Chapter 25 Yulian
YULIAN
Ireach out, expecting the press of warm flesh, only to brush against cold sheets.
My hand sweeps over the bed, desperate to find the lingering heat that wrapped around me last night, but there’s nothing.
Light slashes in through the tall windows, burning against my eyes as they crack open. I turn, and sure enough, the bed is empty.
No Vaughn.
Even his scent, the one I clung to like a sedative last night—or early this morning, or whatever—is fading into nothing.
Maybe he’s in the bathroom…
I sit up, fighting the disappointment that’s weighing my shoulders down. Surely, he wouldn’t have left after everything that happened?
As if he doesn’t every fucking time.
I stand up, needing to check the bathroom and make sure he’s still here.
He has to be.
My ass aches, and I suppress a groan, because fuck, even the soreness feels good. It’s as if his huge, beautiful cock is still plowing inside me while he speaks entirely crude things to me.
Never knew Vaughn could speak dirty, since he’s so put together, but he has the most delicious filthy mouth.
No one would look at his prim-and-proper face and guess that he loves to growl the most obscene words.
“He left.”
My head snaps toward the source of that cool voice. Cy sits by the far window, his eyes glued to his phone, the glow reflecting footage that looks like security feeds. He doesn’t glance my way, lost in whatever he’s watching. Normally, I’d be tempted to snoop.
Right now, however, I couldn’t care less, because my chest is kind of busy collapsing in on itself, tightening, and hurting like a mother.
“How do you know?” My quiet question lingers in the air as I snatch the first pair of shorts from the closet and pull them up my legs.
“I escorted him out myself,” Cy speaks while tilting his head, narrowing his eyes on the phone slightly. “You know, so no one would see him exiting your room, and the news wouldn’t get back to your dad.”
Fuck me sideways.
I wasn’t exactly thinking about that angle during the sex marathon, not that I was thinking at all.
My dick obviously took the wheel last night. Had the best adventures of his life and will be telling the story to his grim reaper, Satan, and all of his demon friends.
Besides, I couldn’t exactly turn Vaughn away or suggest a different location when he was being so adorably jealous and hot. Probably got a crush on him all over again when he threatened poor Kevin with death if he ever touched me again.
It means he cares.
Or that’s what I thought last night.
Today, though, he left as usual. I clearly told him not to fuck off after sex.
Those were the rules. I thought he was big on rules.
Maybe he thought ahead like Cy and figured out that his presence in the mansion wouldn’t be ideal for either of us.
Vaughn’s too smart. Makes sense that his intellect stayed in control while my dick launched a riot in my brain and started running the whole show.
I glare at Cy as I stalk toward him. “You didn’t run your mouth or tell him anything unnecessary, did you?”
“Define unnecessary.” He narrows his eyes further on the phone.
Okay, snooping wins, and it’s so anticlimactic. The video he’s watching only shows a basic empty room.
Well, not basic. There are lots of monitors lining the walls.
“The fact that you’re asking means you did!” My shoulders crowd with tension as I face him. “What the fuck did you say?”
“Just laying out the facts so he knows he can’t keep kicking you around, counting on you to crawl back every time.”
“Facts like what?” My whole body is vibrating with tension, my hands balled into fists.
He finally looks up from his phone, making the screen go black. “Like how he’d hurt you again, because you clearly lack self-respect when it comes to him, clinging tightly even when he breaks you. I didn’t say the last part, but we both know it’s true.”
“The fuck you being a busybody for, Cy?”
“For your safety, Yulian. You know, so you don’t make any more mistakes.”
My lips lift in a snarl, but I force myself to remain calm as I grit out from between clenched teeth, “What else did you say?”
“That you approached him for revenge.”
I grab him by the collar of his shirt, shaking him. “Why the fuck would you say that?”
“Because he straight-up told me he’d use you and ruin you completely, and there’d be nothing anyone could do about it.
I figured I’d level out the glaring power imbalance so you wouldn’t look like some love-drunk idiot.
” He shoves me back. “And guess what? He saw through every one of your tactics. Showing up at the restaurant, the cheap provocations, dragging him out here—none of it worked, because he never left New York for you. Even when you thought you had him cornered, he was just playing you.”
I raise my fist, my hand pausing in the air as my muscles coil with tension.
“You’ll punch me because of him?” He tilts his head. “Really, now?”
“Fuck you.” I kick him, releasing him with a shove. “Stay out of my and Vaughn’s business.”
“No.”
“Cyrus,” I growl his name.
“Yulian,” he says coolly, standing up. “You’re not seeing or thinking straight when he’s around, which can get you in trouble.”
“I’ll figure it out.”
He shakes his head, but he says nothing.
“What?” I snap. “Just spit it out, Cy. I know you hate Vaughn, but I really dislike it when you’re antagonizing like this. I know you must’ve provoked him. You do that all the time when you hate someone.”
“I don’t hate Vaughn, and I wouldn’t be antagonizing if I thought he cared about you as much as you care about him.” He squeezes my shoulder. “I don’t want you to pay for this again, Yuliy. You deserve to be put first. You deserve someone who doesn’t walk away when things get too difficult.”
Then he steps out the room, leaving me more tense than when he disclosed that he told Vaughn about the revenge.
Fuck Cy.
He can be noisy and annoying.
But his last words keep playing in my head on a loop.
Prick is always right, and I’m now having a mini existential crisis.
I flop back on the bed. The mattress bounces beneath me, and Vaughn’s woodsy scent fills my nostrils, expands my chest, and twitches my cock.
“The fuck is wrong with you?” I glare at my dick that’s half tenting my shorts. “You should listen to Cy and have some dignity, man.”
I shake my head because I’m literally talking to a dick.
My phone vibrates on the nightstand, and I retrieve it with another sigh.
Probably Alina. She gets demanding when I don’t FaceTime her at least once a day.
She’s been extra cheerful lately, her smile radiant.
The incident in DC seems to have empowered her instead of the other way around. She’s always busy with “stuff” lately.
My heart does that small squeeze, and I sit straighter when I see Mishka’s name on the screen.
He’s calling me?
This is the first time he’s ever done that.
I swipe the screen, then put the phone to my ear, all sorts of emotions rushing through me. Uncertainty, chaos, but mostly pain.
I’m hurt that he chose to leave without talking to me, even if he had a good reason behind it.
“Morning,” he says as soon as I pick up, his deliciously deep voice, which whispered crude things to me, sounds raspy.
“Hey,” I reply, not sure what the fuck I’m supposed to say. I’ll never acknowledge the pain, like I was abandoned after a booty call or something.
“Sorry I left,” he says. “I was being impulsive by breaking into your place last night. I shouldn’t have done that, so I had to go.”
“You could’ve woken me up.”
“You looked so peaceful, I didn’t have the heart.”
Fuck. He’s so goddamn adorable. How the hell am I supposed to stay mad at that?
“I have to take a flight to attend my cousin’s boxing match,” he continues. “Also need to catch up on classes and have lunch with my mom, among other things.”
“Are you offering excuses right now?”
“No, just telling you what I’m doing today.” He pauses, and I can hear him swallowing, then he hesitates. “Unless you don’t want me to do that?”
I remain silent, not really sure what the fuck he means.
“Didn’t you use to send me all these updates?” he continues, his tone still careful. “I thought you’d want me to do the same.”
Oh.
“Oh!” I say out loud, grinning, as I fall back on the bed, sprawling out on it. “Yeah, that’s good. I want a full damn report.”
“I’ll try my best.”
He sounds serious. Fuck. He can be so fucking cute for a grumpy asshole.
“In return, you will not be putting your dick anywhere near other people, Yulian.”
“Love the jealousy.”
“I’m serious. You’re well aware that I don’t fuck people who fuck other people. If you’re mine, you’ll only be mine.”
“You’ll have to be around often to satisfy my raging libido, then, baby. Once every two weeks won’t cut it.”
“How about every weekend?”
Hmm. I’d rather every day, but I’ll take what I can get. And because of fucking Cy’s words, I’m conscious of not letting loose or sounding desperate, so I release an affirmative sound.
“I’ll send you the address and mail you the keys,” he says.
“What address and keys?”
“A small place I’m getting. Just be there this weekend.”
I flop onto my stomach. “You got us a place, baby?”
“Yes, and?”
“Nothing, just glad you’re always ten steps ahead.”
“One of us has to be.” He pauses. “I have to go. We’re taking off. Will text when I arrive.”
My shoulders drop. “Okay.”
“Don’t cause trouble.”
“Ha. I am trouble.”
“Yulian…” he warns, but I hear the suppressed laughter in his voice.
“Speaking of trouble, I’m sorry for whatever bullshit Cy told you. He spent years bailing my ass out of all sorts of shit, so he kind of feels responsible for me or something. He’s also my only friend, so I’m kind of stuck with the damn dude. So maybe, like, don’t get into a fight with him.”
“He’s your friend. I won’t hurt him,” he says in a calm tone, but his voice deepens, sounding guarded.
I roll over and sit up. “About the revenge he mentioned, it’s not that serious.”
“He said I hurt you.”
My hand tightens around the phone. “You did.”