Page 40 of Nikola

Not only that, but she’d demand it all in return too. It was just who she was.

That was what made Skye so dangerous and why I stayed the fuck away from her. That was, until her papa and my uncle decided to agree to a marriage contract with Marchetti.

Yeah, over my dead fucking body. And even then, I’d crawl out of my grave and make sure she was mine.

Through the years, I told myself I could and would resist her, but the reality was that I’d been in denial. One word of the possibility that someone else could get their filthy paws on her had me scheming fast and hard.

It didn’t help that her last two messages—received three days ago and sitting unanswered with the rest—had been the most brazen yet. Just recalling them had my dick stirring.

I pulled them up and re-read them again because it would seem I was a glutton for punishment when it came to Skye Leone.

Skye: Your phone must be broken. I’ll buy you a new one, malysh.

She’d called mebabyin Russian.

Skye: Can I ask you something?

Honestly, she could ask me anything, to do anything, and I would. That was how much power she held over me.

Skye: Want to know a secret?

“Why do you keep looking at your watch?” my sister asked. She’d been floating in the heated pool for the past hour, wearing Gucci sunglasses that hid most of her face and sipping on a drink adorned with a paper umbrella.

“Timing your alcohol intake,” I said in place of the truth. “You know you shouldn’t be drinking.”

She waved me off with a nasally, “Yeah, yeah.” Then she huffed and said, “I can’t wait till I’m twenty-one and don’t have to listen to my big brother lecture me while I work on my tan.”

I rolled my eyes behind my sunglasses and spread out on my chaise lounge. This was a perk of visiting home from the East Coast: temperatures hit the mid-70s even in November, and it was warm enough for a swim almost all year round.

It was the reason my sister refused to study at D’Arc. She was a New Orleans native and would have to be dragged kicking and screaming out of this city. Our parents were more than good with it since she seemed prone to getting in trouble.

“I can see your life has reached a new low point.” Marietta’s physical features were a mirror image of our mother’s, but her personality—to Dad’s dismay—was all our aunt Tatiana. “I’ll buy you something to cheer you up.”

Poor Vasili. One day he’d get a brain hemorrhage. He’d hoped for an uptight son and timid daughter; instead he got two wildlings.

“Didn’t your therapist tell you that shopping is just a way to avoid problems?”

“Didn’t yours tell you that being an asshole is overrated?”

Ignoring her, I picked up my phone that just buzzed. When I saw it was a message from my group thread rather than Skye, the disappointment was too real. Why was she suddenly ignoring me?

Duh, because you haven’t answered any of her texts, my subconscious taunted. The problem was that I was scared—I know, hilarious—that one wrong move could put my whole plan at risk and Skye would slip through my fingers forever.

“Besides, I’m mentally preparing for our Thanksgiving dinner that’s kicking off in, hm… anhour,” Marietta continued,unaware of my inner turmoil. “What’s with that look, Nikola?” She waved a hand around in front of her face.

My head snapped up so fast, I feared I might have given myself whiplash.

“I’m not wearing alook, sister.”

Okay, maybe it was that Skye hadn’t texted me in seventy-five hours. But there was no way in hell I’d admit that to my sister.

Her last message still weighed on me.

Skye: I’m stuck thinking about you. I want more.

My dick stirred every time I thought about that message, but I prevailed and ignored it. I had to play it carefully until the opportunity was right. Skye was making it increasingly harder with her messages though, openly admitting that she wanted me as much as I wanted her.

And just as I was tempted to cave in, the texts stopped coming.