chapter 23
Zloban
Four minutes, twenty-five seconds. Thirty-five more seconds.
I pace the room, counting seconds in my head. Iselyn watches me from the couch, Leo watches her, glancing my way now and then.
Seven more seconds.
I pace one last time, then storm out of the room. Five minutes is generous for someone meeting her a second time.
I ring the bell. The door doesn’t open for twenty seconds. She takes this long when she’s sitting, she must be sitting. My brain feeds me images of her in Roxion’s lap, kissing him.
Fuck no.
I slam my fist against the door.
It opens a crack. Marco stands there, filling the doorway in his race suit, still sweating from the track.
“What’s going on?” His face is serious.
“Where is she?” I demand.
He steps aside and opens the door wider. Inside, she rises from the couch when she sees me and moves toward the entrance.
“What are you doing here?” she asks.
“Come with me.” My tone leaves no space for refusal.
She turns to Marco and gives him an apologetic. “See you tomorrow.”
He nods, leans in, and kisses her cheek. Blood wells beneath my fingernails where they tear into the hardened skin of my palm.
He pulls away, and yet my mind replays the contact of his lips on her skin over and over.
My head starts to burn—hotter than it ever did sitting inside a cockpit.
More blood seeps from my palm; my nails dig deeper from the effort of restraining myself, using every scrap of willpower to stop from smashing his face on the floor and tearing his mouth apart with my hands.
She walks out of the room, and he closes the door behind her after giving me a small, fleeting smile.
She turns toward me, “Wha—”
I smash my mouth onto hers, holding her face firmly between my palms. She watches me with wide eyes, frozen in shock.
I take both her lips between mine, sucking hard.
She closes her eyes, yielding, relaxing against my insistence.
I seize her upper lip with my tongue, thrusting into her mouth.
I want to close my eyes to savor this moment, but a sniper only closes his eyes when he dies.
My head cools completely when her tongue slides against mine.
She sucks my lower lip, and for a brief, blinding second, the side of me that wants her above all else overpowers every shred of rationality.
I kiss her more fiercely, desperately imprinting in her soul that she is mine.
She moves her hands into my hair, pulling me closer.
My eyes shut tight. This moment is worth dying for.
I need more of her. I need all of her. I thread one hand through her hair and slide the other down her waist, lifting her and pressing her against the wall.
Her hands clutch my face; she bites my upper lip as I suck on her lower one.
Our teeth collide, and she thrusts her tongue into my mouth.
I respond—licking, sucking, grazing it with my teeth—losing myself completely.
The sudden sound of the door opening yanks me back to reality. I release her and step away.
“I’m sorry. It won’t happen again,” I say, watching her face twist with hurt and fury.
She punches me in the face. “Fuck you!” she shouts, striding toward my suite. I follow closely behind her.
Avira
Lyn rises from the couch the instant she sees me. “Oh my God, are you hurt?”
Is my broken heart that visible?
She touches my cheek carefully. Then exhales. “It’s not your blood.”
Blood? I frown. I’m pretty sure people don’t bleed from frustration, arousal, anger, and hurt, no matter how violently those feelings collide in one place.
She reaches for the napkins on the table and gently wipes my face. There’s literally blood smeared across my skin, but how? Oh. I know how.
He’s hurt.
Damn you, Avira. That bastard stole your first kiss and then had the audacity to call it a mistake, without even waiting for the good feelings to settle, without even letting the steam of arousal cool down, without even giving the numbness in your head time to fade. And now you’re worried about him.
“How did this get on your face?”
“It’s Zoan’s blood. Let me check on him.”
I turn toward the bedroom he just disappeared into and knock. The door opens, and I step inside.
“Your palms are bleeding,” I say, taking both of his hands in mine.
My brows knit as I examine them. Four deep crescent marks score his palms—damage done by his own nails. I glance at his fingers, sure enough, there’s dried blood beneath them.
“Why did you do this to yourself?” The ache in my chest for him has always been sharper, deeper than anything I’ve ever felt for myself, or for anyone else.
His voice is raw, low. “Because I couldn’t hurt the man who kissed you.”
“Stop doing this, to yourself and to me, Zoan. Just accept what we are.” My plea comes out a whisper.
He pulls his hand from mine and runs his knuckles over my cheek.
“The first thing I did after coming here was deleting the security camera footage of that corridor by hacking into the building’s system.
And do you know how much I hated hiding you like some dirty secret?
I don’t even know what I’ll do when people find out about us and you have to keep your eyes elsewhere. ”
“So what’s your big plan? You tried to kill him the first time we met, you hurt yourself today, and let’s not even talk about that mad kiss. What will you do when you find out he fucked me?”
His tanned face flushes red. Pupils dilate, ice in his eyes overtaken by darkness, and his entire body trembles. That’s all I register before he lifts me and throws me onto the bed, pressing himself over me.
He cups my face, staring deep into my eyes. “I will kill him if he even dares.”
I laugh, throwing my head back. “Zoan, Zoan, Zoan… you are thoroughly fucked.”
He presses his weight onto me, his bulky frame pinning me completely. My laughter dies in my throat when his lips graze along my jaw, pulling my head back into place. His mouth moves to my earlobe, tracing the outline with his tongue. A scorching shiver races down my spine.
“You fucked me thoroughly, Dove.” His words, coupled with the heat of his breath against my neck, make me shudder.
“Kiss me again,” I whisper.
He brings his lips close, but instead of kissing me, he moves them against mine, speaking with the press of his mouth. “I told you it won’t happen again.”
I open my mouth to catch his lips again, but he moves up, away from my body, standing tall on the floor. Even with a noticeable tent in his driving suit, he radiates confidence and authority. I lie on the bed, burning from that very confidence.
“It will happen again. Very soon,” I promise him.
He surveys me head to toe one last time with a smoldering hunger, then turns and steps into the bathroom.
I throw my head back on the pillow. I touch my lips. He is a good kisser. How many women has he kissed to hone that skill? I narrow my eyes. I will kill each one of them. Okay, maybe not me personally, but I’ll hire a serial killer to get the job done.
I get up and walk out of the room. The enemies-to-lovers couple look like they’ve just finished a heated argument of Leo’s choice.
He’s in a surprisingly good mood, Lyn looks like she could enjoy killing someone.
Her face flushes crimson. I’ve heard it’s a curse for redheads, they blush spectacularly.
“Is he okay?” she asks.
I nod and sit beside her. I’m not in a good mood, at the moment I’d like the entire male population to suffer.
“Daddy said Uncle is finding a suitable guy for your arranged marriage.”
Leo’s face hardens and darkens, making him look even more handsome. I’m not evil, I refuse to admit it.
She nods.
“Do you have any preferences?”
“I don’t have hard preferences, just a loving, kindhearted man. If he’s Russian, even better.”
Leo rises from the side couch and steps out of the suite. We exchange looks and then burst into laughter.
“Why do you hate him?” I ask her.
Her smile fades, replaced by hurt. “I loved him, and he made fun of that. I just don’t want to have any connection with him,” she sighs.
“You tell me, what’s between you and Zo?” she asks, narrowing her eyes.
I look around, looking confused. “What’s between me and Zo?”
She grins mischievously. “Blood on your cheeks, the same imprint on your waist… it doesn’t look like something a sister would get from her brother.”
I glance at my light yellow jacket, sure enough, there’s a very clear red print on its side.
“I could narrate a situation in which a sister could get that from her brother,” I smirk.
“And how would you explain the swelling of your lips?” she grins.
I touch my lips; the memory of our kiss replays vividly in my head.
“And what about this blush?”
I cover my flushed cheeks with my hands.
“Fine. You won,” I say, dropping my hands.
“We love each other, but as you know, we are adopted siblings, so we can’t have that kind of relationship,” I confess, my mood sinking to its usual place—at the bottom of a black pit of frustration and helplessness.
“But you’re not related by blood.”
I nod. “But everyone related to Daddy believes he is his real son. Only very close people know the truth. Daddy never clarified that fact, so you know what the problem is.”
“Oh,” she shakes her head. “That’s… bad.”
“But you could prove to the world that he’s not your biological sibling,” she suggests after a pause.
“Wen thinks the same. She even has a scientific explanation for why I would fall for my adopted brother. But you know, it’s still a huge taboo.
The actual problem isn’t that. The real issue is that Zoan believes I don’t deserve to go through all this, and he’s convinced I’ll forget him once I fall for someone else. ”
She nods. “I guess that’s why most geniuses have terrible love stories, they’re brilliant everywhere except where it matters.”
I laugh.