and his strength to move me backward until the wall stopped our retreat. Nikolai added pressure on my neck to lift up until I was on my toes.

Although I could breathe it was hard, but I didn’t fight, didn’t try to get his hand off. I was wet, already soaked so that my arousal dripped between my thighs, my inner muscles clenching for something substantial, something thick, hard, and long.