BAD APPLE: The Complete Series (Parts 1-5) by Kristina Weaver Page B

yourself, but all the while you take everything I have to give and demand more. And I would have been okay with that. I would have waited till you could love me back and give me more, but you…you’re a liar and a cheat. You cheated me of my pride and made me feel like less, and you let that floozy you were inhaling make me feel that way.”
    His fists are clenched and that fallen-angel face of his tenses, shutting down and hiding all emotion so quickly that my throat thickens with the need to cry. Even now, as I spill my guts, the man is incapable of anything more than making demands and closing himself off.
    “I made a mistake, one I regret—”
    “One you regret only because I walked in and caught you?”
    “It was just a stupid kiss!”
    If he could just accept that it was so much more, I could maybe forgive him. Hell, I know I could, but just the fact that the man is so cold and intent on keeping himself closed off from me is the second nail in his coffin.
                  “And that’s where you are wrong. It was a woman who’s more to you than a fling. A woman who takes up half of your body. Both of you were reconnecting and re-forging a bond you have never bothered to give me. I don’t know why you wanted me, what you got from it, or where you thought this would go, but I will tell you this, Misha Novac. I will never allow another man to rule me. My father and brothers did it my whole life, only I could handle that because the sweet idiots loved me. You don’t, and I won’t spend my life being played by the likes of you.”
     
     
     
     
     

Chapter Five
    Misha
    It’s been two weeks since I walked into Irina’s apartment and had my guts ripped out.
    I adore my angel and have from the moment those golden eyes first met mine and that blush stained her cheeks a soft pink. She’s sweet and kind and so generous of spirit that I could do nothing but like her on sight.
    But I lied to her. And yet she did not lie when she said that I had held myself and my emotions back from her while taking and demanding more from her.
    I am a cheat. I stole from her more than a building. I took her heart, one I purposely set out to win, and gave nothing in return but my body. It is wrong and she deserves so much more than that.
    But I have nothing to give, save for my body and the small intimacies I have allowed. My heart is long gone, buried beneath the earth with the only female I have ever truly loved.
    What could I say or do to convince Irina to remain with me when I cannot lie to her again?
    Nothing.
    And therein lies my biggest obstacle, because even though I know I have no right to go after her again, I will. I need her light to warm the darkness I live in, and I need her laughter to fill the emptiness within me.
    I just have to figure out how to do this without hurting her more.
    ***
    Nik
    The feel of his sweat-covered chest sliding over mine is the worst and best thing in the world. I love every dirty minute of his mouth sucking my nipples to hard points, and I love the almost painful way he fills my sex before his hips still and he grins down at me wickedly.
    Vadim Novac…just his name makes my sex clench around his girth as I stare up at him, totally at his mercy as he continues to torture me, thrusting into me in a measured rhythm that gets me closer to my peak before stilling.
    He’s been at it for a good hour now, driving me crazy with need, making me moan and beg for release—one I know he will not give me unless I invite him into my heart.
    “Please, Vadi. Oh God, please,” I beg, twisting beneath him for friction—anything to still the incessant throb between my legs.
    Vadim is the master of seduction, a dark god when it comes to sex, and so experienced that he’s held me in thrall since that very first moment, tying me to him in such a way that I now crave him with an intensity that scares me to death.
    This is more than sex and more than love. He owns me on a cellular level and revels in