I clasp Nikolas’ wrist again, this time with more determination. “Please, Nikolas. Help me.”
Something crosses his handsome face. I can’t read it exactly, he masterfully masks it for some reason, but his eyes lose some of their edge and his hold around my neck loosens. Slowly, he lets go, retreating back over the console to his part of the car.
“I’m going to regret this.” He sighs, throwing his arms on the steering wheel and resting his head on them. “Fine. I’ll help you.”
“Shit.” I jump up from my seat to hug him, but he halts me with a raised finger.
“I will help you, but I have some conditions.”
Nodding, I get comfortable in my leather seat despite the buzzing excitement under my ass. Nikolas Stavros is, or was, an infamous mercenary. A loner. He’s scary and he could kill me so easily. But evidently, he’s also a kind man who’d help a complete stranger even if that stranger barged into his life and ruined it. “Yes, of course, anything.”
Another deep sigh. “You will do as I sayat all times. You will not challenge me, you will not argue with me. You will keep your mouth shut and leave all the talking to me. Understood?”
“Yes, sir!”
Nikolas’ eyes snap to my face, intense and thoughtful. “No need for sir. And that stone… I have someone who might be able to tell us what it is and how much it’s worth. We’ll split the profits. Seventy to thirty.”
Hold on a minute, this isn’t exactly fair. I open my mouth to point that out, but one glare from Nikolas is enough to shut me up. Ah, right, no arguing allowed. I make a zipping motion across my mouth. This man is going out of his way to help me, so the least I can do is pay him, even if his rates are extortionate. But, well, if it means I might come out of this alive, it’s one-hundred percent worth it.
“Okay. Agreed.”
Nikolas’ shoulders relax. He pushes back from the steering wheel, bobs his head, mumbles something in some foreign language and holds his hand out. I stare at it, then at his face. Did he want the stone?
Tilting his chin toward his hand expectantly, Nikolas says, “We have a deal then.”
Ooh, he wants to shake on it. How cute.
I slide my hand into his. Nikolas’ fingers are rough and his grip is strong and confident. A shiver runs down my back, all the way to my balls. I bet it would feel amazing if he was to curl his hand around my dick and give it a nice, slow and deliberate stroke.
Tommy, not now. Head in the game! You can’t seriously be fantasizing about fucking him already! He barely agreed to help you!
I mean… I did offer him a blowjob when he got me settled in the hotel in town. And I didn’t even know he was Nikolas yet, so this has nothing to do with that.
Don’t blow this!
Inappropriate thoughts quarantined, at least for now, I nod enthusiastically. “We have a deal.”
Fighting a lopsided smile as he shakes his head, Nikolas puts the car back in gear and floors it.
3
Nikolas
I’velostmymind.This is insane.
But there is something refreshing about not having to hide who I am. Nikolas Stavros has been dead for nearly a decade, and I made my peace with it.
Except that, evidently, I didn’t.
I glance at the young man, who is lightly snoring on the passenger’s seat. Early to mid-twenties if I had to guess. His arms are wrapped around his thin torso, and his blond head is propped against the cold window. He looks like one of those beautiful angels from the icons in my church, fair-skinned and fair-haired and with eyes that bore right into your soul. It’s only when he smiles in that impish way that you can see him for what he is—a little devil in disguise.
I chuckle quietly to myself. Who is he really? What is his name? Where the hell did he come from?
I maneuver the SUV off the dirt road and onto the asphalt as trees and fields give way to houses and flowering gardens. My safehouse is on the edge of town, no more than five minutes from here. My hand clutches the gear stick, but I force down the need to step on the gas. It would be a dead giveaway if anyone is on the lookout for us, so I need to play it cool the rest of the way. I need to remaincalm and pretend everything is normal and I am just going home at three in the morning.
Somehow, I manage it. After backing into the driveway of the small cream-colored bungalow, I cut the engine and just sit inside the car, observing the young man next to me.
His blond ear-length hair shines under the streetlight, though his face is cast in shadow. Still, I can make out his delicate features, his small but regal nose, his long eyelashes and full lips. He could well pass for a model, or an actor, or a singer, or even a professional swindler. Did he tell me the truth about the stone? Is he really running from the people who attacked the church, or could it all be some kind of an elaborate con to get me to let my guard down?
