Total pages in book: 148
Estimated words: 147734 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 739(@200wpm)___ 591(@250wpm)___ 492(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 147734 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 739(@200wpm)___ 591(@250wpm)___ 492(@300wpm)
I scoff.
“I bet you just glared or sneered at me. That’s okay. I know you don’t take me seriously; no one does. But my offer remains. Have sweet dreams, Mishka. I will dream of your beautiful, huge cock against mine. Hopefully, I won’t come in my sleep.”
He winks and the video ends.
Usually, I’d curse him or get annoyed, but right now, I just turn to my side and look at his face, wondering why the fuck I’m attracted to a man.
But not just any man.
The only man I shouldn’t want.
Because this morbid attraction would end both our lives in a heartbeat.
And I need to stop it before it starts.
Just like I did four years ago.
15
YULIAN
FOUR YEARS AGO
White.
Everything’s too white.
And bright.
And loud.
Not sure why it’s loud in my head, thrumming into my skull through the fluorescent lights and the beep beep beep of monitors that have no business being so goddamn noisy.
My mouth tastes like dust and metal. The back of my throat’s dry enough to spark a fire, and I swear someone poured cement into my limbs while I was out.
I can’t move.
My head feels like I’ve slept through a damn apocalypse—maybe I did. Wouldn’t be the weirdest thing that’s happened to me.
The sheets are stiff and smell overwhelmingly like bleach.
The hospital. Of course, not my first—and let’s be real, not my last—visit to this place.
There’s a tight, itchy bandage on my side, and when I shift even an inch, pain slices through me like a rusty blade.
Right. I got shot.
Strings of memories start pouring into my fogged-up brain.
The cave.
Dark. Cold.
Vaughn.
His face comes back in the brightest flash. His body pressed close, his arms enveloping me, and his all-consuming warmth when everything else was ice.
And the kiss that I stole before…what?
Well, fuck me, I remember nothing after I let myself drift off to sleep with his taste on my tongue and his breath in my ears.
My eyes dart around.
Where is he anyway?
The question hits before I can stop it. Yes, the first question I ask myself after I wake up in the hospital is not how am I alive, not what the hell happened, just where the fuck is Vaughn?
I try to sit up, my teeth gritting, my breath hissing, and my lungs protesting as pain explodes all over my side.
The monitor freaks out six ways to Sunday, beeping like crazy. A nurse yells something from the hallway. I ignore her. My body’s fucked, but my mind’s already clawing its way back to that last moment—me bleeding out, him holding me like I mattered.
Vaughn telling me he’s with me. We live together and we die together, right?
Maybe it’s completely out of left field to have these thoughts about someone I’ve known for such a short time, but Vaughn was there for me like no one else has ever been.
Yes, I took a bullet for him, but he could’ve abandoned me and gotten himself to safety, yet he didn’t. I felt him shaking when he got the bullet out, but he still did it.
Still had my back through it all, literally.
Not even my father or brothers, my actual blood, would ever do that for me.
And maybe it’s clichéd, but I’m truly loyal to my saviors and repay them really well.
Though Vaughn is more than just a savior.
Fuck me, I’d pay whatever price necessary to have a taste of his lips again. Maybe while he’s awake this time.
Because damn, that was an out-of-body experience like I’ve never felt before, and believe me, I’ve fucked enough girls to know this is different.
I need to find Vaughn before someone tells me I imagined the whole damn thing.
“Yulik!!”
I’m half sitting in bed when Alina rushes in, her auburn hair a mess, her eyes bloodshot and surrounded by dark circles. She’s wearing a beige tulle dress with a jacket over it, her appearance that she takes great pride in an absolute mess.
I let the nurse wrestle me into a sitting position on the bed.
I’m back in Chicago, right? I have to be. Dad would never allow my sister to travel away from home.
If I’m in Chicago, then where’s Vaughn?
Alya grabs both my hands in hers, fresh moisture cascading down her cheeks. “I t-thought we’d lost you… I thought you were gone.”
She’s sobbing now, her tears dripping down my hands and onto the mattress.
I groan.
Fuck.
Fucking hell.
If anything were to happen to me, Mom and Alya would be defenseless. Goddamn it, what was I thinking when I took that bullet?
Was it instinct? Fucking recklessness? An inherent, inexplicable need to prove myself to someone who looks down on me?
Daddy issues much, motherfucker?
“I’m completely fine, Alya,” I tell her in a softer voice as a horde of doctors come in and check me left and right.
My sister barely gives them any space, continuing to hold on to my hand for dear life.