And what do they have in common? They both want to shield her from the pain.
Then, stupidly, I realize I am the pain.
Inside—deep in the troughs of my dark soul—the coldness brings on only hate. I despise everything and everyone, but Milana Milenov—a name so angelic and pure—who finds a way to let the warmth inside.
I feel the sun.
The warmth and its presence every time her body is next to mine.
And, slowly but surely, it’s all beginning to fall apart.
Troy was a goddamn imbecile for showing up at my house and demanding that I owe him. Perhaps I did, but I don’t trust him—not for one second. He fucked shit up wherever he goes, and there’s no chance in hell he’s getting anywhere near Milana. I made sure of that by giving him the stash he wanted, a bonus amount on top and warned him never to set foot on my property again.
I need out of that game.
The high is no longer worth the pain.
I should probably stop using, and it’s not like I do it every fucking day. The second she became mine, I slowed it down. I use only when she isn’t around. It’s why I make it my fucking mission to make sure she’s always around.
She has become my addiction.
The morphine to my pain.
And the fight to keep Em in my life becomes a distant memory. Milana is nothing like Em. Perhaps my initial game is twisted and impure, but Em deserves revenge.
But this isn’t revenge, or is it?
It’s obvious the next morning that things are different. When I fuck her, she tenses, her mind elsewhere and distant. Her body is this sacred temple—one I simply can’t get enough of. She isn’t like other women I’ve been with. She isn’t trying out to be the next biggest porn star. What she does is from pure pleasure. She tests her boundaries with me. I see it, I watch it with an easing curiosity.
And that has become an addiction which remains incurable.
She is beautiful, a beauty who can’t be captured in words. And that’s fine, I don’t want anyone else seeing what I see. She’s mine, and I have to keep it that way. Not let that scum of a hillbilly ex promise her this rainbow-colored life with a ring and three kids.
No, fuck that. I will give it all if only she will let me. If only she doesn’t switch the subject each time I bring up anything to do with commitment. It confuses the fuck out of me. Women want this—babies and marriage. Fuck, I get offers on a daily basis for this shit.
But not her.
She is different.
And it irritates me in ways I can’t identify. Her hot-and-cold personality. One minute she will stare at me with her big brown eyes and equally beautiful smile, and the next, it’s almost an expression of fear.
She often gives excuses like telling me she’s tired, and normally I’d crowd her. Not give her space for the fear of losing her.
But not this time.
I walked.
She is in New York, and I’m here, holed up in a penthouse suite in Vegas surrounded by lines of coke though my appetite is non-existent.
Farrah is riding my tail, texting me nonstop with empty threats. I need to cut this bitch loose once and for all. Her name, and mine, in the same tabloid isn’t what I need Milana to stew over. She already questions me, though not forcefully, and I say the bare minimum. Farrah doesn’t deserve an explanation, her train-wreck of a life says it all.
I sit here on this fancy king-size bed, scrolling through my phone. Image after image of Milana, shots she doesn’t know I took. My favorite ones are of her sleeping, sprawled naked across my bed. This woman is so deliciously beautiful that it fucking hurts.
My grip tightens on the bedspread, the temptation all around me. Gerry—head of penthouse suites—hooked the room up with my usual stash and some girls on tap if I want. I don’t care for it, any of it.
I crave the taste of her skin on my tongue.
Distance doesn’t make the heart grow fonder, it makes the heart craft its own tragedy. My sickening desperation in the pits of my loneliness has me calling her nonstop. Each unanswered call only feeds my insecurities.