Midnight Lies (Tasarov Bratva 2)

I don’t know why I’m pressing the issue. I don’t want Adrik to admit to loving Sofia. I don’t want to hear about him being with any other woman.

But I can’t seem to help myself.

Maybe I’m just addicted to being hurt.

Suddenly, he’s moving towards me, closing the distance between us in two long strides. I look down at the floor, but Adrik grabs my chin and lifts my face to his.

“I trusted her,” he says slowly and clearly. “And I shouldn’t have. I’m not wrong often, and the fact that I misjudged her… It made me angry.”

“You’re telling me the fact that she was beautiful had nothing to do with you being blinded to the truth?”

I sound bitter even to my own ears. I’m being embarrassingly transparent. Then again, I think my motives are always transparent to Adrik, no matter how hard I try to hide them.

Even now, he’s looking at me, but I’d swear he was looking into me. Straight into my thoughts and my heart, reading me like a book he memorized a long time ago.

“You are beautiful, kiska.” He brushes his thumb along my jawline.

I swallow audibly. My heart is pounding in my chest, vibrating so hard I think it will take flight. “That’s not an answer to the question.”

“Not to the question you asked,” he concedes. “But it’s the answer to the question you want to ask.”

There he goes again.

Seeing right through me.

I look away from him, surveying the damage around us. “You’re really going to burn all of this?”

“Every last piece,” he says. He lets his hand fall to his side. “And when I see Pietro Volandri again, I’m going to burn him, too.”

He steps towards me. His body is so close I can feel heat rolling off of him. There’s a quiver between my legs. A need, an anticipation that I can’t control.

“And then what?” I ask in a shaky breath. “What comes next?”

He bends his head down to whisper the words against my ear. “Why don’t you tell me?”

I’m on fire. Adrik’s hands are on my body. His words are in my ear, making their way to my heart. And his scent is all around me.

I’m surrounded by him, but it isn’t enough. It will never be enough.

“Isabella is napping,” I whisper, grabbing fistfuls of his shirt.

“Then we’d better not waste any more time.”

Just like that, his lips claim mine. Sparks go off in my head, my brain short-circuits, and all processing power has been transferred to the pulsing, needy beast between my legs.

I jump up and Adrik catches my legs as I wrap them around his waist. His tongue slides into my mouth. I moan, arching my body against him.

“This is so hot,” I gasp, running my fingers through his hair. “You’re going to fuck me on your dead ex-fiancée’s bed, and it is so fucking hot. What’s wrong with me? Who am I?”

Adrik lays me back on the bed and hovers over me. He isn’t quite smiling and isn’t quite frowning. Hovering in between like a storm that hasn’t decided whether or not to break.

“You’re my wife. That’s who you are.”

He bends down to kiss me again, but just before our lips can meet, there’s a loud bang from upstairs.

We both freeze.

“Is it Isabella?” I ask in dread.

Adrik shakes his head. “No. It came from the other side of the house. I think it’s—”

He’s cut off by a long, gurgling moan from above.

“Fuck.” Adrik stands up and pulls me off the bed, not letting go of my hand as we tear out of the room. We reach the top of the stairs.

That’s when I see the blood.