Page 38 of Road to Ruin
“My dick can’t get any harder,” he rumbles. “If you sigh like that one more time—”
I do it. I do it on purpose, and that’s it. He spins around, moving so quickly I barely have time to brace myself before he’s on top of me. He brings his mouth down on mine with a ferocity I’ve never experienced before, and suddenly everything falls away. Outside my body, the room fades to blackness. The bed disappears from beneath me. My ears are deaf to anything other than the pitch and fall of our strained breathing. Inside of me, a tempest rages. It threatens to sweep me away, to drown me, to batter and bruise me with its savagery. Tommy’s hands are all over my skin, his lips on mine, his teeth nipping at my neck, and I can’t breathe. It’s okay, though. I don’t need the oxygen. All I need is the solid weight of him pressing down on me, and the rough, lust-filled rasp of his voice in my ear.
“You’re mine, Nikita. Come hell or come high water, you’re mine. Is this what you want?”
“Yes. I want you.”
“I won’t let you go. If you agree to this, I’m not just gonna walk away if you freak out and want to bail. Understand? There’s no ripcord. There’s no get-out-of-jail-free card. No take-backs. No running away. You’ll be mine. That’ll be all there is to it.”
I look him in the eyes, seeing the truth there: he’s serious. Deadly fucking serious.His dark eyes are so intense that it’s hard to even meet his gaze let alone hold it.“What do I get in return?” I whisper.
He smiles, slow and steady. “You get me.”
“Well, isn’t this charming? Should I make an appointment to come back in, say, six and a half minutes?”
Tommy’s eyes widen, and for a second I think he’s going to jump off the bed and grab something to use as a weapon. My own heart has risen up into my throat and is pumping so hard I think I’m going to have a heart attack. There’s someone standing in my bedroom doorway. Someone Tommy and I both know very well.
West Bastien.
“What the fuck, West? Do you want to die? Is that it? You actually want to fucking die.” Tommy sits up, fists at the ready—he looks like he’s about to murder the guy leaning against the wall just outside my bedroom, and I can’t say I’m inclined to stop him.
West tosses something into his mouth, grinning like a Cheshire cat. “I thought it was best if I came up here looking for you instead of my brother,” he says. “I’m glad I made him wait downstairs now. He would have shit the bed if he’d seen this. Nikita, you’ve got a little nip showing.”
I look down, ready to cover myself, but my shirt is perfectly in place, my nipples under wraps.
“All right. Maybe that was a little wishful thinking,” he says, tossing something into his mouth again.
“West, are you eating the grapes from my fridge?”
“Potentially.”
Tommy stands up, crossing the room in three quick strides. He grabs West by the throat, pinning him up against the wall. “You’re fucking kidding me,” he hisses. “Alex is here?”
West doesn’t seem even remotely fazed that Tommy has him by the throat. He reaches over Tommy’s arm and feeds himself another grape. “Downstairs, like I said. Sitting on the couch last time I saw him. He might get bored and come looking for us soon, though. You know how impatient he can get.”
“Fuck.”
“Sorry to cock block you, my friend. You should probably wait for your dick to go soft before you go see him, though. He’s…sensitive…about Nikita. Just the idea of her fucking another guy is like…well, it’s not good, put it that way.”
“Like he actually gives a shit,” I snap. “Tell him he needs to conduct his business meetings outside of my house, West. I’ve gone nine and a half years without him stepping foot through that front door. He’s not allowed to just barge in here whenever he wants to.”
West sports the trademark Bastien smirk, raising his eyebrows. “He does own the place, Nikita. Technically, he can come and go as he pleases.”
I growl, deep and low in the back of my throat. “I had the place valued and hand delivered a check to him that was ten percent above market value five years ago, asshole.”
“Ahhhh, yeah, but he didn’t cash the check. I definitely don’t think he signed over the title deed.”
Tommy looks back at me over his shoulder, confusion deeply etched into the planes of his face. “Alex owns this place?”
“Oh, enough already! Get the fuck down here and stop bickering like children!” Alex’s voice is muffled but perfectly audible. A loud crashing sound downstairs has me jumping out of bed. I hold my hand out to brace myself against my chest of drawers when my head begins to thump painfully.
Thankfully I’m wearing pants; getting dressed right now would have been a laborious task that probably would have made me throw up. I hurry out of the bedroom and down the stairs, plotting and planning what I’ll throw at Alex’s head first if he’s damaged anything important.
I barrel into the living room, and there he is, standing there like it’s the most normal thing in the world for him to be here in my house. The last time he was here, he told me he would kill me if he ever saw me again.
“What do you think you’re doing?” I hiss.
His shoes are Italian leather, his pale, dusky grey suit impeccably cut to his frame. He glances down at his fingernails, cracking his neck. “Don’t worry, Nikita. I’m not here to see you. I was reliably informed that I’d find Tommy here, and ahhh look. There he is now, looking very wound up and unhappy. Hello, Tee.”
