Page 10 of The Pakhan's Secret Baby

But making myself get out of this warm bed is torture.

I linger long enough, struggling to keep my head from throbbing too hard, that Rashid turns over, draping his arm across my leg.

When I look down at his chest, it's bare.

Last night in the darkness, all I noticed were his eyes—and that painting.

But mostly his eyes.

They devoured me like I was the only thing in this room worth looking at when he literally has a masterpiece hung on his wall.

But this morning, as he turns and the sheet slides off his body revealing the hard planes of muscle I felt under my fingertips last night, my heart stops.

It literally decides to shut down and stop beating as my jaw drops and my eyes go wide as saucers.

Rashid's chest is scarred with black ink, emblazoned on his skin like a brand, and the dark images make me freeze with shock and fear. "Holy shit..." I whisper, blinking a few times to make sure my eyes aren't playing tricks on me. I even lean closer toconfirm it, but the tattoo right in the center of his chest, covering a few scars and his sternum, makes my throat constrict and my stomach lurch.

Intricate black swirls wrap around the rays of an eight-pointed star. At the center is a black rose in full bloom.

Rashid isn't just a handsome club owner, and I know why he has that Surikov on his wall.

Rashid is a—no, he'stheKrasnov.

The fucking leader... and I slept with him.

"Oh, no, no, no," I hiss, sliding off the bed as gently as I can.

It's one thing to have a random one-night stand with a good-looking rich man in a bedroom above a nightclub—which so obviously belongs to him.

Why didn't I see that?

But it's another entirely to fuck a man with mafia ties. And this man doesn't just have mafia ties. Heisthe mafia.

My feet stumble a few steps, slapping on the floor so loudly I fear it will wake the sleeping giant, but I manage to find my dress and shrug it on, then my shoes.

My panties are somewhere, probably tangled in the sheets, but my focus is finding my left heel and getting my clutch.

Rashid cannot wake up and see me fumbling around. I can't let him ask me my last name, or try to find out where I came from.

Men like him eat women like me for breakfast, and if my father makes any fuss at all, it could be the death of us.

I know his type doesn't mess around or play games.

He probably thinks he owns me now or something.

When I'm sufficiently dressed, I rush to the door, passing the painting that hooked me to begin with, and then slip into the hallway with my pulse racing.

For a second I lean on the door behind me after it's shut and breathe, trying to calm myself.

My pulse is racing so fast it's not easy to think straight, but I still feel slightly drunk too, which makes me wonder if I woke up in a blacked-out state and had more sex than just the first time.

It's not like I can ask him, but I wonder.

Then I start my walk of shame, wobbling on shaking legs down a narrow hallway that's too bright for this time of day, past a man in a dark suit seated at a narrow high-top table.

He looks up from his magazine and eyes me, but says nothing as I tug my dress a bit higher in the front to make sure my tits are covered.

I pass him and head through the club and out the front door without anyone stopping me or asking any dumb questions.