I had been there for weeks, and yet at that moment, standing by the bathroom door, was the first time I noticed the splinteredwood in the grooves where the hinges should be. Where they were ripped out.
“You made me watch you kill a man…”
“I allowed it.”
I opened my mouth to shout something, but didn’t know what to say. He crossed the room with the sheer audacity of meaning to comfort me.
“Get away from me,” I snarled. I’m not proud to admit it, but I swung.
He caught my wrist in mid-air, fingers closing in like a manacle, and jerked me against him. “Careful, Kotik.”
I tried to distance myself with my free arm, but he trapped it tightly between us.
For fuck sake—was he hard?
My breath caught between anger and a fogged-up brain, because my line between rage and surrender was a thin one when it came to Vitali.
“I don’t want anything to do with you,” I said through my teeth.
“I warned you not to lie to me, Katya.” His breath was hot and ragged against my temple. I grew so used to the cigarette smoke I could almost lick it off him. His free hand tangled in my hair and wrenched my head back to expose my throat, lips hovering a millimeter from my skin. “I told you I would do anything for you, and I did. You don’t get to like it only when it’s flowers.”
“You’re cra—”
He didn’t let me get the words out, crushing his mouth against mine. The impact drove us against the wall, rattling the picture frames. His body pinned me, and all the rage and heat and violence blurred into one, molten where it pooled in my lowerbelly, and an inferno in my heart.
I gasped for air against his lips, and he yanked my head to the side, his mouth hot on my ear.
“Show me how angry you are.” His teeth nipped the lobe, hard enough to sting. The stiff ridge of his cock dug into my hip.
I shoved again, doing my best to wedge my elbows between us.
“Fight me,” he encouraged, grinding his hips against mine. “Show me how much you don’t want anything to do with me.”
The delicate strap on my dress caught on his cufflink and snapped as I twisted. I grunted and kicked, but his grip was paralyzing. My heel infuriatingly tangled in the fabric of his pants.
“That’s it,” he murmured against my neck, lips dragging on the sweat-misted skin. A low growl rose in his throat. “That’s my Kotik.”
I jerked back only to hit the wall again, the frustrated scream rising but still vaguely aware that it was past midnight and we had neighbors.
“You killed someone,” I seethed, losing my drive but not willing to make peace with the fact that I wasn’t going anywhere.
“That’s not something you need to worry about,” he said, his hand raking down the dress until he had a firm grip on my hip. “But if someone looks at you in a way I don’t approve of, I will again.”
He pulled me into him, his cock like steel between us.
My life—my new life—flashed before me, erratic, like an unraveling cassette. Everything from that damned day I met him. Every sadness, every fear, every disappointment. Every time he showed up and brought color to the bleak, gray world.
The last of my dignity caught on the early spring draft, six months after meeting Vitali Konstantinov. That is how long it took him to break me, and he did break me.
I arched into him.
He froze.
One second, it was a fight for my life, and he was a furnace against me. The next, he dropped me and took off as if stung. The change was so abrupt, I staggered, trying to get my bearings as he disappeared into the bathroom.
The faucet screeched as he slammed it open, and water splashed in the sink.
I stumbled to the bed and collapsed, not quite able to make sense of anything that was happening. The digital clock on my nightstand blinked 2:13 AM. Wind beat against the window in uneven gusts, forcing low whines out of the frames, and somewhere an old car’s brakes screeched against still-icy pavement.
