Diamond Devil by Naomi West
ILARION
The doors slam shut in unison. Rain thunders on the roof of the car, but in here, it’s dry and warm.
I kill the engine so that the only sound is the crackling of thunder and the girl’s quiet inhalations.
“I probably shouldn’t get in cars with strangers,” she remarks suddenly. “Not unless I want to end up on a true crime podcast, and believe me, I do not.”
“You just told me your whole life story without pausing for breath. We might not be friends, but I don’t think we’re strangers.”
She laughs for a second before she kills it nervously. “Sorry for that.”
“I told you once not to apologize. I’m not the kind of man who repeats himself.”
“What kind of man are you then?” she asks. “I wouldn’t have pegged you for the white knight, lay-your-jacket-over-a-puddle-so-the-lady-doesn’t-get-her-feet-wet kind of dude.”
It’s my turn to laugh. “I’m certainly not that, either.”
I glance out the windshield. The heavens are really letting loose now. It suits my mood. Dark and powerful.
On my way out of the meeting I just attended, I was ready to break something. Anything. This little tiger cub sprinted in front of my car, and for one wild second, I thought, Maybe I’ll even break her.
I didn’t, of course. Obviously. I stopped the car and got out to read her the fucking riot act.
But something in her made me pause.
In my line of work, I don’t see unvarnished fear in people’s faces that often. They always try to hide it. Try to hide everything, actually, like I don’t see everything there is to see. They think it’ll help them to hold their cards close to the chest.
But this girl? It didn’t even cross her mind not to wear her heart on her sleeve. It didn’t occur to her that I could use that weakness against her. She was surprised when she started crying, but I wasn’t. I saw the cracks skittering across her surface long before the first tear fell.
I will admit that things getting carried this far away is somewhat surprising, though. We’re in my car, just the two of us.
I wonder if she knows how dangerous a place this is.
“Are you from here?” she asks.
I shake my head. “Russia.”
“Russia. That explains the accent and the, uh… the…”
“Tigrionok,” I supply with a subtle smirk. “Yes, that is Russian.”
“Tee-gree-oh-knock.” She wrinkles her nose as she echoes it.
I press a mocking hand to my chest. “Awful. You’re butchering my native tongue. I ought to put you back out in the rain for your crimes against my people.”
Laughing, she slaps me on the arm. “I’m trying my best!” Then, remembering herself, she lets her hand fall back in her lap. That uncertainty crawls over her face.
Pity. I like it better when she is unbridled. The nickname started as a joke, but it is more on the nose than I realized. Her wildness, her rawness—it speaks to me.
You live long enough in a world of deceit and lies, and that shit starts to rub off on you. It feels like being cloaked in mud from the moment you open your eyes in the morning until you close them at night. There’s never any clawing it off.
Her, though? It’s like she’s never even seen the stuff.
“You said business brought you here. What kind of business do you do?”
I blink and turn my gaze back on her. “Murder. Drug trafficking. Despicable sins of all kinds—the more profitable, the better.”
She rolls her eyes. “Hilarious. I bet you’re here all week.”
“No, actually. Just tonight,” I reply with a straight face. “Someone betrayed me, so I came to warn them what would happen if they did it again. If you ever see me back here, it means that person is dead.”
A stunned silence swallows up the car. In the half-dark, the girl’s eyes are bright. Her cheek still blooms with that handprint. It makes me angry. Very fucking angry. I meant what I told her—any man who strikes his daughter isn’t fit to live.
My hands twitch. My father is already dead, luckily for him.
But if I wasn’t so sure he’s currently burning in hell for what he did to our family, I’d dig him up and kill him again.
“Ha … ha?” she ventures, uncertain. Her throat bobs as she swallows. “Let’s pretend I know you’re kidding, because otherwise, I’m going to have a nervous meltdown, and I’ve already had enough of those today to last a lifetime.”
“Sure. Let’s say I’m kidding.”
“Good.” She sighs with relief and slumps back in her seat. “Can I ask you a question? Is it nice, not giving a shit?”
My mouth curls up with amusement. “Is that the impression you have of me?”
“One hundred percent. I’m pretty sure your watch costs more than I could make in a lifetime of swinging from a pole with my tatas out, but you stood out in the rain with me, a complete and total stranger—and a lunatic of a stranger at that—for no good reason.”
“Don’t forget the shoes. Those are expensive, too.”
She rolls her eyes again, but she laughs as she does it. That sound does something to me. Zaps a jolt of electricity straight to my cock.
A jolt I haven’t felt in a long, long time.
It crosses my mind out of nowhere how long it’s been since I fucked. I didn’t choose celibacy; it just hasn’t occurred to me in months to do anything different. Nothing called to me. No one spoke to me.
Until her.
But now, every cell in my body is suddenly screaming bloody murder. It wants to ravage something.
I have to hold back, though. Ravaging a girl like the one in my passenger seat will ruin one of our lives—but it sure as fuck won’t be mine.
And I’ve left enough damage in my wake tonight.
“To answer your question, I don’t know if it’s nice or not. I’ve never been any other way.”
“Sounds nice to me,” she answers at once. “All I do is give a shit. About my—well, you already heard the whole spiel.” She blushes and glances away from me like I won’t notice her shame.
“What else would you like to not give a shit about?”
She scoffs. “You name it, I’d like to not give a shit about it. I just want something that feels like mine, you know? Something I chose because I wanted it, not for any other reason.” She starts to tick things off on her fingers. “I mean, I go to a college I don’t like to take courses I don’t care about. I hate running, but I do it anyway, because I don’t want to be home any more than I have to. It’s just… tiring, that’s all. I’d just like to set it all down for a sec.”
“So do it.”
She laughs again, high and mocking. “You say that like it’s easy.”
“It is. It’s exactly as easy as I’m saying. The way to stop doing something is to just… stop.”
She tilts her head as she regards me from a new angle. I can’t see anything past the windows; the rain is still relentless. It looks cold and foreboding out there. But in here, the air is suddenly crackling. It’s alive—I’m alive—in a way I haven’t been in a very long time.
And the chains holding back my lust are growing weaker by the second.
“When you say it like that,” she croaks, “I almost believe you.”
I don’t know if she knows it, but she’s leaning in toward me. Closer and closer. With every inhale, she freezes—but with every exhale, she inclines like I’m a black hole sucking her in.
Fuck, maybe that’s exactly what I am. I’m something she’s never experienced and, after tonight, she’ll never experience me again. It’s best that way.
For both of us.
Because nothing good can come of mixing my world with hers. She’s sad about college and Daddy; I have blood on my hands and skeletons in my closet and sins in my past that would make her fucking weep.
This close encounter is bad enough. Anything more than that would be devastating.
But here she comes anyway.
Closer.
Closer.
And I’m getting closer, too. She smells like jasmine and sweat and rainwater. Her eyes are bright. Her skin, soft and clear.
“I'll ask you one more time,” I growl. We’re inches apart now. She sucks in my words and makes them her breath. “What do you want? Fuck all the other people trying to get you to submit to their desires, to live according to their fears, to paint inside the lines they set out for you. What do you want?”
Her answer comes after the slightest moment of hesitation, and it couldn’t be better if I wrote it on her lips myself.
“I… I want you.”