Mikhail
“She’s pretty.” Stella. She’s talking to me, but I can only focus on the little mouse sitting across the room.
In a room over-saturated with half-naked women, she’s the only one who’s caught my attention, and all she’s wearing is a simple dress that falls above her knees. Yellow, sunny and sweet, which sticks out like a sore thumb in a place like this. Her ankles are crossed, and she appears meek, helpless even. The girl is completely out of her element. Her dark eyes are captivating, a rich brown that could easily be mistaken for black like the raven locks falling past her shoulders.
Nothing I’ve seen in life surpasses her beauty. She’s captivating. My cock thinks so, too, since it surged to life the moment she set her almond-shaped eyes on me. She never breaks eye contact, our own secret game of chicken.
Yet something is disturbing her. I don’t want to think it’s because of me since I make everyone around me uneasy, even those closest to me. Her long delicate fingers fidget with her empty glass, and her knees move subtly from left to right. A girl like her in a place like this should be a little hesitant. This place isn’t for the weak of heart, but that she even walked in these doors is enough to gain my respect. She must be taking part in the hunt. Why else would she come here?
A snap of fingers. “Earth to Mik.” Stella’s voice. She’s talking to me, but I’m not sure what she said.
“Yeah?”
“I said she’s pretty.”
She’s not just pretty. She’s ethereal. I shrug, trying to pull my eyes from the trance she’s put me in. My hands twitch at the idea of having her coal-black hair wrapped around them.
“Who is?” I know full well who she’s talking about, but years of secrecy and hiding emotions have made trusting even those who deserve it difficult for me.
“The pretty girl you’re looking at like some sort of snack.” Stella shamelessly gestures toward the little mouse. “You know, the one over there with the black hair sipping on an empty glass of ice that you can’t seem to take your eyes off. Maybe you should buy the girl a drink.”
“No complications,” I grunt, then turn to the server beside me and drop a hundred on her tray. “You see that girl there with jet-black hair?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Get her whatever she’s drinking.”
Stella chuckles. “I meant, go up to her.”
“No.”
“Why not?” Stella pouts.
“I don’t exactly put people at ease, Stella. The girl already looks like she’s about to bolt.”
I’ve never been a man who makes people comfortable, especially women, and that’s how I like it. I revel in causing fear in others, and knowing that no one will ever mess with me again gives me a sense of peace.
But as I stare at the little mouse, her hands shaking while she keeps her eyes fixed on me, something I don’t recognize twists in my gut. It’s a foreign feeling I haven’t experienced in over twenty years.
Axel barks into a laughing fit. “Mik’s been hit. Man down.”
I should wipe the floor with his sorry ass, so he knows what being hit feels like. Grinding my teeth and clenching my hands, I turn all my venom on him. “Fuck off.”
Axel takes a step back, hands raised in the air, a shit-eating grin still plastered on his face. “Relax, buddy. We all gotta go sometime.” He drapes his arm around Stella, tugging her to him. “And I’ll tell you, being in love is the best fucking thing in the world. Nothing will ever top it.”
I grit my teeth and growl. “She’s a random chick at a sex club. I’m not in love.”
“Everyone’s random until they aren’t.”
“There’s a reason Kian is my favorite out of your men, Stella.” I ignore Axel and focus on the little mouse again. Good, she got her drink. But it seems like she got something else too.
Standing beside her, taking her attention from me, is a sleazy blond guy. His hand moves to touch Stella’s cheek, and she jolts back as if the touch burned her. The guy doesn’t seem to get the hint.
My feet move on their own accord. One steel-toed boot hits the hardwood floor in violent step after violent step. The room is still. It doesn’t matter that there are over a hundred people in here. All I can focus on is that someone is touching her.
Axel laughs behind me. “Another one bites the dust.”
This doesn’t mean shit. I’m protecting a woman from the unwanted attention of some dick. I would do this for anyone.