Page 115 of Facing Off
It’s Mikael Saros. Towering over her in his all-fucking-black suit, glowering as if the whole clubbing experience is beneath him.Fuck!
Even from this distance, I just know it’s a mirror replica of one of Sonya’s frowns, too, the one she uses when she’s got a particularly clever and savage comeback ready to go. I can see it now. Them frowning and wittily insulting each other and holding hands, frowning and falling for each other, frowning and getting married in this chic black-themed wedding, and living together and having babies, the fucking cutest frowny babies anyone has ever seen?—
I’m sprinting.
Lokhov and Kavi call my name, but I can barely hear them.
45
SONYA
There he is,dressed in a crisp, black shirt and black slacks, as unbothered as ever.
In fact, Mikael Saros seems absolutely bored.
But I know a thing or two about pretending, and while his mask is almost impeccable, there’s more behind those cool slate gray eyes than he lets on. This Viking man is hiding some seriously leashed energy.
“Can I buy you a drink?” he asks me.
I nod absently, because if I’m dancing with anyone tonight, I guess I should pick him. It’ll be like I’m touching another version of myself. How fun and weird would that be?
The only problem is my body. There’re no butterflies or hot sparks of anticipation as we head to the bar. I’m not squeezing my thighs together, and my pulse hasn’t spiked once.
Until it does, when a broad shadow falls on me.
Sandalwood, soap, mint.
I’m so pissed. I whirl around, ready to confront him, but before I can, I’m thrown over a shoulder and carriedaway. And I’m so stunned—my eyes almost about to bulge out—that I’m not fighting him. That’s how we’re halfway across the warehouse before I finally shriek, “Are you fucking kidding me, Hughes? Let me go!”
He sets me down.
I’m pinned by striking blue eyes the color of a turbulent ocean. My fingers curl into fists. God, I want to rip off his clothes, because I hate them. Just as much as I hate his gorgeous hair and his broad muscled chest and that aggravated jaw-clenched expression that makes my heart skip a beat. What’s it for? Why isheso upset? I’m the one who has justifiable reasons to be pissed.
“What’s your problem?” I thunder out at the same time he growls, “He’s not your soulmate.”
It takes me a full five seconds to understand what he’s talking about.Who? Saros?
“How dare you? That’s not any of your busi?—“
He catches my jabbing finger. “Sonya, don’t dance with him.”
The audacity of this man! Especially considering he was in the middle of all those women! My throat aches and a throb pounds in my forehead. “As if you can tell me what to?—”
“I’ll beg.”
“Beg?” My snort is incredulous. “Yeah, right. Stop pretending…”To not be a player, to be interested in me like I’m the only one, to do all these things that make me feel cared for, because look what’s happened.
The pain inside my chest hasn’t abated. It’s getting even worse.
Adrian steps back. Under flashing club lights, without breaking eye contact with me, he goes down to his knees in the middle of an unhygienic and potentially drink littered floor, uttering a single word. “Baby.”
It feels like I’ve been shoved, right in the center of my chest. My heart pounds as I stagger back a step.
“Ask me when the last time I had sex was, Sonya.”
There’s a loud whooshing in my ears. My mouth falls open.
“Ask me who I think about, the only person I think about when I touch myself,” he says, his voice broken and full of heavy despair.
