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His eyes were green. The brightest green she had ever seen. It spoke of nothing, but trouble. Ghost was awake, and somehow, she preferred him when he was unconscious. He was awake and everything looked intimidating. His cheekbones looked sharper, his eyes were more intimidating than his body and nothing rolled of him more than the dangerous scent that clings to him, the menace, and ruggedness.

He was like an apocalypse. Meant to terrorize. To inflict fear inside you. Cruelty was in his eyes. In the way, he was staring at her like he could snap her into half without breaking a sweat. That he could be the most terrifying monster if he wished to be. Those scary stories you tell kids to make them behave, Ghost was it.

It took him more than fifteen seconds; each breath he released was like a promise of violence. He blinked twice before he looked down at the ropes that were tied around his body, and he wiggled and struggled at first; then, he looked up.

"What the fuck?" His voice was quiet and dry. His eyes? Fuming.

Nova gulped, and she did what any prey would do in the face of a predator; she shrank back in fear. Trouble was staring at her in the face. Maybe she shouldn't have done this, maybe she should have thought about it. But she couldn't bring herself to feel regret. She told herself that he was tied up, that he could only get to her if she chose it. She would not let him intimidate her into silence.

"I said..." he dragged the words, his eyes shooting daggers at her and burning whatever skin he could find on her. "what the fuck?"

There was no easy way to deal with a man like him. Untamed. Wild. Aggressive. The best way she could handle him was by relaxing and letting him see that she didn't pose any threat to him.

"You need to calm d–"

"Un-fucking- tie me." His jaw ticked and his voice was laced with venom enough to kill an elephant. "Unless I'm speaking in an accent you don't understand, bitch, I said untie me right now before I get pissed?"

Before he got pissed off? This wasn't him pissed off?

"You can't talk to me that way," Nova choked on her words. She had never been a scaredy-cat. She was always the brave one. But she didn't feel so brave at that moment. Not while Ghost's eyes felt like a sniper aimed at her.

And really? Calling her a bitch while she had done nothing but be civilized to him. Yes, she tied him up but for a very good reason. Maybe if he stopped acting like he was freaking King Kong, she might tell him why she did what she did. What an ungrateful little ass. But there was nothing little about him.

Ghost's eyes were dead, and his expression revealed zero emotion. "Oh, I apologize to you. I didn't receive a manual on how to talk to you. Please, overlook my mistake," his mouth rolled over the words, his red, full lips more distracting than his killer expression.

And when she realized that she had been staring at his lips, her cheeks blossomed into crimson, and it hit her hard how sick it was because the man looked like he wanted to choke her and cut off her oxygen.

"You don't sound apologetic," Nova notified him, one eyebrow arching. If anything, there was nothing but sarcasm and impatience behind his apology. And a good dose of contained fury.

Ghost let out a grin so devilish, she swore he might actually be the devil. "Oh, look at you! Not fucking dumb, after all."

Every muscle in her face tensed, but she doesn't let him know how affected she was by him, how his mocking words cut her. "Listen, I didn't want to do this, but you left me with no choice. This was the only way, so you have to listen to me now." Nova tried to sound firm as she tried to find some common ground.

He tried to lean forward but he could only go as far as the ropes bound around him would let him, and he noticed that very well because he sneered and tugged at it, but even he wasn't strong enough.

He was speaking in an eerily calming voice, "See, the thing is, I can't really concentrate on anything when I'm tied up, so whatever you want to say to me has to wait until I'm free. I have a fear of being bound, bitch, so unless you don't want things to escalate, I suggest you be quick about it," he bit out with clenched teeth.

Her eyes grew big. "I'm sorry! I didn't know. You should have said so!" she cried, leaping out of the chair to move closer to him and untie him, but then, she stopped inches away from him, catching a whiff of his scent. "Wait, you won't hurt me, right? I only tied you because it was necessary."

He gritted his teeth. "Anytime now."

Shakily, Nova crossed the distance between them as she knelt in front of him to start untying the ropes on his legs. He stared down at her, every glance sending a current to her body. Her reaction to him was almost sickening, and she made another mental note to scream at herself in the mirror later.

She quickly untied the ropes on his legs before she untied the one around his body, and before she could finish untying the knot, his hands flew back to release the ropes and in the process, made her stumbled back and fall flat on her ass. She groaned a little and watched him stand up; he seemed bigger now that he was conscious and standing on his two feet. Without even sparing her a glance on the ground, he stepped over her and stalked to the door.

She was on her own feet and marching after him. "Where are you going?!" she demanded, but it was as if she was speaking to a brick wall. "Hey!" Her hand slammed on the door closed just as he had opened it to walk out. She was not about to let him leave when she hadn't even told him that she was done with him.

He whirled around, and their eyes met and tangled. "Who the fuck are you?" he snapped, his tone flat and livid. It felt like he was ready to claw her guts out and decorate her floor with it.

Nova blinked at him in disbelief. "What do you mean who am I? I'm the one who has been stitching you up and making sure you're not dead when I should have been calling the police!" He really had the nerve to pretend he didn't know her? To pretend a couple of months wasn't spent by her saving his life? When was the one who inserted himself into her life?

He must have concluded she wasn't a threat or that he didn't care at all, because he inclined his head. "Why don't you do that, aight? I'll be on my way then." He jerked his head toward the door and made a move to open it.

Rage tingled up her spine, coursing through her veins, making her fists clenched and unclenched. Blood whooshed in her ears, and her breathing quickened.

"Wait!" Nova slammed her back against the door, blocking the exit.

"What do you want? My patience is running thin, lady."

Inside, rage pounded through Nova, but outside, she remained calm. "Excuse me? You've been showing up here passed out with wounds all over your body! Most days, I was scared that you would die in my house, and you've done nothing but act like a complete asshole when you should be thanking me for saving your life numerous time. Anyone in my position would have called the police or kicked you out and left you to die."

He had her slammed against the door before Nova could see the expression on his face, and she hissed, feeling the impact from her back to her tailbone. He hovered over her like a shadow. "You're right. I'm definitely at fault," he declared, raising his hand to teasingly brush a strand out of her face and her heart pondered. Ghost's eyes explored her lazily like she was an item he was seeing on display and contemplating on buying, and Nova felt more exposed, especially when he started to caress her cheek and almost made her eyes fluttered. "I should have thought twice before letting you help me. If I knew you were going to be an annoying bitch about it, I would have gone somewhere else."

"Are you for real?" she whispered back, openly glaring at him. "But you know what? I don't care anymore. You need to listen to me. Don't ever show up at my house again. I'm not going to be your freaking doctor, because you didn't pay me to be. From now on, we are done." Boldly, she jabbed her finger into his chest. A stupid move, she thought, but it was needed. "You take your shit somewhere else."

He leaned down, his lips made for sin, pleasure and all kinds of bad things brushed against her ear and smiled into the crook of her neck. "Are you threatening me?"

A delicious shiver moved down her spine. Something warm rolled inside of Nova. Under his hold, she felt completely alive, more than she had ever felt. It was sick. She was sick. She shouldn't feel like this about someone who was threatening her, someone who was an ungrateful jerk. Someone with an intoxicating scent.

Nova angled her head to meet his gaze. "I don't care how you take it, but you won't come to my house again."

He arched a devilish, thick eyebrow. "Or else what? You'd call the police on me? Is that it, bitch?"

"Don't call me a bitch! I have a name!"

Ghost smiled, using his finger to run it down her face. His scent was doing stupid things to her head. Pulling at strings in her body and messing up with her head by tugging her in the wrong direction.

"I don't care what your name is. I call you how I like and you ain't got nothing to say about it."

"Fuck you," she spat.

His grin spoke volumes. "I really like women who got a mouth on them," he whispered, his breath hitting her face and nose. "But be careful how you use it around me." He sent a deep, warning look that seemed to ice every part of her before he was smiling again, and Nova was sure he was bipolar.

With one last smirk, she watched Ghost walked out of her house without stopping him again. Her knees slowly buckled as she tried to catch her breath. A hand placed on her racing heart, she trudged all the way to her couch as she sat down, trying to catch her breath. Trying to figure out what the fuck had happened.

It was very clear that Ghost was dangerous, not just in the field of his work, but in the way he made her feel. She felt vulnerable and scared around him, but there was something else. Nova couldn't believe he was the same man she had saved for months. Thinking about that made her regretted not doing the right thing in the first place. He definitely didn't sound like he was grateful for what she had done for him. If anything, he had sounded more annoyed about the fact that she had kept bringing it up.

But the thing that pissed her the most was not being given the chance to get an assurance from him that they were done with each other. She didn't want him to show up again because she was sure that she would kick him out or call the police. He didn't seem to care about that very much, but it could also be a pretense. Men like him were good at pretending.

The door was knocked open before she could register what was happening. Nova stumbled up in shock, her eyes fixed on the intruder. Ghost was breathing heavily like an angry bull who had been poked in the wrong place.

He got into her personal space with one stride and she gulped when she realized he was inches taller than her.

"Did you touch my phone?" His tone was flat, practically dead. His eyes were burning and charging, and when she wasn't quick enough to answer, he thundered, "Answer me!"

Nova nodded, not skipping a beat. "Yes, I did. More than once," she admitted, softly.

"Did you send a fucking text to one of my contacts?" His jaw was granite, the veins on his forehead almost popping. She could feel the heat of his anger radiating off him.

She hesitated, grimacing. "If you mean Mario, then yes, I sent a picture of you while you were unconscious." She bit her lower lip in an attempt to suppress a laugh. He shouldn't have cared that she did. The fact that he sounded almost scared about it felt like a victory to her. All he had done ever since he had gained conscious was pissed her off.

The speed with which he moved back was startling and alarming. He ran his hand through his hair and tugged on it, before he scanned her coldly, a sneer on his face. "Do you have any idea what you have done?"

"I don't care! Your friend didn't exactly give me a choice. He was going to track your phone and I couldn't—"

"I don't care what he was going to do!" he snarled into her face, his nostrils flaring like a wild beast. "Who gave you the right to touch my phone?!"

She scoffed. "The right? The right?! Who gave you the right to think you can come to my house and expect me to help you? And then you talk about rights?!" Her heart pounded against her rib cage, threatening to explode. She couldn't seem to keep back the explosive anger that she was feeling inside. This was not how Nova expected things to go. But she had never expected Ghost to be like this.

He stood there in her living room, but he didn't look like the man whose life she had saved a lot of times. No, he looked scary and untouchable, but she wouldn't let him scare her in her own home.

Nova stalked over to the door and opened it, turning back to him. "Get out. Get the fuck out." He doesn't need her to tell him twice before he thundered past her with a promising look, his muscular arm brushing her shoulder, causing her to inhale sharply.

She closed the door and leaned her forehead against it, trying to level her heartbeat.

This was the first moment she regretted ever wanting him to be conscious. She knew this would be the last time she would see him, but it didn't make me feel relieved.

It made her feel like she had lost something that never belonged to her.