Page 92 of Ruby Malice

“Fuck. I can feel you,” he growls. “You’re so tight. Now, come for me,kiska.Come for me like the bad little girl you are.”

I hook my ankles behind his legs. I never want this to end. But it has to.

The orgasm sops me up and rings me out. When it’s done with me, I collapse back into the mattress, Kirill heavy on top of me. His head presses against my sternum, solid and reassuring.

I wind my fingertips in his damp hair and inhale his scent as my body tingles with the after-effects of warmth and cold, of good and bad, of right and wrong, of should I and shouldn’t I.

If this is the darkness, I think,then I’ll happily live and die in it.

21

KIRILL

Rayne’s heartbeat is loud in my ear. I close my eyes and exist there, between her heart and her hand in my hair.

The most dangerous place I could possibly be.

I move to lift my head, but she holds me still. “Stay here,” she begs. “Please. For just a second.”

I grimace, peel her hands off me, and push myself upright anyway. It’s been a long time since I’ve given myself over to something—to someone—so completely. Even now, I feel the urge to do it again. Her face is flushed a gorgeous pink. Her lips are swollen from kissing me. There are red marks around her wrists from where I pinned her to the bed. She’s sex and beauty incarnate, she’s a pain in my fucking ass, and all I want to do is devour her again and again. Everything about her, from the curve of her bare hip to the peak of nipple beneath the sheer sheets, is an aphrodisiac I cannot resist and cannot afford.

I haven’t felt this kind of insatiable appetite since I was a teenager. Since…

Just like that, the bubble bursts. The world rears its ugly head once more and says,You cannot ignore me.The past rakes its ugly claws along my spine and says,You cannot forget me.

Just like that, I remember who I am and what I’ve done.

So I get up.

“Fuck,” I growl under my breath as I pull fresh clothes from the dresser and shrug them on quickly. All of a sudden, I can’t move fast enough, can’t get away from here—fromher—soon enough.

“Where are you going?” Rayne asks.

“I have to… check on something.”

Rayne isn’t just a distraction; she’s a firewall. The rest of the world is nothing but ash when she’s near me. This was a pleasant reprieve—but a dangerous one. Not a mistake I intend to make again.

“Right, yeah. Okay,” she snaps. “Some emergency you have to attend to. I bet it will send you out of the country for a few weeks, right? You’ll call me when you’re back, which will be never. Yeah, I get it. I know what this is. I’m just the bitter, jilted fling.”

I hear her words, but they don’t quite register. Like something being whispered to me in a dream. I can’t believe I let this happen again. After last time—after Daria—I swore I’d never let a woman pull my focus awry again.

And yet here we are.

Rayne is fighting with her wet clothes, so I quickly throw her a pair of gray sweatpants and a t-shirt. “Wear these. I’ll have your things washed and returned.”

“Keep it,” she snaps. “It was my uniform. I doubt I’ll be needing it after today anyway. Right?”

Her words start to penetrate the fog in my head, but just barely. I turn to her and start to ask, “What are you talking—?”

But before I can get all the words out, a scream cuts through the house.

It’s faint, a muffled noise through walls and floor, but I know it well enough. It’s etched into my bones.

“Fuck.” I turn and run for the door, barking orders over my shoulder as I go. “Stay here. I’ll be back.”

I take the stairs two at a time and shove through the double doors into Ilya’s apartment just as he screams again.

The night nurse is standing in the hallway. Her eyes are wide and her shoulders are shrugged around her ears. “He’s having another nightmare. I tried to wake him up, but—”

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