Page 54 of Violent Pawn

“What should I do if he tries to kiss me? It’s too intimate.”

Papa jerks as if he never considered the idea of his plan dipping in that direction. “Kiss him back. Do anything he demands.”

Rocks inside my stomach would be more pleasing than his words. My throat feels dry, rough, and clogged. If only actual rocks that I could extract to beat his head with were inside me—a fantastical murderous thought he’d kill me for having, let alone acting on.

“Anything?” I question, for some reason dragging out my agony.

“Anything,” he confirms. “Whatever you must to lull him into a false sense of security. If kissing appeases him, you fuckin’ do it.”

My first kiss was forever ruined. I’d spent the initial years of my adulthood after his banishment partying at clubs with Vanessa every Friday night, using strangers to erase the touch of them. Hands, mouths, cocks—I wanted everyone from Papa’s time gone from my mind and body to trick my undoubtedly traumatized brain that sex and men don’t have to be the poisonous experience Papa forced me into.

Strangers come with their own problems, except Nero is proving not all men are like them either.

Nero is different, I remind myself of my earlier thought. He’s…alright.

The knock on my door sends me upright, fingers digging into my comforter. The door becomes the equivalent of any man from my past: evil and something to avoid because I know who is on the other side before he opens his mouth.

“Anastasia, open up.” A fist lands on the door, but it’s nothing like Papa used to bang around the house dragging Lev out of his bedroom—thus away from his computers. I could always tell how angry he was by the impact of his fist. “I know you’re awake. I know you. You wouldn’t pull that and then go to sleep.”

Only twenty minutes had passed since I ran from him downstairs. I tried to watch a movie with Lev and Serafina but gave up and opted for bed instead. It’s a strange amount of time for him to wait, as if he fought with himself over coming or not.

With hesitant steps, I cross the room to open the door. Nero has each hand propping himself up against the doorframe. It reminds me of months ago, the first night we stayed in Zeno’s villa when Nero’s drunken ass knocked on my door to rave about Poland.

Clearly, he has a pattern. So, following the pattern, my mouth screws up the same way it did that night. “What do you want?”

He exhales. An exhale saying more than words ever could. That has me looking at him—really looking into his bloodshot eyes, though he only smells faintly of alcohol—and backing up a step.

He shoves off the doorframe and enters one step at a time with deadly precision. “You’re driving me fucking mental.”

“Again with the compliments.” My usual venom is weakened and without the sarcasm—one of many barriers to protect against emotional moments.

“That,” he growls. “Right fuckin’ there. That…you…” He exhales again, this time harsher but without as much meaning behind it. “I tried to stay downstairs. I convinced myself to sleep on the couch so I didn’t bother you. I planned on drinking myself to near death just to stay away from you. Three sips later, I find myself outside your door. Why is that, Ana?”

“Anastasia,” I whisper out of habit as my foot slides behind itself.

The last time I feared a man was…

Yeah. Fuck.

He catches the distance gained, and erases it with three strides. Then his hands are on my hips to keep me in place, my neck to dominate my attention. For the first time since being a teenager, making me submissive to a man’s desires.

“You never answered the question.” A type of danger that I have no protection for flares to life in his eyes. “Why am I here?”

“Because you have boundary issues.”

“Or is it, as I was saying, because you drive me fucking mad?”

“Maybe you should see someone about that.”

“I am.”

He releases my hips, grasps both sides of my face and tilts my head up. Oxygen evaporates when he’s about to do the one thing I forbade myself from ever doing with him.

He’ll demolish my barriers. That’s how this starts. One kiss, then I’m dealing with Viktor number two. Only it’ll be worse this time. I’m not sure there’s a way to survive Nero.

“Cara mia,” he whispers, his voice filled with broken desires and endless longing and the temptation to just say yes. “Order me away this instant, or I’m getting that mistletoe kiss.”

He’s done it again. Even when bombing his way into my bedroom, saying everything he has and grabbing me, he still made himself different than everyone from the past.