That makes my skin crawl and I quickly shoo it away.

“Why didn’t you use a condom just now?”

He pauses. “I forgot.”

“You forgot?”

“Yes, am I not allowed to?”

“No, it just seems that you’re the type who would never forget.”

His eyes ease. “Correct.”

“So why did you?”

“I wish I knew.”

The quiet in his tone gives me pause as I ask, “What if I weren’t on birth control?”

“You obviously are, so why fuss about it?”

The nonchalant way he speaks bothers me. It’s like he really wouldn’t care even if I wasn’t on birth control. Does he truly lack any sort of remorse? Would he throw me out and regard the baby as collateral damage if I were to get pregnant?

“Would you like to have a shower first?” He pulls me out of my chaotic thoughts.

“First? Why? What’s going to happen after?”

“I’m taking you again.” He stops in the middle of my room, nuzzling his nose against my hair and inhaling me in. “Fucking roses.”

Goosebumps cover my skin and my thighs clench, because even though I haven’t come down from the first high, the need for another one hits me with a slamming force.

Still, I go the logical route. “I…I thought it was a one-time thing.”

“You thought wrong, Lenochka.” His voice is as calm as the devil, and just as lethal.

And I know, I just know that my life will never be the same again.

13

Adrian

I pull myself from beside Lia.

She’s been sound asleep for the past hour. At first, her body was relaxed, slightly pushing into mine, almost snuggling, but then she slipped back into her rigid posture.

The death posture.

It seems like the norm for her, some sort of a habit she developed over the years and eventually fell into subconsciously. People usually find their comfort zone, their self-made box, and stuff themselves in it.

But that’s the thing about Lia. Although a part of her is confined, tucked away from the world, another completely different part climbs over the stage and flies as if attempting to touch the skies.

She’s a contradiction through and through. One I’ll attempt to dissect inch by fucking inch.

I watch her for a beat, taking in her soft features, her full lower lip tipped by a tiny teardrop in the middle, and her flushed cheeks.

They’ve had the same color since I fucked her against the table. It wasn’t supposed to happen that way, in the entrance, as if I had no control over myself.

But that’s the thing. I lacked my steel-like control. I didn’t have the will to stop, not after what happened in the club.

I was still fuming with pent-up frustration for not strangling that fucker who put his hands on her, who didn’t only touch her, but also did it intimately and then threatened her.

In that moment, I never wanted to see life leave someone’s eyes as much as I craved to strangle it out of him.

Despite my background, I don’t really have a strong bloodlust like Damien, or even Kirill and Vladimir. Killing someone is merely a means to an end for me. I don’t take pleasure in the act; however, I’m not repulsed by it either.

It’s just a necessity.

But that blond fucker? Yeah, I would’ve enjoyed every second of the air leaving his lungs.

If someone were to ask me what came over me back then, I wouldn’t know either. One moment, I was watching from the shadows—like a stalker, as Lia likes to point out—and the next, I was seeing red as I never have in my life.

I’m not the type to see red. I’ve always believed anger was beneath me—it’s an emotion that will just cloud my vision and deter me from making the right decision. In fact, aside from when Aunt Annika died, I don’t think I’ve ever felt strong emotions. After that, all the anger and the irrationality that came with it seemed to vanish out of my system to be replaced by a cool head.

Until that scene at the club.

Until all I could see was fucking red.

This woman hasn’t only been messing with my patterns, but she’s also provoking a part of me that I bid farewell when I was a child. A part that I will smother to death before it invades me again.

I had to prove to myself and her that I’m in control and always will be.

That’s why I took her against the table as soon as we were inside. She thought she could get rid of me and I thought that, too. For a moment before I flipped her down, I had this idea that I’d fuck the anger out of her and erase the chaos that’s related to her.

I didn’t.

If anything, it’s become bleaker, harsher, and darker. With every thrust into her tight cunt and every moan from her pink lips, I felt an invisible thread form between us. I’m not the type who forms a bond with my sexual partners. They’re simply there for me to use and give pleasure back to if I see fit. They know me to be rough, callous, and demanding, but they keep coming back for more.

They know me to be cold and easily bored, and that’s why I pull out after release.

That was not the case with Lia.

For the first time in my nearly thirty-one years, I took a woman again right after I was finished with her. A dark obsession grabbed hold of me, and I needed to hear her moans and watch her petite frame shake as she unraveled around me. I had to engrave in my brain the way her face contorted with pleasure as she cried out my name and dug her nails into my shoulders when it got to be too much.

In fact, all I want right now is to wake her and pick up where we left off. I want to touch every inch of her body, study it, and tease it to heights even she wouldn’t have thought possible.

Then…I’d eventually destroy it.

What a fucking waste.

Taking a strand of her hair between my fingers, I inhale it, letting the scent of roses barge into my lungs and carve a place there. Everything about her is soft, even her personality.

But being soft doesn’t mean she’s naive. Lia knows when to stand up for herself if need be, but she carefully picks her battles.

Like a survivor would.

Considering her background, the tactic makes perfect sense.

Not that I gave her any choice. It was either my way or death. And while that’s how I usually deal with everything in my life, I find myself taking a different approach with her.