The Agreement (Darkest Lies Trilogy Book 1) Bethany-Kris (best fiction novels of all time .TXT) 📖

His friend followed his gaze, and she knew he could see her, too.

Roman looked back at the man before he took a few steps towards her. Karine tried to ignore the vibration at the base of her stomach—butterfly wings beat hard with every ounce of her anticipation. And nerves. She honestly hadn’t thought they would be face to face again.

His first words to her were harsh, though.

“What games are you playing with me, Karine?”

Unexpected, really, from a man who hadn’t hesitated to kiss her back that night—who was so quick to put his hands between her thighs with only a little encouragement, and then dared to tell her he wanted a taste.

Karine tilted her face toward him, asking, “Am I playing games?”

Roman stood at the edge of the driveway, careful not to take another step closer, and kept his voice low. Conscious about the people in the mansion who may have been watching them. “What you’re doing, what you did before, it could get me fucking killed. Don’t tell me you don’t know that. You know who you are—the people you belong to.”

“But do you care about that?” she returned fast.

Karine didn’t know where these words were coming from—the braveness that raced from her mouth like it hadn’t come from her own mind. It had to be the result of weaning away from relying so heavily on her medication, or maybe she was just finally growing a fucking spine for the first time in her life.

Whatever it was, she liked it.

Roman seemed like the type who might like it, too.

He remained silent at her question, unwilling to answer. Or maybe he wasn’t a liar. Just what she thought.

He didn’t give a fuck.

Not about the rules, anyway.

“I want to spend the night with you,” she blurted out.

Or that’s probably how it seemed. Instead, she’d carefully planned those words. She wanted to see the way he would react to them.

Roman’s stare didn’t move from hers, but his left eyebrow jumped higher. “You’ve gotta be kidding me.”

“Which one of us is laughing?”

“Why would you even offer that to me knowing who you’re marr—”

The words came tumbling out of her mouth to stop him from saying another thing. She only cared to make one thing clear about any of this to him. Boldness might get her what she wanted. “Because for once, I want a choice. I want to do exactly what I feel like doing tonight. Would you give me that ... you were willing before? I don't think that’s changed.”

Again, he was silent.

That was all the answer she needed.

Tonight, Karine didn’t care about the consequences of her actions. She cared about the feasibility of it. She just needed to figure out a way to make this happen. After that, she wouldn’t ask for anything.

If she could just choose, for once, to have what she wanted if only for a night, then she would follow each rule, all their demands and orders. Their every command—like a good girl. Maybe, in the hell she was sure to find within her inevitable marriage to Dima, it might finally be the way she had never been able to find before to make her father proud. But all of that was past and future.

She only wanted the present.

Tonight, she was going to make the most of that, and what she desperately longed for was to feel like she did in that alleyway with this man. To be touched, and love it. For him to make her ask for more. She wanted to look into the eyes of a man who wanted her back just as much, who could use her the way she would like, and need that.

Karine intended to be fucked by this man standing right in front of her.

Roman was staring at her, waiting for her to continue. The solution to her problem—how to make all of this happen—came to her out of the blue. Divine intervention, maybe. She bit down on her already-swollen lower lip, reddened and tender from the abuse of her top two front teeth. A habit she had picked up from anxiety and stress.

She met his stare courageously, trying to summon back that bold part of her. Somehow, it worked. “There’s a veranda that leads directly into my bedroom. You can climb up to it.”

A dark sound echoed from Roman before he muttered, “I am a twenty-seven-year-old man, I am not climbing up a girl’s balcony like some ... boy.”

However, that hint of grin on his mouth said what he didn’t. The idea appealed to him, and that was all she needed to know.

“But won’t you?” Karine asked.

That grin of his turned into a devilish smile.

Of course, he would.

She didn’t actually need him to reply.

SEVENTEEN

Maxim sat in the same cigar smoke-filled den as he had the last time Roman visited with a duffle bag full of cash. Only on this evening, the dense cloud didn’t irritate him in the same way. He had other shit on his mind, and that was never more apparent than while his heart pounded in his chest as he stepped into the den.

At least, he had more cash than Maxim was expecting. Even though tribute was being held earlier than usual this month—to accommodate the wedding plans and not clash the two events, or so he was told—Roman had been able to make the target cash, and then some.

A few hours ago, he’d been feeling good about this—the money, that was. He was confident Maxim would be impressed, and might have considered granting Roman the leave to go for a quick trip back to New York he had planned to ask for. In return for his good work, and behavior, of course.

Roman needed the space—not that he was keen on admitting to himself why. But then he had to go ahead and indulge Karine outside, listening to the crazy proposition she made ... he wasn’t sure how he was going to make it through the