30. -29-
Dorian
This was a mistake, one giant miscalculation. What the fuck had I been thinking?
I sat naked on the massive four-poster bed with a black sheet pulled up around my waist. My back was slightly hunched, my elbows braced against my thighs as I stared at nothing while my thoughts tore each other apart.
My desperation to forget about the masked villainess who plagued my mind reached its peak, and I ended up with a gorgeous, funny, and most importantly, naked woman in a hotel suite without an erection.
I’m going to cry, I thought, wanting to tear my hair out from pure helplessness that clutched my insides.
I couldn’t touch a woman, not only this beautiful, dark-haired, green-eyed woman with the body of a goddess who stared at me pitiably, but any woman at all.
My brain had suppressed every trace of affection for anyone but her.
So when Leigh pulled off my shirt, the first thought that came to me, vexingly, was to cut off her hands.
She had no right to undress me. And then my dick decided to call in sick and refused to cooperate. I had a stunning woman sticking her chest into my face, and I almost threw up.
What the bloody fuck was wrong with me? I always loved playing with titties.
Sighing exasperatedly, I rubbed my eyes, peeking at Leigh stretched on the bed beside me from between my fingers.
Her cream-colored flesh contrasted with the dark sheets and long, straight hair spread around her head like a halo.
She teasingly opened her toned legs, smiling seductively as her hand slowly traveled down her flat abdomen to her pussy.
She looked like every man’s fantasy, but it just didn’t work on me. My eyes appreciated the view, but that was pretty much it. My cock had no intention of waking up, and my brain pushed images of another very intense encounter into the forefront of my mind.
Maybe, if she wore leather, I mused, my brows furrowing while I watched Leigh massage her breast.
But nothing. No temptation, no curiosity, no desire to bridge the space between us appeared. She could’ve vanished from the bed entirely, and my pulse wouldn’t have changed. The place where the passion and craving for her should’ve been was hollow.
I averted my gaze from her and closed my eyes, my jaw tightening, but instantly ma vilaine appeared, looking back at me as if I were something worth destroying the world for.
I fucking loved that intensity and insanity creeping behind her brown irises.
Her possessiveness and will to do things to get me made my skin prickle and my stomach flutter.
Leigh was predictable, ordinary… safe. I craved chaotic, dangerous, reckless.
The decision had been made. This was a fucking mistake.
“Leigh,” I addressed her gently, ignoring her sexy smile. “I should’ve never come here. It’ll be better if I drive you home.”
“Oh, c’mon.” She rolled her eyes, lifting herself. “You didn’t let me try any of my tricks. I can give you a massage, and—”
“No,” I refused without hesitation, my stomach twisting with nausea. “Nothing will happen tonight.”
Offense flashed across her face, but she quickly masked it behind a broad smile. She knelt before me, the mattress dipping under her weight when she moved closer.
“Give me a chance, Dorian,” she whispered, stretching her arm toward my bare chest. I flinched away as if she had an infectious disease, glaring at her.
“Stop.” I slapped her hand away. “I’ll have to peel my skin off if you touch me again.”
My eyes widened, and my lips pressed into a thin line to prevent any other idiocy from coming out. Leigh stared at me in disbelief mixed with shock, sitting on her heels.
“W-what?” she stuttered, anger quickly replacing incredulity.
“I’m sorry,” I sighed sincerely, clapping my hands before my face. “I didn’t mean to—”
I didn’t get to finish. Before I could say another word, the door slammed open, and my heart stopped. Literally, because on the threshold stood the leading actress of my dreams, or nightmares, depending on the point of view.
She wore a simple white sweater and ripped blue jeans that tightly hugged her flawlessly shaped thighs. Her face was covered with a black Venetian mask, her brown eyes glowing under it like embers fed by pure fury. It was that kind of look that screamed jealousy and promised consequences.
I’d seen anger in plenty of eyes before, but this was something else entirely.
It was rage laced with possession, the unmistakable glare of a woman who had just caught the man she considered hers misbehaving.
She stood in the doorway like a nightmare given shape, and the gun with a silencer in her right hand only underlined the severity of the situation she caught me in.
Oh, fuck. I would devour her on the spot if she wasn’t glaring at Leigh like a maniac ready to shoot.
I knew danger when I saw it, and here it was palpable. I had to act. But before I could do or say anything, her eyes found mine, and I immediately understood I was fucked.
“Well, well, well,” ma vilaine sang in a sweet voice that had nothing to do with amusement. “What do we have here?” She pointed a gun at my chest, her eyes shooting lightening at me. “A cheating husband.”
Leigh gasped on my right side. My heart constricted in my chest, but not from fear. Ma vilaine already had the opportunity to kill me and didn’t. My reputation, on the other hand, could get hurt pretty badly by this unexpected fuckery. I instantly pictured a headline for the news:
Dorian Zhumagulov caught cheating in his brother’s whorehouse.
The investors would eat me alive. They made me promise there wouldn’t be any scandal tied to my name; otherwise, I risked everything I had assembled over the past six months. It wasn’t just my career and money. It was the facility I built for the people who couldn’t afford healthcare.
“Hi, baby,” I greeted, raising my arms in a surrendering gesture. “It’s not what it looks like.”
“Seriously?” She laughed hysterically, making the tiny hairs on my neck stand on end. “These are your last words?”
“You won’t kill me.” My voice was gentle, complemented by a small, knowing smile, as I stared directly into her fiery eyes. “You won’t hurt someone you want to keep.”
A brief flicker of rationality in her gaze gave me hope that she’d come to her senses, but that hope was only wishful thinking. It was gone in a split second, replaced by a maniacal resoluteness that struck me to the bones.
“You’re right,” she agreed, her hand tightening around the gun. “But I don’t want to keep her.”
I saw the movement a fraction too late. Her wrist turned, the silencer shifted away from me, and toward Leigh. My body reacted before my brain did, but I was too slow.
Pop.
The sound wasn’t loud enough to be dramatic, but the damage it represented was fatal. I watched Leigh fall from the bed. I stretched my arms to catch her, but I was unsuccessful. The bullet hit her right in the middle of the forehead, cutting through her skull with terrifying ease.
“Leigh!” I shouted, forcing my body to move.
I jumped over the mattress and knelt beside her.
She lay on the floor, her blood soaking into the grey carpet, creating a nasty stain.
I checked her neck, trying to find a pulse, but there was nothing.
Lifting my gaze from her empty, lifeless eyes, I stared at the bloodied wall, a few drops falling on the cushion.
“Enough mourning,” ma vilaine’s firm voice stirred me, and I looked up at her. She stood a couple of feet from me, pointing a gun at my chest. “I didn’t come here to watch you give your attention to another woman.”
“Dead woman,” I reminded her sternly, standing up. “You fulfilled the famous ‘touch him, and you die’ book trope to the maximum.” I shook my head in disbelief, unsure how I felt. I should be horrified, right? RIGHT? “Is that where you take your inspiration from? Romance books?”
She scoffed. The gentle light from the lamp on the nightstand reflected in her irises, making them shine like gems.
“Romance books?” Her incredulity and offense were palpable.
“I read only one and never tried the genre again. Those women beg.” She spat the last word as if it were the most despicable insult in the world, but then her eyes lit up with madness that made my insides flutter.
She was smiling under the mask. “In my book, men are those who beg.”
“After a cold-blooded murder?” I asked, ignoring the fact that I stood bare-ass naked before her with a dead body cooling two feet away from me.
The situation was utterly ridiculous, not to mention that my dick decided this was a great time to wake up. I should’ve been horrified, maybe even scared, but instead, my brain circled only around one thought:
My wife killed a woman who touched me. That was fucking romantic!
“After you cheated, Dorian!” she snarled, the gun pointed at me shaking a little from the surge of emotions that racked her body.
“I didn’t cheat, ma vilaine.” I shook my head firmly. “Nothing happened.”
“How stupid do you think I am?” Her voice jumped a little, but she quickly got it under control. “Two naked adults in a hotel room. Were you playing Scrabble?”
“Baby, please.” I clapped my hands before my face in a pleading gesture. “Be reasonable and let me—”
“The only thing I’ll let you do is beg me for forgiveness.” She tilted her head to the side slightly, pointing with the gun to the floor. “Kneel.”
“What?” I chuckled, amusement at her demand evident in that single word. “You can’t be serious.”
“I’m deadly serious,” she retorted, glaring at me. “Kneel.”
“Baby,” I whispered in a gentle voice, taking a small step toward her. But it turned out to be a mistake. Before I could say anything else, my wife swung the gun down and fired. My eyes widened in surprise, the skin on my toes burning because the bullet stopped millimeters from my feet.
“What the fuck!” I yelled, staring at her in shock. “You could’ve—”
“I never miss,” she hissed through gritted teeth, her gun again aiming at my chest. “Now do as you’re told, or the next time, it’ll be your cheating dick.”
The threat reached my ears, but the effect was entirely different from what she could’ve expected. The challenge was accepted immediately.
“Oooh, ma vilaine,” I snarled, my heart speeding. Not from fear, but from excitement. All my will to handle this gently vanished into thin air. “You have no idea what you’ve just started.”