rather than better. The color deepened, as if the burn had become infected.
He went to work every day, and when he was home, he pretended I didn’t exist. He obviously wasn’t in the mood for sex.
That worked out for me. The last thing I wanted to do was sleep with him after he’d slammed his fist into my stomach—twice. The bruises had faded over the course of the week, but they were still slightly noticeable.
Balto didn’t call.
I had no idea what he was doing.
When the weekend came around, Lucian didn’t go out of town like he usually did.
That meant I was stuck with him, stuck with his brooding, sour attitude. He was probably too ashamed to operate business as usual. Word had spread that Lucian had been outsmarted and burned by his enemy. He was too humiliated to show his face.
Since he was home, I couldn’t sneak out of the house. I wanted to run to Balto’s building and do what we did best. After watching him treat Lucian like a stupid boy, I was hotter for him than ever before. But with my dictator husband lurking around, I had no choice but to stay put.
Later that night, the house went to sleep, and I went to bed.
I laid the phone on my chest as I stared at the ceiling. I was in bed, tucked under the sheets in the dark. It’d been a while since Balto and I had been together, and my body was writhing in withdrawal. But there was no way for us to be together at the moment, so there was no point in contacting him.
Balto texted me, like he’d been thinking about me just as I’d been thinking about him. Baby, why aren’t you on my dick right now?
The crass message wasn’t the least bit surprising coming from him. He’s home this weekend.
Too much of a pussy to show his face?
Something like that.
He didn’t text back for a while. The three dots didn’t appear on the screen.
It seemed like the conversation was over. If there was no possibility of sex, our conversation had no purpose.
Then his message appeared. Leave your bedroom window cracked.
My eyes widened in shock. Balto, you can’t be serious.
Do as I say.
There are at least fifty men guarding the property.
That’s all?
I rolled my eyes. You are going to kill them all?
No. They’re a bunch of idiots. I’ll sneak right past them.
It’s suicide.
For them—if they see me. I’ll be there in fifteen minutes.
This is a really bad idea.
Good. I like bad ideas.
I didn’t hear from him again. The dots disappeared, and I walked to the bedroom window to crack it just a bit. Summer was officially over, and fall had arrived. The nighttime air had a slight hint of coolness. I stared out into the darkness for a moment, wondering exactly how Balto would pull this off. But now that I’d seen him in action, there was no doubt in my mind he could make it happen.
He could sneak on to his enemy’s property—and fuck his wife.
Gunshots didn’t sound in the night, and he arrived within fifteen minutes like he promised.
Sneaking on to the property must have been as easy as he said it would be.
His muscled form appeared as a shadow as he emerged in front of the window. His large palms slid under the crack in the window, and he opened it silently so his large form could enter my bedroom. He shut the window behind him then stepped inside, wearing a black t-shirt and black jeans. He pulled a gun from inside his pants and set it on the dresser.
I only stared at him because I was surprised he’d pulled off that stunt so easily. This man was lethal, so lethal that he killed those two guards at the opera in dead silence. He’d managed to lose Lucian’s men as he made them follow him outside the opera house. This man wasn’t just a killer, but a skilled evader.
He stood at the foot of my bed and stared me down in the darkness, his blue eyes visible because they somehow projected their own light. While keeping his gaze locked on me, he stripped. He dropped his shirt before he moved to his bottoms, getting down to his beautiful, naked skin.
I stayed in bed, already naked under the sheets. His body wasn’t as visible as it usually was at his place because all the lights had to stay off. We couldn’t make it seem like anything was going on in my