Page 10 of Scorned Beauty

“Ouch, beautiful. You know, you’ve just issued a challenge, right?”

My face heated and I squirmed in my chair as a pulsing wetness bloomed between my thighs. I swear I could hear it squelch. Dom’s eyes glinted knowingly. I wasn’t sure what his game was. Did he plan to sleep with me to get information on the Russians? I knew next to nothing. Or did he plan to torture me with orgasm denial?

Holy hell.

I concentrated on suturing, not trusting myself to speak. It was going to come out husky and then he’d get harder and then I’d get wetter. No. The sooner this was done, the better.

“In the interest of nondisclosure, since I’m sure we both signed an agreement before entering Grigori's den,” he said. “Let’s just say I can’t talk about why or what transpired that caused the bloody mess you had to clean up. But since Bianca is my cousin, and she considers you family, I appointed myself your guardian angel after something I’d overheard.”

Chills ran down my arms. I neatly finished the suture and carefully put the instruments away.

“Did Grigori proposition you?” he asked.

“I thought we had a nondisclosure agreement.” I raised my gaze and held his.

His eyes narrowed. “We do, but we could speculate or hypothesize.”

“Okay.” I reached for his arm that had nicks from a knife. They appeared to have stopped bleeding, but there was one particular incision that was troublesome. I reached for the butterfly bandages. “Hypothetically, Grigori thinks he could get rid of my brother for me, but in return I do something for him, like entertain one of his friends.”

Dom’s face hardened. “You will say no. The whole reason you’re doing the Russians’ bidding is because you care for your brother and you wouldn’t want him whacked.”

“Grigori was just reaching.” I applied a butterfly and stitched the deeper cut. “So hypothetically was that what you overheard?”

“Yeah, you can say that.”

“And the reason you’re bleeding out and why you say it’s because of me is because you didn’t take care of your injuries when you should have and instead lurked around Grigori’s building waiting for me to show up because you knew they were calling me.”

“You’re doing good with your hypotheticals.”

I laughed. “You didn’t run after my van, though.”

“I had a friend with me. I told him to drop me off.”

“If I hadn’t stopped, would you have followed me home?”

“Or cut you off.”

“Seriously?”

“I wanted you to take care of me.”

I rolled my eyes. “What are you up to?” I finished dressing the wounds on his right arm and stood back, my hands on my hips.

Dom slowly rolled out of the bed and stood in front of me, unmindful that he was completely naked and his cock was jutting out between us.

This was a man comfortable in his skin. He’d walk around naked like it was the most natural thing for him to do. Despitehis complaints about me giving him a scar, he sported several jagged marks on his body and they only added to his brutal beauty.

“Thought I was doing my duty taking care of family,” he said.

“I’m not your family.”

“I know, but by association.” He raised his arm. “Let me finish. Something got triggered tonight. We’ve been avoiding each other, but I’m not avoiding it anymore.”

“What changed? Nothing from my end.”

He stepped forward and touched my hair. “Liar. We have chemistry. Your fiery hair…I always wondered if you were a natural.”

“Did Grigori say something to that effect?” I asked, outraged because even when my brother mentioned it to me, it pissed me off to be talked about like that, like meat to sell, which was what these Russians were doing.