CHAPTER 43
ALEXIA GREEN.
“You are if I’m going to win you over and earn your forgiveness.”
This having had been spoken by a man who ripped me out of my life and said I had to work for him to repay my ex’s debt.
What I know is, there’s no debt. There’s just the fueled anger he feels toward my ex because my ex killed his sister.
A sister he seeks vengeance for when he didn’t know about her existence in the first place.
And for that, I pity Christian Volkov.
I pity his anger.
I pity the fact that his wound, where I hit him, the other day is as fresh as the pain I felt seeing him shed blood.
Blood I should have cleaned off of him but I was too mad to do so.
My heel poking his chest, ready to go further if he tries to pull any stunts, we hold eye contact.
The words he just said sink into my bloodstream and add a savage rhythm to the haywire beating of my heart.
He wants me to teach him to love?
The heir of the Sicilian mafia cares about me but he doesn’t know how to go from there.
I shouldn’t be flattered but why does my heart beat when he kisses my ankle again leaving a mess of nerves that boggles my very sanity?
“You do know we are in a public washroom, Vicious. Please stop.”
“You smell good”, he sniffs my ankles and my skin and the action has no right being that hot but it is.
“I have to go back to them.”
“Ditch them”, he suggests so casually, his eyes dragging lazily on the leg that’s lifted up to stop him from crashing his chest with mine or any body part of his on me.
“I came here to have fun with them, not you so let go.”
“You can have fun with me, little nurse.”
I chuckle.
This man wouldn’t know fun if it hit him in the eye with a ladel.
“Yeah, what kind of fun do you have in mind, mafia don?”
The more I say it, the more it should frighten me.
“You, me and the kid. We could go out”, he suggests.
“We are already out and Millie’s probably sleeping.”
“We could stay indoors then.”
“You are not winning me over here, Don. Not in the least bit.”
“I’ll do whatever you want to do then. Anything that doesn’t involve the cowboy.”
I want to correct him that Xavier isn’t a cowboy but I’m too tired to fight.
And since I have sweet Vicious all to myself, I decide to use him.
The house smells like him and a hint of the bunch of men who show up at a regular in the clinic.
There’s too much darkness during the night indicating Juana and Millie are probably asleep but otherwise, it’s still the same way I left it this morning.
The only difference right now is being here with him without being here for training brings back feelings of nostalgia.
Feelings of how good it felt waking up to a room full of sunshine and Persian rugs warming my feet everywhere I went.
When we reach the kitchen, I switch on the lights and I point at one of the kitchen stools telling him to sit.
The six foot two man goes ahead to sit on the stool that looks minuscule beneath him.
I open the drawers and take out one of the first aid kits I stashed around the house when I was still living here.
“I need the shirt off too, Vicious.”
I place the kit on the marble top, he smiles slickly before he starts unbuttoning his shirt, taking it off till I can see the ink on his toned muscles.
“I can take the pants off too, Sunshine.”
“No thank you.”
He chuckles, I roll my eyes walking towards him and his bulky frame.
When he opens his legs for me, I settle between his thighs, my height being at an almost level with him.
Just like I thought, he didn’t treat the cut on his head. Knowing him he probably washed away the blood and let it stay like that.
“Can I touch?” He asks.
“No.”
“Hips?”
“No.”
“Tits?”
“No.”
“Why didn’t you treat this? The cut looks like it’s opening up.”
“Ass? Just a squeeze?”
“You squeeze my ass and I’ll castrate you with a serrated blade, whether you are mafia or not.”
“Ouch, nurse. You have a vendetta against my balls?”
“Don’t be cocky. Why didn’t you treat this?”
“I have a nurse, she hit me but I still wanted her to treat my wounds.”
“Because you can’t let anyone treat you?”
“Because I missed my nurse.”
My stomach topples over. A cough erupts from my throat which makes him laugh.
Taking the tiny stitches and an antiseptic to clean it, I dab a tiny bit of antiseptic on the cotton swab wiping the blood around the left side of his cut.
He winces but he doesn’t touch me.
“Does it hurt?”
“A lot, I think you should blow on it.”
I blow on it.
Why? Because I hurt him and failed to check up on him when I should have.
But he also had it coming when he decided to kiss another woman whether or not we had a relationship of the sort.
When I’m all done, my gaze sweeps over his chest and over that neck that I shot which is all healed up and nothing but a bad memory.
I check his shoulder next asking him to raise his arm.
“Does it hurt?”
“A little.”
“You’ve been overexerting your shoulder like a madman. The other one is barely healed either and from your knuckles, I know you were in a fight; do you even care about your health?”
“I do now.”
“You are impossible.”
“You are beautiful. We can watch that movie now if you want.”
Right, the movie I wanted to watch.
He makes buttered popcorn; I finish cleaning up by putting back the first aid where it belongs.
When we hit the couch, keeping him at a distance on the couch while I scroll through his unlimited shows, I face him only to find him staring at me in the dark.
“What do you want to watch?”
“I don’t know. Never watched anything before.”
“You have a TV as big as the size of your average motorbike and you don’t watch anything?”
“Never understood the concept of watching people’s fake lives displayed on a small digital box.”
I almost smack him with a cushion.
Life was sad for me at the orphanage yes. I was probably poor all my life too but that does not mean I did not appreciate the power movies and TV had on my life in general.
“You did not! What about when you were a kid? I’m pretty sure you liked movies then.”
“My life was the movie, sunshine. My father didn’t allow us to have any tech gadgets and I never moved out enough to talk to kids about what they liked.”
I shouldn’t ask.
I know half of the story but I want to prod further.
“Why?”
“Because my father was an asshole who locked his kid in the basement, in a dark and unrelenting place to teach him a lesson.”
“’For how long?”
Cat cried when she told me the story.
Christian smiles like it’s a funny memory but I know it had to hurt.
Being locked in the basement alone with no one to talk to messed up with someone.
“Till he couldn’t have enough energy to pick up the belt anymore and I couldn’t tolerate any more of his crap.”
The belt to hit you? Oh God.
“Vicious-.”
“Pick a movie, I’ll watch with you.”
I thought hard and long about what to pick.
What could absolutely touch the heart of a man who has been too scarred nothing seems to faze him anymore.
Almost as if he never wants to feel.
In the end, I settle for ‘Me Before You’.
That movie wrecked me and I swore I would never watch it again after how much I cried. I’ll watch it again for him.
We watch the movie silently; I peer at him now and then and his focus is so caught in the movie I almost want to cheer him on by the sidelines.
Here’s something fun, Christian.
Here’s something to thaw your heart and make your inner child happy.
By the time, Emilia Clarke is shown on the screen reading Sam Claflin’s letter, my nose is filled with snort and my tears choke my throat it stings like I just ate a jalapeno without a glass of milk for relief.
My hand on my heart, I turn to check up on Vicious.
Only to find him right in front of me.
When did he move to this side of the couch?
His hand threads the side of my hair, tugging and tucking it behind my ear.
“Vicious?”
The hinge of his jaw wound up tight, his brown eyes melting into the darkness, his eyes land on my lips then up to my eyes.
I shiver.
He leans closer.
Unbearably close.
Too close to make my heart jump out of its chest close.
Then this man, this abused man, who’s destined to be one of the most wanted criminals clashes his lips with my cheeks.
A second later, it’s his tongue that traces my skin, that traces my blush.
“You didn’t…didn’t like the movie?”
“I didn’t like seeing you sob for people who don’t care for you.”
God.
“The movie itself was emotional, you watched it you know what I’m talking about-.”
“I was watching you.”
“Vicious.”
“Christian. Call me Christian.”
“You are too close for someone who’s on a first date.”
“Date?”
“It’s a movie date.”
The look of confusion he gives me almost wants me to crawl into a hole and die. I shouldn’t have said the date.
He probably doesn’t think this is a-
“Does that mean I get to kiss my date after the movie is over?”
“You didn’t even watch the movie.”
“Date rules are date rules, Sunshine.”
I nod.
I give him consent.
He bites into that consent like a greedy son of a gun because within seconds, his mouth covers mine in a wet possessive kiss and suddenly I start to understand what he meant by Achilles heel.
He kisses me like I’m the sweetest oblivion.
His Achilles heel.