Chapter 46 Is she seeing me?
Nico POV
Something was happening, and I didn’t have a clue what. All I knew was that it scared the shit out of me. Lila Falcone was sleeping in my bed, and by God she has never looked more beautiful.
For months I tracked her, had her followed, kept tabs on her, and she’s been my captive for how long now.
But I’ve never seen her look as stunning as she did now with her golden hair splayed over my silk sheets.
Lying on her stomach with her arms tucked underneath the pillow, she seemed relaxed, like she was actually sleeping peacefully.
How was that even possible for her to seem so peaceful when she’d been surrounded by nothing but fear and lies and promises of pain and death? Yet here she was, sleeping like a goddamn angel.
Me, on the other hand, I was everything but peaceful. There was this gnawing feeling on the inside of my chest, the same word echoing through my mind.
Protect.
Protect.
Protect.
Every one of my thoughts contained that damn word. How did I go from thinking the word ‘kill’ to thinking the word ‘protect’ whenever I thought of her?
Just because I fucked her didn’t mean that she now magically fell under my protection, that I owed her anything. I’m still the man I was when Damon brought her in. I’m still the man whose mission was to get revenge and make sure that my brother’s murder didn’t go unpunished.
Yet while I listened to her slow, rhythmic breathing next to me I had the overwhelming urge to wrap her up in my arms and fuck up anyone who tried to get near her.
Fuck.
Fuck.
Fuck.
With a heavy sigh I got out of bed before I acted on this ridiculous urge by wrapping my arms around her like some sort of scene out of a goddamn romance novel. God knows this wasn’t a romance.
Deciding that I needed a shower to try and wash away all these unwelcome feelings that had no place inside my chest or head, I locked myself in the bathroom.
I caught a glimpse of my reflection in the mirror, the side of my face without the scar the side that looked like a goddamn blueprint of my twin brother. We were as identical as twins could be, and up until the day I got that scar, only our parents could distinguish between the two of us.
No one got close enough to notice my elongated pupil, something my brother didn’t have. We were the same, until the fight happened.
My twin brother had the tendency to go after things he couldn’t have, including women which meant that they usually belonged to someone else.
Unfortunately I got mistaken for my brother and had to take the beating in the form of a beer bottle to the side of my face. I was lucky that I didn’t lose my eye. Since then my brother and I could have been told apart simply by looking for the brother with the scarred eye.
Turning toward the mirror I stared at my full reflection. Did Lila see my scar? Or did she see my brother whenever she looked at me? How in love with Nikolai was she really? How long had they been together? Did she tell him that she loved him? Did he tell her that he loved her?
Oh my God, I was going out of my fucking mind.
I turned on the shower and got it. Naturally the second I felt the water cascade down over me my mind drifted to when lila was in here with me.
Her slippery body moving against mine, her wet pussy riding my fingers like her fucking life depended on it. And it seemed like the more I had her, experienced her, the more I wanted her.
In no time at all she had managed to make me doubt everything, stirred up all these questions for which I’ve never wanted answers before.
Why did it suddenly seem like I wanted her more than I wanted revenge? How was it possible that I no longer had this deep rooted need to avenge my brother’s death, but instead that need got replaced with a desire to
claim her over and over again?
“Fuck!” I slammed my fist against the tiled wall. There was no pain. Just the ache still eating my chest from the inside out. What the fuck was I supposed to do now? How could I still kill this woman when my body demanded that I keep her?
I got out of the shower and glanced at my reflection one last time while towel drying my hair.
Did I really want to risk everything for a woman who might not even be seeing me, but rather the brother that looked like me? Was it really worth it, to take that chance, to sacrifice everything?
What if I had it all wrong about her, that she was only playing me playing the role I wanted her to play in order to save herself? I’d look like a fool.
I sighed. The real issue wasn’t whether she trusted me which she didn’t, but it was whether I trusted her which I didn’t. In other words, I was damned if do, and completely fucked if I didn’t.
Feeling like I had the world, the heavens and hell on my shoulders, I walked out of the bathroom, but then balked.
The bed was empty.
Fuck!
“lila?” My heart started to pound against my ribs, the longest string of bomb’s flooding my mind.
“lila!” She ran. Motherfucker. She ran.
“Shit.”
I bolted for the bedroom door ready to blow a fucking horn if it meant getting every goddamn person in this household to look for her.
“nico?”
I froze, my hand already reaching for the doorknob, the sound of that voice sending a wave of relief over me.
Slowly I turned around, and saw her standing by the window. Her naked body was slightly hidden by the curtains, but my heart nearly leapt out of my fucking chest.