Marya’s voice drags my attention upward, across the thin fabric of the t-shirt that’s doing nothing to conceal the fact she’s naked underneath. It takes me longer than it should to make eye contact, my focus snagging on the stiff peaks of her nipples before I can finally lock eyes with her. Once I do the green is sharp, accusatory.
“What happened?” she asks.
“That’s a question I should be asking you.”
Her response is a hard blank stare.
“I came back and found you outside and bleeding. My first thought was someone broke in and attacked you, but now… Now I don’t know.”
I drag a hand to her good leg, engulfing her ankle in my grip, registering somewhere in my brain that she’s stronger than when she arrived. “Did someone come here and hurt you, Marya? Is there someone I need to hunt down and kill for daring to touch you?”
I don’t know what she sees in my eyes, but whatever it is makes hers widen, her lips parting on a quick breath. Her chest, so tantalizing behind the thin veil of clothing, catching asher breathing goes shallow. “Why would you—?” She shakes her head. “Never mind. No. I, um… No. No one was here.”
My throat tightens around a cocktail of curiosity and dread. “Then who did this to you,moya voitelnitsa. Who hurt you like this?”
I watch, transfixed, as she reaches for the hand I have wrapped around her ankle, my own lungs kicking into overdrive when, instead of pushing me away, she draws my fingers up her leg.
Over the smooth plane of her shin, to the hollow beneath her knee, to the lean muscle of her thigh. Her skin is like silk and far warmer than it was a few minutes ago. Not just warm, hot. By the time we reach the hem of her t-shirt it feels like I’m touching living fire.
If we don’t stop, that fire will be molten when we sink into the valley between her legs. A land of promise and temptation that’s just out of my grasp. I flex my grip against her flesh, barbarically fixated on the sight of my brutal hand against such delicate skin.
Marya shivers as I pull my gaze from the juncture of her thighs, across her stomach, to where her breasts are pressed against her clothes, the tips so taunting it takes all my self-restraint to not lean in and lick them.
The idea makes my mouth water, pulls a sound from my chest that I’ve never made before.
I’m barely touching this woman yet my brain is rapidly shutting down, my cock hardening to the point of being painful, all because of six inches of skin-on-skin contact and the shadow of some nipple.
Fucking hell.
I reallymustbe going insane. Or it’s been too long since I’ve fucked anyone. Or a combination of both, because when Marya grips my shoulder and tugs me closer, I don’t stop her. Don’t stop her from snaking her fingers into the back of my hair ordragging me down until our chests are touching and our lips are so close I can practically taste her. Am suddenly desperate with the need to taste her.
She has me so ensnared, so fucking curious about what she’d do if I licked that luscious mouth, that I don’t realize she’s reached behind my back, under my jacket, and to my holster. Don’t realize what she’s doing until I feel the cold press of metal against my temple and hear the cock of the gun reverberate in my skull.
10
SERA
Don’t fucking kiss him.
Alik’s hand is hot and heavy on my inner thigh, every exhale intertwining with mine. That smell of his—like earth and sweat and power mixed into one, with that odd hint of lilac trailing behind—is making me lightheaded.
Or maybe it’s the blood loss. Who the hell knows anymore.
What Idoknow is that this Hail Mary plan of mine isn’t going to work if I give into sick temptation and actually kiss him.
“What do you think you’re doing, Marya?” Alik’s blue eyes, which had started to melt, are back to being ice cold.
“Repaying your kindness by not shooting you.”
“Very thoughtful,moya voitelnitsa.”
I don’t know what those last words mean but he’s said them before, and like before, I hate that I find the combination of his native language and gravelly voice so freaking attractive.
Cazzo.His voice. I hear it in my sleep.
If you can count nightmares as sleep. The cuts on my hands and leg throb just thinking about tonight’s episode and howmuch damage my memories can inflict when I’m not even awake.
The doctor explained that she’d sedated me during the first part of my recovery so my body had a chance to heal, but now that I’m off the medication, I can’t get my brain to stop replaying everything Rocco did to me. It’s my own personal horror film that never ends. When I close my eyes, the images start to play, faster and faster until I wake up screaming, dripping sweat and tearing at my wrists, trying to break free of manacles that aren’t there.
