Total pages in book: 60
Estimated words: 56572 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 283(@200wpm)___ 226(@250wpm)___ 189(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 56572 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 283(@200wpm)___ 226(@250wpm)___ 189(@300wpm)
CHAPTER 14
MIKHAIL
I’m not in the mood for this asshole. When I called into the bathroom, I was more worried that Mila had run away, not that some dickhead had used her to make a point. Especially after what I’ve recently done and the actual violence I inflicted, I’m ready to dismantle him.
Mila hesitates. In the corner of my vision—I’m staring at the man, waiting for him to move—she shifts from foot to foot. I wonder if part of her wants to tell me to beat him to a pulp. The thing is, I would. She’s spent too much of her life living in fear. She doesn’t deserve this.
“He’s not worth it,” she says after a pause. “Come on. Let’s not let him ruin the day.”
I nod, stepping forward and almost crushing him against the wall. The coward flinches away, refusing to meet my gaze, showing his true colors every second.
“Walk behind me,” I tell Mila. “Just in case he gets any not-so-smart ideas.”
Mila leaves the bathroom, keeping me between the cleaner and herself. Once she’s safe, I tell the man, “You’re fucking lucky.”
Then I back out of the room, keeping my gaze on him. He’s the sort of lowlife to sucker punch a man when he turns his back. I can tell. Outside, I take Mila’s hand and walk toward the bike. The bag of groceries is still on the seat where I left it.
“I told him my boyfriend wouldn’t be happy,” Mila murmurs, picking up the helmet.
She looks so beautiful with her messy hair from the ride here. The leather jacket makes her look cozy, like a gift in leather, ready for me to unwrap.
“You said that?” I ask, a genuine smile touching my lips, not a smirk. Actual happiness that makes me forget about all the dark stuff.
“Is that okay?” she asks.
I answer her with a kiss.
“Nowhere,” I tell her when she asks where we’re going.
She laughs, squeezing my hand as we walk along one of the quieter Red Rock Canyon trails. “Nowhere … really?”
I grin. “We came here when we were kids, Dimitri and me.” I help her navigate some tricky, gravelly terrain, and then we rejoin the main path. “We’d wrestle in the dust and get better at fighting. It was difficult to get any real training with other people. They didn’t want to hurt us the second they discovered who we were.”
“You can’t blame them,” she says quietly.
“I know,” I say, sighing. “Luckily, Dimitri’s tough as hell, so I always had a good training partner.”
“So did he,” Mila says supportively.
I smile down at her as we crest upon a small hill. Then I look over at her to see her reaction. The desert and the rocky landscape spread out before us, and then Las Vegas—the city sparkling like a beacon.
“Whoa,” she murmurs. “It actually looks beautiful from this far away.”
I laugh.
She giggles, laughing just because I did, and looks up at me. I wrap my arms around her from behind, leaning down to put my cheek next to hers, savoring the warm skin-on-skin contact as we look at Las Vegas.
“What’s funny?” she asks.
“You said ‘actually,’ and you’re right. It can be so depressing in the city, especially in the daytime. Soulless, but from way out here …”
“There’s no grime. It’s clean; it’s like code.”
I squeeze her tighter, then kiss her softly on the cheek. She embraces me when my lips touch her skin and leans up for a kiss. I meet her halfway, making a deep, husky noise when our lips make contact, the desire and the heat threatening to melt me. I’ve managed to hold back because she was holding back, but when she moans and presses closer to me, my manhood grows rock-solid.
“It’s so quiet around here,” she murmurs between kisses.
“It’s not even eight a.m.,” I tell her.
“We should head back soon …” She raises her eyebrow, making it half a question.
I smooth my hand down her body, loving the way she shivers at my touch. She’s taken the leather jacket off, letting me see the shape of her body beneath the loose-fitting shirt. Every inch of her makes me swell with demanding, possessive, hungry need.
“I know,” I tell her, but I’ve got no intention of heading anywhere except deeper into this need, this hunger, this certainty. As I lean down for another kiss, I can’t believe I ever thought I could go through my life alone and spend the rest of my days without this heat or closeness.
She makes the sweetest noise when I kiss her, wrapping her arms tightly around me as though she wants to keep me as close to her as possible. I lean down, sliding my hand around her ass, savoring her curviness as she shifts against me, letting me feel her thickness. I love how shapely she is, with her gorgeously voluptuous ass and her wide hips.