Page 50 of Violent Pawn

Did you want me and the others to realize you drink more than everyone else?

We lie like that for a long time—long enough that sleep creeps over the edges of my consciousness, only shattering when he whispers, “I’m sorry for tricking you here.”

“You’re forgiven.” I’m thankful for the darkness that hides my smile. “Your papa is exactly what I’d imagine an Italian baker being like. Fuck, that bread was so tasty.” I pause, smiling again when I add, “You’re the son of a baker. Seems pretty cliché, Amato.”

“Wouldn’t it be more of a cliché if I dragged you downtown, then pretended to know how to make the recipes? Which, for the record, I don’t.”

I laugh, the feeling once again reminding me not only of the warm and delicious food downstairs, but of the concept of holiday cheer I spent years searching for with the others. Never finding it because I never knew what it looked like.

This. Holiday cheer looks like this. Comfort with a friend—I suppose I can call him that, at least for today—and genuine glee for a mood.

This time, when silence fills the room, I don’t mind letting sleep take me away, shielding the fact of who is in bed beside me.

Awareness drags me from the blissful hands of sleep to feel heat pressed into my back and a matching arm slung around my waist. The arm pins me against a body, which is the opposite of the no-touching rule I put into place last night.

My hips move as my back stretches from the tightness of sleep, drawing attention to the hardest part of him. He rumbles in my ear, and his fingers dig into my ribcage.

“Jesus, Nero.”

At my voice, he wakes almost instantly. The arm tightens until I can’t breathe. “It’s a compliment, Ana. I woke up with a sexy woman pressed against me. How else should I react?”

“It’s Anastasia. Also, I am not pressed against you.”

“Schematics.” I roll into his arm, trying to get away, but his strength is better than my half-tired self. “No, stay,” he whines, rolling with me to bury his face in my hair. “I’m not ready to get up yet.”

“I am. We need to go.”

“But I’m not. I’m quite comfy, and if you get up now, it’ll unfortunately end. Stay,” he whispers again, rocking his chest into my back as he comes up onto one elbow, lips lowering to my neck. “Stay in the moment with me.”

He caresses low on my stomach, managing the one thing I swore no man would ever again. He scrambles my brain, my thoughts confused with the simple pleasure of his touch. Fuck if I fall victim to him, though, like I was forced into victimhood by so many men before.

Nero isn’t like any of them. I need to keep reminding myself of that because it’s the truth.

So when his hand slides over my hip and to the base of his shirt, I don’t stop him. I even twist slightly, giving him space to slip beneath, where he lingers. “I like you in my clothing way too much. Makes me feel like a victor. That I’ve conquered you and made you mine.” He pushes slightly into my shoulder to nudge me flat to the bed, his teeth dragging along the edge of my ear. “You’d like that, wouldn’t you?”

As my chest meets the mattress, it’s not his hands touching me. It’s not Nero’s bed we’re in—but the memory of one down a darkened tunnel. With another man, in another scenario, in another time. When I was a different girl—girl, not a woman—in bed with a different man, following different orders.

Papa didn’t have me murder all of the men he sent me after, just most. A handful of rapists are still alive, who didn’t care about the underage girl coerced into sex. One in particular didn’t release me when he was done. He forced me to spend the night, a domesticated monster, rather than the vicious one he actually was. In the morning, he rolled me beneath him and forced a repeat.

Hands cuff my wrists to the bed, his knees pressed into my thighs as he spreads my legs. Breath that reeked last night is tainted by sleep and curls my stomach. My eyes scrunch closed, pretending to be anywhere else. Anywhere he isn’t.

“Open your eyes, girl.”

“Pozhaluysta,” I beg, though it won’t do any good. “Please, don’t.”

He holds me tighter.

“Stop…please.”

“Stop…please.”

Unlike that man, these hands release me instantly.

Because Nero is different than him. Than all of them.

Nero. Is. Different.

“Anastasia?”