She backs away from me, leaving the knife she sank into my side still buried there.
Fuck.
The way her body tightened when she drove that blade into me… I could live off that feeling.
I follow her gaze to my bloodied shirt and wrap my fingers around the hilt, pulling it free. A grunt escapes me as warm red drips to the floor at our feet.
“You—you…” She looks at me with the lust and desire I’ve been waiting for.
She’s admired my appearance, sure—I mean, she practically stared down my dick in the shower.
Even when she was still strapped to those posts, her body ignited at my touch. But now—right now—she’s looking at me like she did when I first met her. Like she remembers the exact effect my body had on hers.
But just as a smile forms on my face, she checks her emotions, pushing back all her feelings for me and replacing them with this guarded facade.
“You’re bleeding a lot,” she concludes.
Come on, baby, where did you just go?
“I am.”
I grab her hand and place it over the hole in my side. “Why are you still pretending you didn’t feel that?”
“I mean, I felt the satisfaction of stabbing you, and the nausea of your kiss, if that’s what you’re talking about.”
There’s a ridiculous little coil of triumph in my chest because even as she spits the words, I can tell she’s lying.
“Hm. Your tongue in my mouth didn’t really show that.”
“Yeah, well, I was trying to distract you from the pain.”
This fucking girl.
She’s falling in love with me already.
I pull her hand off my waist. “Rinse off and get on the bed. We will test this little theory of yours.”
She opens her mouth, probably to tell me off for ordering her around, but I cut her off before she can continue. “And don’t forget that I can still walk down those steps and kill Adrian if you don’t hold up your end of the deal.”
Reluctantly, she walks into the bathroom, making sure I hear the door slam and the lock click into place.
She’s so cute. Locking a door I have a key to.
* * *
“She stabbed you, and yet she lives? Taking a shower to wash off your blood?”
I tense as Ivan’s needle treads through my skin, closing my wound. “Relax, Ivan. She will come around. And when she does, you will accept her. I still want you to come with us.”
He shakes his head in disapproval.
I know that he hates more about this than he can put into words, but he keeps working. His fingers move fast, covering the last knot with gauze before he stands.
“Keep it clean.” He grunts. “And don’t do any strenuous activities.” His eyes shoot to the bathroom door, and I laugh.
Ivan doesn’t laugh with me. His face stays carved in stone, the kind of expression you only earn after killing hundreds of people and pretending you sleep well at night.
“She wants to kill you, and you’re laughing,” he points out.
