Criminal Affinity [18+]

Chapter 59

He had promised not to take the knife to her body again. He fucked up. He got angry, jealous and a little too fucking horny. The treacherous thing between his legs was roaring to be let out. As soon as she walked in with her stripper-sized heels in her small hands, he was fucked.

All the whiskey in his body swirls from how quickly he walks out of the hotel and heads back to the mansion. He's a fucking idiot.

Ren and Lily are guarded when they watch him stroll into his study.

"What did you do now?" Ren crosses his arms.

"Nothing." Ivan says coolly. "I need to be alone."

"Aw, little baby." Ren coos. "Do you also need a tit to suck on?"

He can't kill Ren. He can't kill Ren. Ren is not replaceable.

"No." He says evenly. "I just want to be alone."

"Are you okay, Ivie?" Lily asks softly. His eyes rise to hers, concern shinning through her usually masked façade. It pisses him off. He doesn't need this bitch baby treatment. He's the one who fucked up.

"Yes." He says.

"What did you do?"

"Itoreherdress."

"Huh?" Ren leans forward, quirking a brow.

"I tore her dress. With a knife." Ivan presents the said knife, tossing it on his desk. Their gazes slide from the blade to him. No emotions register on their faces, which makes him more nervous than it should.

"How do you manage to fuck up again and again?" Lily's voice cuts through the room with enough disappointment to make his spine snap straight.

"You tore her dress?" Ren says. "Did you hurt her?"

Ivan shakes his head.

Lily rakes her hands through her set hair. "I can't even look at you right now."

He doesn't stop her. He can hardly think right now, let alone explain the knotting mess of emotions in him. He feels dizzy under the weight of new feelings he has never had to deal with before, balking under the weight of it. His life was always simple—kill or be killed. Take or be taken from.

He fought over and over again, never giving anything more thought than it deserves.

Then her. Fucking her. A part of his life permanently. Even if she wants to leave, it won't happen. And she has no intention of leaving anymore.

He can't bring himself to fuck someone else to get her out of his system, even the thought of it makes him nauseas.

Capos don't get nauseous thinking about girls.

"How did she let you walk out?" Lily asks. "How are you alive right now?"

Because she liked it. She wanted him to continue, which is what made walking away so much harder. In that moment, they both forgot their positions and priorities. She forgot her fears and he forgot his promise.

Did she even notice? Is it possible for her to hate him any more?

His study door are split open wide, revealing the demon currently plaguing his mind. The middle of his body rolls tight at the sight of her, clearly very pleased that she decided to come back. Her furious eyes take in the three of them. She is dressed in the same clothes she left it, face still set with makeup and hands free.

Ivan clenches his fists.

"Leave us." She tells Lily and Ren. He can't read her expression, can't catch any undercurrents in her tone.

"Good luck." Ren mutters before ushering Lily out, who seems more than willing to wring his neck.

Ivan begins to rise but Ava's eyes turn molten. "Sit."

Ivan sits.

"I'm sor—"

"Shut up." Ava says.

Ivan averts his eyes, shame beginning to take hold of his gut. He tries to push it down but Ava's eyes turn to the blade on the desk.

"Are you happy?" She asks. "Did you enjoy ruining my night?"

His gut twists. He hates this. He hated what he felt when he saw her with Hofer, hated what he felt when he was sitting in her hotel room waiting for her. The jealously, the rage and the insane arousal.

The girl has him acting like a teenager with nothing to lose.

He has everything to lose.

"No." He says, not trusting himself to say more. "But don't act like you didn't do this to get a rise out of me."

Ava scoffs. 'Of course I did it to fuck with you. Remember the countless times you did that to me?"

"It was different then." Ivan hears himself say.

No expressions grace her face. She walks forward, bracing her hands on the arms of his chair. He is blessed with a whiff of her scent, along with the unmistakable smell of alcohol. She doesn't look drunk at all.

Her red lips invade and erase every single thought in his mind.

"What's changed?" Ava asks in her smoky, manipulative voice. He's fucked in the head, so it caresses over his skin till it prickles. "Nothing stopped you from getting your dick wet."

Ivan almost winces at her abrasive language, which is funny because he has no idea what made him so fucking soft. A hint of anger manages to spike through the fog.

"Plain and simple English, Ava." Ivan says evenly. "I haven't fucked, kissed or touched anyone."

Ava's face finally twists with some of the anger she's radiating. "Then what the fuck was that hickey?"

"Hickey?" Ivan snaps incredulously. "There was no hickey. I get bruises from training. Gian landed a sloppy punch and I got hit on the neck."

Whoever it was, I hope she was worth it.

She thought he was with someone. It irritates the hell out of him. This game they are playing. Neither admitting what they want, acting purely out of emotion.

"You are the one that left a mark." Ivan says. "The first and only."

That falters her. She masks it well, but there isn't much Ivan can miss on her face when all his attention is on it.

"What?" Ivan leans forward, enjoying watching her pulling back. "Nothing to say to that?"

Ava stays silent for a while before straightening. "You went to that club to get laid."

It isn't a question. "I wasn't thinking much."

"Would you have done it?" Ava asks. A hint of softness creeps into her tone. "If you weren't attacked?"

Some of the tension in his shoulders There are many ways Ivan could answer that question. Lie and piss her off, be honest and give her leverage. He regards her with intention, his body once again locking up at the fact that he could lock his study and answer the question until there isn't a drop of doubt left in her.

"She wasn't you." He says.

Ava takes another step back, eyes glinting with something he doesn't get time to evaluate. The moment stretches on too long before Ivan rises. Ava's eyes dart to him in alarm, so apprehensive that Ivan wishes he could forever alter his expression to a softer one.

But she doesn't want soft. The truth was in every tremor that rolled through her when Ivan cut that motherfucker's dress off her.

Ivan is about to move towards her when she speaks. "I didn't sleep with him. It was just for show. We're friends but that's all."

Ava's eyes widen at her own words.

"What do you want, Ava?" Ivan asks, tone low enough to see a familiar tremble in her hands.