I tugged at my hand, but he held it firm. “I’m not going to fuck you.”
“Keep lying to yourself, Nyx Mykos. You knew it was inevitable from the moment our eyes connected in the gardens. You’re just pissed that I am who I am.”
“That’s where you’re wrong. I won’t deny I’m attracted to you. But then again, Vegas is filled with good-looking men. I can scratch an itch whenever I want. I don’t need you.”
“Then why haven’t you? From what I hear, you prefer plants to a real man.”
“I’m selective. I’m not a whore to use and discard. You’re just like all of them back home. You think you can fuck whoever you want. No, you’re worse, since you have the looks to match the ego. So, I’ll leave you with these final words.”
“And they are?”
“You can take your counteroffer and fuck off.” Turning, I stalked out of the restaurant.
5
Simon
I watchedNyx storm out of the restaurant with her security close behind her, and all I could think about was if her eyes would go as dark with passion as they had with anger.
Something I had every intention of finding out.
Yep, I couldn’t deny it. I was the asshole she claimed I was.
Then again, Gio Drakos had molded me into his image, and he only viewed things from the lens of what worked for the Drakos family, meaning him.
“That went well,” Kasen stated as he approached from my right. “I believe this is the first time I’ve ever seen anyone tell you to fuck off and walk away.”
“Oh, she isn’t walking away for long.”
Kasen shook his head at me. “This is a seriously sadistic version of foreplay.”
“I guess you would know since you’re the sadist out of the two of us.”
“At least I own my kinks.”
“I don’t need to label it to own it. I just need a woman to accept what I want and to do it.”
“And you think your little fiancée is that woman.”
“There is no think about it. I know.” A smile tugged at my lips. “And what pisses her off the most is that she likes the idea of it too damn much.”
I’d called her on the way her breaths changed and her eyes dilated. But she had no clue I’d noticed her attempt to anchor herself by gripping the edge of the table and the way she kept squirming because the arousal she felt between her legs made her ache.
“I know there is no point in warning you again.”
“Then don’t.”
“However. It’s my job to watch your back. So here it is: if you don’t want to fuck up your agreement with Mykos, don’t fuck his sister.”
“Since you’re so worried about my back, as you put it, I’ll make a deal with you. As long as Nyx Mykos maintains her pure-as-driven-snow, blade-loving, morally superior illusion that seems to have captured all of your balls in a vise grip, I won’t touch her.”
“In other words, you’re going to make it your personal mission to find every skeleton in her closet.”
“Actually, I’m going to enlist the help of a dear family friend.”
Until this very moment, I hadn’t thought to approach Draco Jackson, a longtime Drakos family ally and my mentor. Draco and his heirs dominated the Nevada underworld with a reach going as far as the Northwest and south of the border, deep into Mexico. If anything happened in his territory, he’d know about it, especially the hidden activities of a rival’s daughter.
My family’s ties to Draco went back nearly seventy years. My great-grandfather, the original Christopher Drakos, had helped a barely eighteen-year-old Draco settle in the United States when his family in Japan ordered him to expand his family’s reach into North America.