Chapter 9 - Alexei
Ican still taste her.
Two days since the gala. Two days since I dragged her into that study, shoved my hand between her thighs, and made her come on my fingers while a hundred people danced in the next room.
Two days of her avoiding my gaze in the hallways, of meals sent to her room because she refuses to come down.
Two days of replaying it on loop like a broken record I can't turn off.
The slick heat of her. The way she clenched around my fingers when I curled them just right. That gasp she tried to swallow but couldn't quite manage. And after, when I pulled my hand free and licked my fingers clean while she watched, wrecked and furious and still trembling.
She tasted like honey and vengeance and something uniquely Sofia that I can't get out of my head.
I haven't touched her since. Haven't trusted myself to get within arm's reach without doing something stupid. Something that would compromise everything I've worked eleven years to build.
I stand at my study window, watching the morning light creep across Chicago. The city doesn't care about my obsession. Doesn't care that every time I close my eyes, I see her face when she came, that perfect crack in her armor, the way she bit her lip bloody trying not to scream my name.
Two objectives today. First, find out what she really is. That joint lock at the gala wasn't amateur hour. The way she moves, the way she holds herself, she's trained. Properly trained. I need to know how much.
Second, set a trap. Plant information. See if it gets back to the Rosettis. If she's communicating with her family somehow, I'll know. And then…
Then I'll deal with it.
I down the rest of my coffee, the bitterness doing nothing to wash away the phantom taste of her.
Time to see what you're hiding, kotyonok.
My private training room sits at the back of the compound, separate from where my men work out. This is my space. Mats on the floor, weapons displayed on the walls, mirrors that show every angle. The place where I work through problems with my fists when thinking fails.
I have her brought here without explanation. She enters in another shapeless cotton dress, barefoot, hair pulled back in a simple ponytail. Her eyes scan the room immediately, noting everything about the place. Soldier reflexes, not princess ones.
The rough cotton shifts as she moves, and I force myself not to think about what's underneath. Or what isn't. The memory of searching her, finding nothing beneath that destroyed dress, burns through my mind before I can stop it.
"What is this?" she asks, voice perfectly neutral.
"Training room."
"I can see that. Why am I here?"
"You're going to show me what you can do."
She tilts her head, all wide-eyed innocent confusion. The performance would be convincing if I hadn't seen her almost snap a man's wrist with perfect form. "I don't know what you mean."
"At the gala." I circle her slowly, watching how she tracks my movement without turning her head. The faint scent of her, floral mixed with something darker, drifts to me. "The way you moved when Tork grabbed you. My lieutenant. The joint lock you almost put him in before you caught yourself."
Her face stays perfectly innocent, that denial she's so good at. "Self-defense classes. My brothers thought…"
"Stop." I'm in front of her now, close enough to smell that faint floral scent that clings to her skin despite the rough cotton. "I'm tired of that lie. Show me, or I'll make you show me."
"Is that a threat?"
"It's a promise."
I attack without warning. Not full speed, not trying to hurt, just a grab for her wrist to test her reflexes.
She blocks. Pure instinct. The movement is clean, efficient, trained. Her arm deflects mine with an economy of motion that takes years to develop.
Our eyes meet. I see the moment she realizes what she's revealed.
"Again," I say.
This time I come at her harder. A feint left, then a real grab from the right.
She evades, redirects my momentum, creates distance.
No wasted movement. No panic. Just fluid grace that speaks of muscle memory drilled in until it's automatic.
Our breathing fills the room, hers controlled, mine getting rougher.
Who the fuck trained you?
I increase the pressure. Testing her limits, finding the edges of her skill. She defends, never attacks, but her defense is flawless. She knows exactly where to be to make my strikes miss by inches. She reads my body language like a picture book.
When I sweep her legs, she goes down but rolls immediately, coming up ready.
The mat slaps under her palm as she springs back.
The dress rides up as she moves, flashing pale thigh, and I catch myself tracking the movement.
When I grab her from behind, arm across her throat, she drops her weight, throws an elbow into my ribs that actually makes me grunt, and slips free.
We're both breathing hard now, the sound echoing off the mirrors.
Sweat beads at her temple, makes her smell like exertion and that damned floral scent, stronger now with her heat.
The shapeless dress clings in places it didn't before, the cotton hugging her body with sweat in spots that make my mouth go dry.
And fuck me, but watching her move like this, precise and lethal and still holding back, makes me harder than I've been since the gala.
"Stop playing with me," I growl, wiping sweat from my forehead. "Show me what you really have."
Something shifts in her eyes. A decision being made. A mask coming off.
She attacks.
The speed catches me off guard. One second she's standing there, defensive, the next she's coming at me with intent to damage. A strike toward my throat that I barely block, her hand like a blade that would have crushed my windpipe if it had landed.
A knee drives toward my groin. I twist, take it on my thigh instead, but the force still makes me stagger. An elbow clips my jaw before I can fully recover, snapping my head back. I taste copper, feel warm blood coating my teeth.
There she is.
I grin, probably looking unhinged with blood on my teeth. "There's my girl."
The words escape before I can stop them, and I see her eyes widen slightly. But I don't take them back. Can't.
We fight for real now. No more testing, no more holding back.
Bodies colliding, grappling, struggling for advantage.
The sound of our harsh breathing mingles with the slap of flesh on flesh, the squeak of bare feet on mats.
She's fast, faster than most of my men, and her technique is flawless.
Special forces? Intelligence training? Something else entirely?
The dress hampers her movements slightly, and she adjusts, using it to her advantage, letting it disguise her real position until the last second.
When we grapple close, I'm hyperaware of every inch of her.
The heat of her skin through thin cotton, the way the fabric slides, what it reveals and conceals with each movement.
She fights with the same precise violence that killed my brother. The thought should make me hate her more. It doesn't.
I'm stronger and I have reach, but she uses my size against me. When I overextend on a grab, she's already moving, using my momentum to send me off balance. When I try to pin her, she finds the gap in my hold and exploits it.
Christ, she's magnificent. All that deadly grace wrapped in cotton and sweat and fury.
I catch her arm finally, use my weight advantage to spin her, slam her against the mirrored wall, then pull her close.
Her back to my chest, my forearm across her collarbone, both of us panting.
I can feel her heart hammering against my arm.
Can feel the curve of her ass pressed against mine.
The heat of her skin burns through the thin cotton, and I'm acutely aware of how little separates us.
"Who trained you?" My voice is rough in her ear.
She doesn't answer, but I feel the slight shift of her weight. Testing. Always testing.
I'm rock hard against her ass and I know she can feel it. The fight, her skill, the heat of her body, it's all twisted together into something I can't control.
"Who trained you, Sofia?"
"My family."
"Which one?"
"All of them."
I spin her again, facing me now. My hands pin her wrists above her head against the mirror. The skin under my palms is soft, delicate, at odds with the strength I just felt. My thigh pushes between her legs, and I tell myself it's for control, not because I need to feel her heat against me.
"You fight like an assassin."
"I fight like a survivor."
"Same thing in our world."
Her chest heaves with each breath. Her lips are parted. There's a cut on her cheekbone where my elbow must have caught her, a thin line of blood that makes her look wild. Dangerous.
I want to lick it off her face. Want to drop to my knees right here and taste her properly. Want to fuck her against this mirror until neither of us can stand.
"If you can fight like that," I say instead, struggling for control, "why haven't you tried to kill me?"
She goes still. I watch her pulse jump in her throat.
"You've had chances. The knife in the basement. Just now, you could have crushed my windpipe with that throat strike if you'd committed fully."
"Maybe I don't want you dead."
"Why not?"
Her eyes meet mine, and there's something raw there. Something real. "Maybe I need answers only you can give me."
The words hang between us, loaded with possibilities I don't want to examine.
I release her wrists, step back before I do something stupid. My control is hanging by a thread and we both know it.
"Get cleaned up," I manage, voice rougher than I intend. "Meet me in my study in twenty minutes."
I leave before she can respond, before the sight of her against that mirror, flushed and dangerous, makes me forget why I'm supposed to hate her.