The Heiress and the Hitman

Chapter Nine: THE TASTE OF DECEPTION

My scream dies in my throat the instant gravity betrays me.

The stool skids sideways, legs screeching against marble, and I’m weightless for one sickening heartbeat until strong arms slam around my waist and yank me backwards against a solid chest.

Nicolai grunts, the sound ripped out of him, low and guttural. His left arm... The one I know is fractured from the way he favors it takes the brunt of my falling weight. I feel the tremor that rolls through him, the way his muscles lock in protest. Pain flashes across his face before he buries it again behind that cold, unreadable mask.

I’m pressed against him, my back to his front, nightgown riding up my thighs, heart slamming so hard I’m sure he can feel every frantic beat. His breath is hot against my ear, ragged.

“Are you okay?” he rasps.

I nod mutely, too stunned to speak. My legs are jelly already and I didn't even hit the floor. The near-fall was the least of my concerns. How the hell is he even standing right now? He took Four sleeping pills! It hadn't even crossed the ten minutes mark yet. Did he pretend to fall asleep?

Nicolai doesn’t let me go. Instead he turns me to face him slowly, carefully, like I might shatter. Storm-grey eyes search my face. Searching for cracks, for lies, for whatever he’s been chasing all night. Well he's finally found it, a chip in my perfect armor of lies. Everything else was about to crumble.

His left arm hangs awkwardly at his side now; he’s cradling it without making it obvious.

“I’m sorry,” I whisper, the words tumbling out before I can stop them. “Your arm—I didn’t mean—”

“Save it.” His voice is gravel. “The pills you gave me earlier... What are they?”

The question is so quiet it almost doesn’t register. Then it does.

He knows.

My mouth goes dry. “I— I told you. They're just painkillers..”

A humorless smile curls one corner of his mouth. “Then why did you bolt out of the room, the moment I fell asleep after taking them?.”

I blink slowly. My voice is calm, a cold contrast to the turmoil brewing within me. “I was thirsty... I didn't want to wake you. Why are you asking about the pills?"

“I only pretended to swallow them.” He leans in, voice dropping to a dangerous murmur. “Spit them into my palm the second your back was turned... You were so busy re-wrapping my bandage you never noticed I didn’t actually put them in my mouth.”

My stomach plummets. I remember it now... the tilt of his head, the way his throat worked, the quick flick of his wrist I’d dismissed as him wiping his mouth. I’d been too focused on getting him horizontal. Too focused on escape. I'd watched him swallow but I didn't actually see him take the pills. Yet another i***t move. Aria.

He reads the realization on my face and his eyes darken. “Are you disappointed? You wanted me to take them that bad, huh?"

I take an instinctive step back. He follows.

One step. Two. Until My spine hits the cold edge of the kitchen island. There's nowhere left to run.

He cages me in without touching me at first... just his presence, broad shoulders blocking the light, the heat rolling off him in waves. My eyes flicker to the gun still lying on the marble countertop to my right, black and silent, within arm’s reach for him. He'd dropped it earlier when I'd cried but now... not even tears could save me now. My pulse thunders in my ears.

His gaze follows mine to the gun then returns to me slowly. "I'm not going to point the gun at you. Don't bother about that. I just want to talk to my—Wife." He says 'wife' like it's a slur.

“What were you doing down here, Aria?” His voice is deceptively soft. “After you fed me your little ‘painkillers’?”

“Like I said... I was thirsty.” The lie slides out automatically. “I came down for water. I only noticed the switch on my way back up.”

His hand moves. Too fast for me to react. His Fingers wrap around my throat, not hard enough to bruise, but firm enough to remind me how easily he could make it hurt. My breath hitches. His thumb presses lightly over my racing pulse.

“I’m tired,” he says, each word deliberate, “of your games... Tired of you lying through those pretty little teeth. Tired of you f*****g with my head.”

“I’m not—”

“Stop.” The word is a whipcrack. His grip tightens just enough that I feel my own heartbeat against his palm. “You tried to drug me. Or poison me? I don't even know what those f*****g pills are!" His jaw tenses. "You tell me you're my wife... That I'm all you have in the world and then you drug me so you can come down here and do what? fetch the gun and finish what you started?"

“I don't know what you're talking about—They’re just painkillers,” I insist, voice trembling. Tears prick my eyes—fear, guilt, frustration, I don’t even know anymore. “I swear... Nicolai.”

He studies me for a long, agonizing second. Then he reaches into his pocket, never breaking eye contact, and retrieves the small unmarked bottle. The 'Painkillers'...

He shakes four white tablets into his palm.

“Prove it.” His voice is lethal silk. “Swallow them. If they’re really just painkillers, swallow all four right now.”

My heart stops.

I stare at the pills in his hand. Four. Enough to drop a grown man for eight, maybe ten hours. Enough to make me sleep so deeply I might never even wake up properly again. My hands shake violently.

“I—”

“Now, Aria.”

Tears spill over. Hot and Silent. I hate that he’s seeing them. I hate that part of me wants to beg. Instead I force my trembling fingers to close around the tablets. They feel impossibly small and impossibly heavy. My lies brought me this far. If I come clean, it'd be game over. If I take the pills, it might be game over too. Either way I'm f****d.

I bring the pills to my lips and throw them in my mouth in one swoop.

His eyes flare with surprise, fury and something darker.

Just as the pills touch my tongue, his mouth crashes over mine.

He kisses me like he’s starving. Like he hates me. Like he’ll die if he stops...

His tongue sweeps in, hooks the tablets, pulls them out of my mouth in one slick motion. He breaks the kiss only long enough to spit them onto the floor, then fists my hair and drags me back to him.

This time the kiss is brutal... Punishing. His teeth catch my lower lip, not quite breaking skin, but close. I taste copper and desperation. His free hand slides to my jaw, tilting my head so he can devour me deeper, angrier.

“You,” he growls against my mouth, “drive me f*****g insane..”

He bites my lip again, harder this time. I suppress a moan.

“And I still can’t get enough of you.”

His voice is wrecked, husky and fraying at the edges.

“My common sense screams at me not to trust you. But the second you’re in my arms... my head stops working. I can’t think. I can’t breathe. I can’t resist you.”

He kisses me again, slower now, torturously deliberate. His tongue strokes mine like he’s memorizing every inch. Like he’s trying to punish us both.

I kiss him back.

I shouldn’t. I know I shouldn’t. But my hands are already sliding up his chest, nails digging into his tough skin, pulling him closer. He groans into my mouth, a raw, broken sound and the last thread of his restraint snaps.

He lifts me onto the island in one rough motion. My legs wrap around his waist instinctively. The cold marble bites into the backs of my thighs. I don’t care at this point. I want more.

His mouth leaves mine and travels down. Hot, open-mouthed kisses along my jaw, my throat. He finds my pulse point—his latest obsession—and latches on, sucking hard enough to bruise. Then his tongue, slow and deliberate traces the fluttering beat. He licks it like he’s savoring the proof that I’m alive, that I’m his, that I’m terrified and turned on in equal measure.

He tortures himself with it. Tortures me.

Then he goes lower.

He yanks the straps of my nightgown down in one impatient tug. Cool air hits my breasts and my n*****s pebble instantly. He growls low in his throat, a sound that vibrates through me. Sending delicious shivers down my spine. My thong is soaking wet now.

He lifts me higher onto the counter, spreads my thighs wider with his hips, and drops to his knees between them.

“Look at me,” he orders.

I do. I can’t look away.

His eyes are black with hunger, his pupils blown wide with desire. He holds my gaze as he hooks his fingers into the lace of my soaked thong and drags it down—slowly, so slowly I’m shaking by the time they hit the floor.

He spreads me open with his thumbs.

Then his mouth is on me.

No teasing. No gentle buildup. Just his tongue. Flat, hot and relentless, Licking a long, slow stripe from entrance to c**t. I cry out, my hands flying to grip his hair, hips jerking involuntarily.

He pins my thighs down with bruising force.

“Stay still,” he growls against me. The vibration makes me sob.

He eats me like he’s angry about it. Like he hates how much he wants this. Like he’s punishing me for making him want it. His tongue circles my c**t in tight, merciless strokes, then dips lower to thrust inside me—shallow, then deep, then shallow again. Over and over until I’m writhing, gasping, begging.

“Please—Nicolai—please—”

He sucks my c**t harder, relentlessly.

And I shatter.

The orgasm rips through me like a live wire, white-hot and blinding. My legs shake violently, thighs clamping around his head. He doesn’t stop. He licks me through every aftershock, drawing it out until I’m whimpering and oversensitive with tears streaming down my face again.

When he finally pulls back his lips are swollen and glistening. He rises slowly, towering over me, and kisses me again. Angry and possessive, I taste myself on his tongue.

I’m boneless. Legs trembling like jelly. Still shaking.

He grabs my throat again... gentler this time, thumb stroking the bruised pulse point he left earlier.

“Do not lie to me ever again. Aria..." He says my name like a prayer.

"These pretty plump lips of yours...,” he murmurs, voice thick with restraint, “Are so full of lies. Lies I desperately want to believe." He swallows, his eyes boring into me. "If you keep lying to me... I'm going to have to put something in that pretty mouth of yours to shut you up.”

My gaze drops.

The bulge in his pants is obscene. Thick, straining, impossible to ignore. My mouth floods with saliva. Fresh heat pulses between my legs all over again, desperate and greedy.

I should stop this... I should run.

I should remember who he is—what he is—what he came here to do.

Instead I let every last wall crumble, I lean forward, my lips brushing his ear and whisper the sweetest, most dangerous lie I’ve told tonight.

“I don’t want you at all. Nicolai.”

The words hang between us, a blatant challenge wrapped in velvet. I tilt my head, a small, wicked smile curving my lips. His hands still around my throat.

My gaze falls deliberately back to the thick, straining outline tenting his pants—lingering there shamelessly, hungrily.

Just for tonight... Just this once. I’ll forget he’s the man who came here to kill me. I’ll forget the blood on his hands, the photo of me in his pocket, the six-digit code, the lies I've told.

I want him.

I want more.

My hands curl into his hair.

"So—what are you going to do about it?"

His entire body goes rigid.