Page 25 of Depraved Royals
“I didn’t eat it. Because I found out your last name, and funnily enough I lost my appetite.”
Kal shrugs. “You didn’t ask. It was a harmless lie of omission. And besides, I’m here now, ready to make your life miserable.”
I eyeball him warily. “Why? What are you going to do?”
“Jesus, Dani. Where is the fuckingtrust?”
He removes his jacket, and I try to ignore the open neck of his shirt. Given that I’ve seen him naked, you’d think it’d be easy not to ogle him, but I can’t help it.
“Your father has assigned me to guard you. How fun is that?”
“I don’t need a guard,” I say. “It’syouI need to be protected from, anyway.”
“I think it’s me who’s in danger,” Kal says, smiling. “You wanted my cock inside you from the start. You told me that. I wouldn’t be surprised to find out you missed the flight deliberately so that you could try to get with me.”
His arrogance makes me want to fucking punch him, but I’m also aware of the warmth in my core. He wants me to think about the night we had together, and here I am trying to brush it off like I haven’t relived it a thousand times.
If he only knew how often I wandered away into lewd fantasies when I was supposed to be painting. The times I retired to my bedroom with my trusty dildo, trying to feel it as well as remember it. But a silicon stick cannot live up to a real man, and most men aren’t as real as Kal.
I wonder if I’m in a coma. In the hospital, half-dead from smoke or burns, and Kal is a weird sexual fever dream.
If this was some crappy romance novel, maybe. But my lungs are still scratchy. And although I took off the gauze, my face aches where a bruise is blossoming beneath the abrasion.
So yeah, I’m awake. And Kal Antonov is here. If my father wants him to follow me around, there’s nothing much I can do other than accept it.
With my art destroyed, I’m back at the beginning, only worse because Papa is paranoid and fearful for the family’s safety. It’s as though I was playing Chutes & Ladders, and I landed on a chute just before the winning square. But instead of returning me to the start of the game, it dumped me off the fucking board entirely.
Okay. I will cope somehow. Get back to work. Create. I’ll get out of this life, even if I have to claw and scrape every inch of the way.
I will get away.
“No, you won’t.”
Did I say that last bitaloud?
I turn to face Kal. I move closer to him, and he grins, seeing my anger.
“Fuck you,” I say, my index finger an inch from his nose. “You know nothing about me or my life.”
“I know you’re a Bwatva pwincess,” he says, “so don’t you wowwy your pretty head about athing.”
The mocking baby voice is going too far. Without thinking, I pull back my hand, ready to slap him.
Kal’s reflexes are lightning-quick. As my hand moves towards his face, he snatches at the air and catches my wrist. He holds it to the bench, deftly covering our hands with the fur.
“Ow!” I cry. “You fuckingzhivotnoye. Let go!”
Kal breathes deeply, inhaling my scent. His lips are beside my ear.
“You calling me an animal? You’re damn right.” He grips my wrist tighter. “I willneverlet go, Dani. You’re mine.”
My heart hammers in my chest.What the fuck?
“You and I havenothingbetween us,” I hiss. “You’re poison.”
Kal’s lips graze my neck, his breath warm on my skin. “Until you knew my name, you wanted everything I had to give. And I would have let you have it, in every slutty hole, until you were drunk on my come and still begging for more.”
I feel faint.