“Tell them I’ll be there in a fucking second.”
The door closes behind me, but I’m frozen, taking in the room. Black painted walls, with an equal-colored ceiling. The floor is laid out with thick plush black carpet, not a single light in the room or window.
“Is this a panic room of some sort?”
When he doesn’t answer, I turn to find him leaning against the door, his eyes on mine.
“Kind of. Only it’s not what you see on the surface, it’s what happens”—he taps his foot—“down below that matters.”
“Niko, I have to get back to Halsin, and I don’t have time for games.”
He laughs, and the way it bounces off these cold, distant walls sends shivers down my spine. He slowly closes the distance between us. I step backward, attempting to regain it. Niko used to make me feel like home, but now all he does is make me feel—confused. I’m too busy trying to calm my breathing and untie the knots in my belly that I don’t realize he’s toe to toe with me. Again, he’s over a foot taller than me and built from tight, big muscles. The kind you want to grab on to and rub yourself all over because they’re—no, he—he is that perfect.
He shakes his head slowly. “You ain’t going back to Halsin yet.”
“Yes, I have a school to run.”
“It runs itself.”
I stop breathing when his finger starts tracing the curve of my collarbone. My eyes close. “I’m worried about my students.”
Silence. The warmth of his breath touches my ear. “They’re safe.”
I trusted that he was telling the truth, and I don’t know why. It could have everything to do with the fact that my hormones are overriding my logic of this situation, or it could be that I can trust him. Can I? Didn’t we both just play stupid games against one another last week to see which would crack because we both knew the other was hiding something?
“This is not a game to me anymore, Nik. This is real. There’s no hidden agenda.”
His lips brush against mine, and my insides melt to a hot puddle. He grins against them as I slowly peel my eyes open. “You’re not a game to me, Meraki. I can’t promise you anything else but that.”
An exasperated groan escapes my throat as I hook my arm around his neck. He has to lower himself down a little for me to reach, even on my tippy-toes, but I dig my fingers into his short mane, holding his face close to mine. Instead of fighting me, he flashes a deadly grin.
“If you fuck with me again, Nik, I don’t care how many people are afraid of your name being whispered in the dark. I am not them, I am not her, and I am definitely going to make sure people know it. That I can promise you.”
His pupils dilate as he puts one thigh between mine and I have to step back blindly, my back hitting the wall. “That supposed to be a threat?” He tilts his head and the strands of his hair slip from between my fingers. “Because it sounds more like a challenge.”
“I don’t like you much anymore,” I whisper honestly through the swell in my throat.
“Yeah? Well, you should probably work on that, because I ain’t going anywhere.”
My heart pounds against my chest, my rib cage splitting open with every passing minute. We both wait as if to see which one of us is going to break and kiss the other first. When I lean up onto my toes and flick the tip of my tongue beneath his upper lip, I know his ass is mine. Big, scary Nikolai Davis, the deadliest animal in the kingdom, and he’s all mine with a simple—he kisses me so fast my head slams against the wall as my legs fly around his waist when he lifts me from the floor with a single arm. My fingers are back in his hair, yanking on the ends as his tongue slides against mine. With every passing minute of being back in each other’s arms, I feel myself fall deeper and deeper back into the flame that our souls burned from. My nipples graze against the soft cotton of my top as Nik moves from my mouth, down, running his tongue over the curves of my neck.
He bites down on the cushion of my lip. “This is going to have to wait, because the shit I wanna do to you is gonna take longer than the five minutes I have with you.”
My hips buck into his, desperate for whatever friction I can muster. “Just a quick one for now, and then you can do whatever you want to me later.”
“Ahhh, I see you’re still as impatient as fucking ever.” He rolls his eyes to the back of his head, snapping my lower lip between his fangs before releasing. He loosens his grip enough to allow my body to slide down the front of his until I’m standing back on my feet, arms crossed, and a frown set in, looking up at him like a toddler that didn’t get her fucking candy.