Page 62 of Ballistic

Fuck.

I let out a frustrated breath and covered my eyes with my hand. How shitfaced had I gotten the night before?

Flashes of her straddling my lap, kissing her, running my dirty hands over her body, all of it raced through my mind, but not one single image remained of the two of us having sex. Couldn’t remember a damn bit of that, which sucked.

If I was going to be the heartless bastard who’d fucked her, the least I could’ve done was remembered it.

Must’ve passed out.

My mind skimmed over memories of drinking whiskey, evident in the empty bottle still set out on the table, but I’d never passed out on that shit. Not in a long ass time. Not for the small bit left in the bottle, anyway. Had I polished off the entire fifth, then maybe.

A thought struck me, and I shot my attention to Nicoleta, still sleeping.

No. No way.

I pushed myself away from her as realization settled over me. Something my head refused to believe, but all signs pointed to one explanation.

She’d drugged me.

Her body stirred on the bed, and she stretched like a kitten snoozing in the afternoon sun. Yeah, my body ached to have her arched like that beneath me, but then I remembered that little fucking kitten was a lynx who wore claws.

She’d duped me.

And the question that lingered at the back of my mind was why?

The moment she stopped moving, I pinned her arm against the bed, biting back the maddening compulsion to kiss her, as her wide eyes latched onto mine. “You drugged me.”

“Let go of me.” She jerked against me, but I held tighter.

“What did you do last night?”

“If you don’t let me go, I’m going to scream bloody fucking murder.”

“If you don’t start talking, I’m going to commit bloody fucking murder.”

“You don’t scare me, Dax. I doubt you’d go through the trouble of saving me, just to turn around and kill me.”

“You don’t know me very well. I’m very adept at admitting my mistakes. And trust is everything to me. The moment I stop trusting you is the moment you’re no longer safe with me.” I pressed her arm harder into the mattress. “Now tell me what you did.”

“You know exactly what I did. You wouldn’t be this pissed if you didn’t.”

I let that sink in for a moment, mentally chewing on it as I watched her lift her chin like she was proud of the shit.

“We’re done.” I released her arm and pushed off the bed, searching the floor for my pants. The need to take a piss, or rub one out, urged me along, but I ignored it for the rage still seething through my blood. “You want those men? Find them yourself.”

“You know I can’t! I don’t have the free pass plastered on my body like you do!”

“Guess you should’ve thought of that before you decided to go rogue on me.”

“You don’t understand.”

“Oh, I understand. I understand better than I did before. Your horns are sticking out from your halo, sweetheart.” I paused my search to jab my finger toward her. “You’re a manipulative little shit, that’s what you are. You’ll do whatever it takes to get what you want. Even if it means fucking the hand that feeds you.”

“I never fucked you. For the record.”

“Yeah, that’s no surprise. You play me along until I can’t …” A stab of pain struck my skull, from both the hangover from the drugs and tight clench of my jaw.

“Until what?”