Chapter 10
ARTYOM
“What the fuck?” Nina murmurs when she tries to start her car and sees the warning light.
She wrinkles her nose in frustration and tries to start the car again. The engine grinds and splutters to a halt again.
That’s my cue, but I don’t want to be too obvious about it. I wait until she tries for a third and fourth time, not knowing that the spark plugs have been removed.
That ignition is not going to start, no matter how many times she tries.
Then I walk across the parking garage and rap my knuckles against the window.
“Car trouble?”
Her soft brown eyes narrow instantly. “Not you.”
I look around the deserted parking garage. It’s past midnight.
“I don’t see anyone else around to help out.”
“Exactly. What are you doing here?”
“I do own the place now.” As if that’s a good excuse. We both know it’s not.
“I’ll get the subway…” she begins. Even as she says it, she doesn’t sound convinced.
“Like fuck you will.”
Nina is silent for a moment, her shoulders hunched as she sits in the driver's seat and glares at me.
“Did you do this?”
“I don’t know the first thing about cars.”
It’s not a lie. I don’t. I have people for that.
“If I did, I would fix it for you.”
Now, that is a lie.
I have her exactly where I want her and I wouldn’t change a thing about this situation.
Now that Nina is back in my life, it has opened up the floodgates. I got used to being without her. I told myself it was for the best. Now I curse myself for everything I’ve been missing out on.
Some people might call it unhealthy, the way I react to her.
The sweet smell of her. The way she frowns. The arch of her eyebrow when she’s annoyed at me.
Every part gets burned into my brain until it’s all I can think about.
I yank open her door, and she gets out uncertainly. I know she wants to argue with me again.
I walk over to my car and open the passenger door.
“You need a ride home. I have a functioning car. Get in.”
Nina doesn’t move, standing across the parking garage from me. She looks so defiant with her hands on her hips and her plush lips pressed together in a perfect pout.
“I don’t know how you did this, Art, but I know my car didn’t spontaneously break. It was at the garage for an oil change last week.”
“Get in the damn car,” I growl.
Her eyes say: “Make me.” So I do.
I stride back over the floor to where she’s standing.
Nina squeals in outrage as I swing her over my shoulder.
Every muscle in my body aches to do more than just carry her to the car.
This is the closest I’ve been to her in years. I want to throw her onto the passenger seat, yank down her jeans and slam inside her, where I belong. I’m getting hard just from the feel of her in my arms again.
But I’ve waited five goddamn years. I’ve got more self-control than that. I might not be willing to wait another year, but I’ve got enough pride to want her to want me.
And I know she will.
Because Nenoka is mine, all the way through.
So instead of ripping her clothes off the way I want to, I put her down on the passenger seat and clip on her seatbelt because I know she won’t do it herself.
“Are you gonna slap me again?” I lean over the passenger seat so our faces are close. I wonder if she notices that I’m out of breath.
Her eyes burn with rage. She presses her lips into a line.
“Is that a request?”
“Maybe,” I smirk, tracing my fingers over the place where her hand made contact that night in the bar.
“Then no.” She smiles at me sweetly, kicks me back, then slams the car door shut.
As I drive her home, all I want is to reach over that center console and pull her onto my lap. Instead, I keep driving in silence.
When I pull up to her place, we both sit there for a beat.
“Are you ever going to let me in again?”
The question’s out before I’ve thought it through.
I never speak without thinking. But Nina makes me lose my grip on convention.
For her, I will say anything, do anything.
I hear her breath hitch. Her eyes are wide. That look of fear again. There’s something she’s scared of, that wasn’t there before.
“I can’t,” she says. “You know why I can’t.”
She wrenches the car door open, but I follow, leaving the keys in the ignition.
A passerby is welcome to my sports car.
All that matters right now is getting inside Nina’s infuriating mind.
She’s almost at the door of the apartment by the time I catch her.
I grab her by the shoulder and spin her around. She goes still, her breath fogging in the cold air, her chin tilted up.
I have to make her understand. “Nothing changed. Nothing at all, except that you left.”
“I don’t understand why you keep lying about this.”
“Nina… I lied about a lot of things. But not this.”
“Well, that’s it then.”
She grabs my coat collar. But she pauses with her hand there, wrapped in the fabric, looking up at me. Her brown eyes meet mine and go wide.
Something stops her from pushing me away.
“Kiss me,” she whispers. “Before I change my mind.”
I can’t resist that. I could never resist her lips.
I don’t want to be gentle. Not when she has deprived me of this for so long. I am starved of her.
I push Nina back until we are leaning against the entrance of the apartment building. Nowhere for her to hide.
Her lips part as she looks up at me. My hand wraps around her throat, and I pin her in place against the brick wall.
“You’re not running away from me this time, Nenoka.”
Her protest at the nickname flares in her eyes, but I steal her words away with my lips. She is my Nenoka. Always was.
And this kiss is proof.
As I cover her lips with mine and we become one. She moans my name and I lose it.
Holy fuck, Nenoka.
I say it in my head because my mouth is too busy worshipping hers. Exploring every inch of her soft mouth, marking my territory on every taste bud, claiming those plush lips with my teeth until I feel her melt against me.
Yes.
This confirms everything.
She’s mine and she’s just how I remember her.
The scent of her, the feel of her, the way she breathes, the gentle hammering of her pulse against my fingers. A torrential flood of emotion, heat and need hits me all at once.
I’ve obsessed about this moment for years, but I wasn’t prepared for the way she would feel in my arms again. I’d forgotten those tiny details. I’d forgotten how she tasted.
How she moaned whenever my teeth grazed her lips. How the harder I kiss her the more she moves against me, until I can feel every inch of her soft curves. We’re both dressed for winter with inches of fabric between us, but this kiss brings back all of her.
Just one jerk of my hips against her and I fucking lose it, spilling inside my pants.
She doesn’t know it, but she’s the only woman I’ve touched since that day when she walked into my office. I don’t need anyone else. This taste of her proves it.
Nina pulls back with a gasp just as I slide my hand down to her waist.
I’m so not done.
But she raises her hand to her mouth in shock and shakes her head as I move to capture her again.
Without a word, she ducks under my arms and runs inside the lobby of her apartment building.