Page 49 of The Darkness is Calling

I gulp, because from where he stands at the edge of the bed, there’s only an arm’s length between us, a distance he could erase in a heartbeat.

And the problem is, if he did, I wouldn’t stop him.

Just as I cannot stop the attraction I feel toward him, one growing stronger with every passing second.

He comes closer.

I barely notice how deeply I am losing myself in his strange eyes until he stops with his lips almost touching my ear.

“Next time, I won’t behave as nicely,” he whispers, sending a hot wave of shivers through my entire body.

His words sound like a cold threat, but my sick brain feels them as a promise too.

And, as if to drive the final nail into my coffin, he kisses my temple and then immediately pulls away, disappearing into the bathroom.

I think I can compare the abruptness of his retreat to the way an evil spirit moves: smooth and dangerous. Because I realize that if I won’t lose my life because of him, my heart is certainly in just as much danger.

I need to pull myself together.

Chapter 12

Artem

In my own house, in my own bedroom, I’ve ended up hiding in the bathroom from a woman whose throat I could crush with my bare hands if I squeezed hard enough.

And yet here I am, leaving her side and taking the coldest shower, one that reminds me of the winters when my father used to throw my brothers and me into the almost frozen pool to teach us how to get used to the cold. At least the memory helps me tame, a little, the erection that has been tormenting me since she rolled over in her sleep and settled half of her warm, tempting body over mine.

I woke immediately, driven by the first impulse I could have had in that moment.

Me, a cold-blooded killer – as some would say

– woken from sleep by someone climbing over me?

Imagine my reaction.

My entire body went rigid, ready to lunge at the intruder. I don’t sleep with a gun beneath the bed, like others do, but I have a knife discreetly hidden behind the nearby dresser, and I was very close to reaching for it when my body, or some alert part of my brain, recognized the jasmine scent of the... intruder.

In two days, this girl, this stone that appeared in my path, has made me smile more than I probably have in my entire life. There is something different about her, something that enchants me and makes me forget who I am.

Worse, it makes me forget who she is.

That is exactly why I insist on a verry cold shower, then make sure my preparations in the dressing room take less time than it takes her to leave the bathroom, because she goes in immediately after me.

I spend the whole day restless. Not that I have so much work, but I'm trying to keep my mind busy. Anything to put my thoughts away from the woman I will sleep beside again tonight without touching her, even though I realize I want that very much.

Everything unfolds normally, as if it were a day when Ekaterina is not nearby, even though her perfume remains like an invisible thread through every place she passes.

I feel her in the hall.

I feel her in the kitchen.

I smell her perfume when I climb the stairs, even though she went up almost half an hour ago, after her ritual of playing piano after dinner.

I stop after only a few steps and breathe deeply. I close my eyes and can almost see her, elegant, with her hair twisted into that simple bun and the blue dress she wore at dinner.

“Fucking hell! We need to talk,” Yar suddenly explodes, leaving my side and heading toward the office.

When he reach the door, he decides to shout for our younger brother too, who was about to leave the house.