Nikolai
My knuckles were still raw.
Split skin, dried blood, a little swelling along the second metacarpal. Nothing serious. I’d had worse from guys half Volkov’s size. It wasn’t the injury that bothered me.
It was the distraction.
“Nik,” came Sergei’s voice from outside the gym room where I was hitting the heavy bag barefoot, bare-knuckled, and running on nothing but caffeine and leftover adrenaline. “Got something you’ll want to hear.”
He didn’t wait for me to answer, just stepped inside and tossed a phone down on the bench near my towel.
“There’s a rumor going around,” he said, folding his arms. “Someone said the mayor’s daughter was at the fight last night.”
I stopped mid-swing. Not because I was surprised; of course people were talking. She wasn’t exactly subtle.
She was Sloane fucking Kingsley and exactly the kind of chaos that got noticed—especially when she was draped in that little black dress and that leather jacket, eye-fucking the ring like she belonged there.
Sergei watched me carefully, like he was waiting to see if I’d lie.
I didn’t.
“Yeah,” I said blandly. “I saw her.”
He raised one brow. “You let her walk out?”
I didn’t answer because I didn’t know what else I would have done. Snatched her off the floor in front of everyone? Dragged her into the back office just so I could teach her what happened to bad little girls who sneak out to play in the lion’s den?
The bag swung behind me. I glanced back at it, my fists clenched.
“She cause trouble?” Sergei asked, a note of anticipation in his tone.
“No,” I muttered, grabbing the towel. “Not yet.”
But she would.
She was a walking headline. A living gamble. I shouldn’t have wanted her anywhere near my world.
But I did.
I fucking did.
I left the gym and headed upstairs into the apartment above the warehouse where I crashed when I didn’t want to go home. Stripped off my tank top and sweat-soaked shorts, and stepped into the shower.
The water was hot. Scalding. Just how I liked it. I braced my arms against the tile and let it hit me full in the back.
I tried to shake her off, but I kept seeing her in my mind: pressed up against the rail, that tiny dress barely covering her thighs. Burgundy lipstick. Eyes rimmed in black like a dare. Arms crossed like she was trying to act like she wasn’t impressed.
But she was.
I saw the way she watched me. The way she stared like she wanted to be handled, and she fucking wanted it to be me.
I let out a slow breath through my nose, steam swirling around me like smoke from a campfire. My cock was already half-hard, and I didn’t even try to talk myself down.
The truth was I’d had plenty of women throw themselves at me.
But Sloane?
She didn’t have to throw anything. She just stood there and looked, and now I couldn’t get her out of my head.
I palmed my cock slowly, groaning as the water beat down over my shoulders. I imagined her looking up at me from her knees, lipstick smeared across her mouth.
I imagined her bent over the edge of my bed, that spoiled mouth begging for mercy as I spanked her ass bright red until she begged me to touch her—begged me to teach her what it meant to be Daddy’s little slut.
If she were mine, she wouldn’t get away with the kind of chaos she created in this city. The fake innocence. The brattiness. The games.
No.
She’d know exactly what happens when you poke a predator. A long session that began with Daddy’s belt and ended with pretty little tears streaming down her cheeks as I finished her punishment with my cock.
Maybe that’s why she came last night.
To be hunted.
To be chased.
To be claimed.
I stroked myself harder, water mixing with sweat, steam thick in my lungs. I pictured her lips wrapped around my cock, her back arching as I pulled her close and made her take every inch down that perfect throat.
I came with a grunt, chest heaving, one hand braced against the tile. My seed spurted down into the drain.
Wasted.
I stood there under the spray, jaw clenched, heart hammering, staring at it.
This wasn’t just lust.
This was something darker.
Something I hadn’t felt in a long, long time.
And it had the mayor’s daughter’s name written all over it.
