7
ARIS
JEALOUS BEYOND ALL COMPREHENSION, I considered throttling Roya right there on the dancefloor. No enemy had ever gotten under my skin with such pointed accuracy, and she was just some unskilled female.
My grip on her shoulders hardened, and she stiffened, staring at me with a barbed glare.
I’d told her to wear whatever she wanted. Big fucking mistake. When she’d waltzed out of my bathroom with a hip-swinging strut, a possessive snarl was the first thing to form in my chest.
The damned woman went braless, her black raspberry nipples clearly defined as well as the proud mounds of her breasts.
The dress clung to her figure, fitted all the way down to just below her knees, carnal red with a high slit.
Red seemed to be a favorite of hers, and I was fast becoming a fan.
It was the back that nearly dropped my jaw to the floor. The dress bared her from the neck down all the way to the delicate dimples at the base of her spine, showcasing all that ass and silken flesh in abundance. To top it all off, Roya wore something inside the hot red dress. A fragile metal chain of glinting gold looped around her waist, visible from the back but disappearing at her hips.
A motherfucking chain.
Da.The red dress had revved my engine.
Red like my fucking rage, my vision swimming, my blood thundering through my veins.
I didn’t like it when Roya had said the Sheikh would simply, finally, marry her off to the next well-connected asshole who made an offer.
I liked it even less when she’d announced in front of Yas and Konstantin that she wasn’t into Russian thugs, that I was, in essence, beneath her.
I knew the cause of that spiteful declaration—her desire to piss me off as Yas fake flirted with me—yet it still rankled.
I was half Russian, half Greek after all.
And to say I was fucking furious when she let another man dance with her was a gross understatement.
She was going to see just how much of a thug I could be.
I shook the infuriating woman until her head bobbed back and forth. “Did you think I’d just let you flaunt your body like that?”
“As I said, you have no say in what I do or who I do.” She tried to snatch away from me, but I set off across the floor, hauling her roughly with me.
Brave words from the precious virgin. She wouldn’t be doing anyone but me.
As I marched past Yas, I gave her a signal that I’d be stepping out of the nightclub to deal with Roya’s misbehavior.
I towed the woman up the stairs, through the outer offices, and straight to the elevator.
Deposited directly inside my apartment, I tugged Roya after me.
Standing in the middle of the living room, I faced her with displeasure lacing my voice. “What did you think would happen, Roya, when you tried to play me?”
“I—”
“Let me guess. You didn’t think. Just like a woman, you decided to try to fuck with my head.” I dragged her to my chest, biting the words out from between clenched teeth. “Did you want me to blast a bullet in the that asshole you were slutting it up for? Because I was tempted.”
While hot anger still tightened her jawline, she looked ashamed too. Her gaze dropped, and a pink splash of color crested her cheeks.
Good.
Before she could pop out a word of defense, I swiftly unknotted my tie. I spun her in my arms, quickly wrapping the silken length around her head after forcing it between her lips to gag her.
Her shoulders heaved as she sought to get away from me.
I chuckled mirthlessly, holding her with little effort and only one hand caging both of her wrists. Then I flipped open my belt, and the sound triggered her into sudden stillness.
I rasped the belt from the loops of my pants, yanked her arms back roughly, and buckled the dainty wrists together with the warm leather and cool metal cinched tight.
Then I unceremoniously pushed her to her knees.
Bending down, I removed the spiky stilettos and tossed them across the room.
Rounding on her, I tipped her chin up and clenched her cheeks between biting fingers. “This is what happens when you push me too far.”
Ragged breaths made her small nostrils flutter, and her eyes shot wide.
I released her face, leaving fingerprints on her soft toffee-colored skin. At least that made me happy.
After pouring a large tumbler of chilled vodka and lighting a smoke, I fished my phone from my pocket.
Swallowing a mouthful of my drink, I found the contact I wanted and jabbed the icon with my finger.
The line only rang once before being answered by some underling telling me this was a private number and not to call again.
My eyes pinned Roya to the spot—not that she was going anywhere since I had her bound and staged on her knees—and my voice rasped out in a low lethal tone. “Nyet.I want to talk directly to the Sheikh. Tell him it’s in his best interests.”
Roya gasped behind the gag, shaking her head frantically so that her stylish updo began unraveling.
Moments later, another clipped voice emerged from the phone, “Hello?”
“Are you perhaps missing a member of your family, Sheikh bin Talid Al Dhahab?” I asked with a wink sent to his daughter.
Her eyes bugged out. She must’ve realized I was finally done playing.
“Who is this?” her father blurted out.
I detected a tremor in the suka’s words, which made me smile blackly. “Aris.”
I heard his disbelieving gasp and then he said flatly, “Aris Volkov.”
The asshole had that way of making my name sound like an insult.
“The one and only, Nasir.” I used his first name familiarly, which had to gall the fucker.
“What have you done to Roya?”
“I’m just keeping her safe. While she was galivanting around the city last night—”
“What?”
At his screech, I snorted and held the phone away from my ear.
It gave me unholy, twisted pleasure to watch Roya struggle, to see her midnight eyes widen in panic while I spoke in such a detached manner to her pompous daddy. Knowing I held all the cards.
I resettled the phone. “Oh yeah. She’s been sneaking out. For months.”
Roya gave muffled shouts, getting more and more agitated by the minute.
“As I was saying, she came under attack.” I wouldn’t give him any more information than that though.