Page 107 of Born in Depravity

CATALINA

My eyes feltheavy when I was roused from my nap by—

Something. I didn’t know what it was that woke me, but I was having a hard time getting my eyes to open.

It felt like I had taken too long of a nap, and now everything around me felt disoriented.

I knew right away I wasn’t alone in the room, and the first thought I had wasn’t fear, but something else.

Something I didn’t want to spend time looking at too closely.

I should be scared of them.

I wasn’t.

And Mikhail had kissed me.

My lips still tingled from the thought alone, and I wondered when I had become one of those people who turned stupid simply because a man had kissed me.

If their plan was to make me … care for them, well, fuck, they were succeeding.

“Open your eyes, princess,” Nikolay said. There was a command in his voice that sent shivers up my spine. I didn’t even know how he’d figured out I was awake, but I opened my eyes and took him in.

His light chestnut brown hair was in disarray, as if he spent the entire day running his fingers through his hair, but his green eyes were clear and focused, glinting with some dark humor I didn’t yet understand.

He walked over to where I lay on the bed, his large frame looming over me like some avenging angel, his thumb moving across my bottom lip.

I held still.

After a moment, his lips spread in a smile.

Even when he smiled, there was something ironic about it.

I didn’t think he had ever genuinely smiled in his life.

“Why are your lips swollen, princess?”

I blushed and he laughed.

“Ah. Did Mikhail get your first kiss?”

I wondered how he knew it was my first kiss. Mikhail suspected it, but he still confirmed it with me. But Nikolay said it so casually. Was my inexperience really that obvious?

“I got you something,” he said.

I tried not to perk up at the possibility of presents, but judging by his chuckle, I failed. I sat up, clutching the blanket to my chest. His eyes moved over me, making me blush even more, but my thoughts quickly shifted when he placed a package on my lap.

I looked down at it, then up at him.

The package was similar in style to what my Father had given me before he introduced me to Henry Ramos, the man he’d wanted me to marry.

The color on this box was different, though. A white box with shiny black ribbon holding it together. I thought I would be sick if I opened this up and it turned out to be lingerie.

I could feel his eyes on me as I untied the ribbon and let it fall to the bed carelessly beside me. I opened the lid and …

I looked up at him.

He smiled, baring teeth.

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