The Alpha and Me

64. Cat wants to play with the Alpha

64. Cat wants to play with the Alpha

Manik's POV

Shock washed over her features. She felt light weight on me and cold. I raised my hands to hold her waist, only she held my hands at a distance and stepped down the bed.

"You got shot?" Fear laced her voice as she eyed me accusingly.

"It's not that bad. See, the wound is close." I got up, attempting again to hold her into my arms.

The coldness doesn't sit right with me when we're in the same room and I cannot hold her. My grumpiness was escalating every time she slapped my hand away or took a step back, keeping me at a distance.

"I go away for two days and you get shot. What's going on, Manik? Why do you have to do this to me?"

My jaw dropped. My eyes flickered as I endeavored to keep anger away from my features. But the more she opened her mouth, the more allegations spilled as if I did something wrong.

At one point, she accused me of not loving her as much as she did. It exploded the bubble of my resistance and I grabbed her close by my chest.

"I would have told you if you were in your senses, Nandini Murthy. Nothing would have happened if you weren't lying still like a dead person on the hospital bed." I growled across her mouth. "It's because of you I got distracted and shot."

She wriggled to get out, but I held her tight, "You weren't there when I needed you, Nandini, and you accuse me of not loving you enough?! You have no idea what I've been through in the last forty eight hours."

I fulfilled her wish and jerked her away. She balanced herself while leaning on the wall. She shuffled due to my tight hold as she kept her eyes on the floor.

Shit, I am stupid.

Instant regret surged through me and I neared her. "You always make me lose my shit, Nandini." Scooping her in my arms, I took her to bed.

She was still in a trauma from my animalistic behavior when I sat her down and pushed the rim of the glass to her lips. The first gulp brought back some senses. As I made her down the remaining water, she was fully aware and now looking at me with mixed emotions.

"There are so many things that's transpired in my life, Nandini." I began. "I wonder if you'd be able to take it!"

I put the glass by her foot on the floor and hesitantly took her hands. It was a wonder that she wasn't jerking me away already. I was glad because I needed this. I've needed her, skin to skin, beside me back then when I performed the deed in the last forty eight hours.

"I am a gangster now, Nandini. I joined a mafia alliance consisting of four different mafia bosses." I opened the chest of all details in front of her and let her take a peek through everything I've accumulated over the short time since I became the Mafia king of NYC.

Nandini gasped and traced her fingers on the gunshot dent on my left shoulder, "You are a boss now?" It was more of a self-realization-statement than an interrogation.

"Yes, and I've never been more proud of my decisions than this." Her fingers stopped on the second bullet wound on my stomach next to my umbilicus on the right side.

She stroked it before exploring the other two shot wounds. One was on my back at the spine, the second one on my bicep. The pad of her fingers brushed at the one on my bicep, increasing the heat between my legs.

As I dipped my head to ravish the pulse at her throat she pulled apart to look at me, "You said you found and killed them."

"I did."