Chapter 16 Taylor
TAYLOR
I don’t think anyone has asked me that, and emotions rush up. Because no. I don’t think I’m okay.
“I feel like a helium balloon let go of, outdoors. Floating away on the breeze, nothing to define me. Like I want someone to hold me down.” I blush when our eyes meet, because the last person to hold me down was Kon, and I liked it.
“I know what you mean,” he replies, low and hoarse. “I fought for everything when I was younger. It all happens too easily now. I have this urge for something to be difficult. To fight rather than be given.”
My breath is stolen by his words. He has a different, but dare I think it—complementary—desire to mine.
“I’m just…” My voice breaks and Kon’s sharp gaze takes in my expression, and then the room around us, and shifts, screening me from sight with his wide shoulders.
“What’s happening, Taylor? Tell me.”
“I…” I swallow down a sob because the way Kon moved to protect me and lowered his voice in earnest enquiry.
It’s still difficult to spit out why this beautiful, joyful event that I’m incredibly lucky to be here for at all, is making me sad.
“I just really want someone to hold me,” I confess, voice barely above a whisper.
Kon’s expression hardens, and my stomach drops as his gaze darts to the side.
I’ve messed this up. No one wants the upset girl snotting on their tux.
“Go out to your right, past the bar.” His voice is low and urgent. “Pretend to be going to the toilet. Go. Now.”
And he says it in such a way that I obey without thought, making a path through the crowd around the bar. Apparently even billionaire mafia bosses enjoy free booze.
I get to the cool of the back corridors, and I’ve paused beside the ladies’ room, unsure what to do, when Kon comes striding towards me from the opposite direction.
Then his fingers grasp mine and he spins on his heel, taking me with him.
He’s so tall that my arm is at a right angle and his is straight down as we hold hands.
Down one corridor, then the next. He twists a door handle viciously and drags me into the room, and pulls me into his arms as soon as the door is shut silently behind us, as though it’s him that needs this not me.
“Zhizn moya,” he murmurs as I’m enveloped by his body and pushed against the door.
It’s only when I lean into him like a cat that I realise he has cupped the back of my head and is stroking my hair.
I let my eyes close and accept the comfort of his solid warmth. He’s so big and strong and his hand at my waist feels like he’ll never let me go.
“I thought…” The gentle firmness of his touch is so reassuring.
“Tell me,” he says into my hair, and there’s a press on my crown as though he’s kissed the top of my head.
“For years I dreamed about what it would be like to see Hayley and Payton. I imagined we’d be the same as when we were kids, just bigger. It would be the three of us against the world. But they’ve moved on. I’ve been missing for too long, and they’re both getting married and I’m left behind.”
He makes a low rumbling noise in his chest. Sympathy, maybe?
“And I’ve changed too,” I confess in a whisper. A painful confession. “I’m not …”
“You are, you are, zhizn moya.” Kon is holding me tighter, even though he can’t know what I was going to say.
I’m not like them. I’m alone.
I didn’t have my sisters when I needed someone, and now I’m isolated and broken, and I think maybe the only person who understands is a man twice my age, who my new brothers-in-law warned me off, and my sisters are worried will bring back bad memories.
A man who even now is probably risking being shot by the groom by being here with me.
Hidden. Secretive. Forbidden. The man who awakened all my sensual desires.
“It’s okay. You’ll find a new relationship with your sisters.”
“I’m the odd one out. I thought it would be enough for me that my friends from the ballet were safe, and I was reunited with Payton and Hayley.
” It seems so greedy to want yet more on top of that.
A husband. A family. Maybe to teach dancing.
Fun in my life and books on my own shelves, rather than raiding my sisters’ collections like a thief.
Kon. Most of all, I think I want Kon.
“Don’t cry,” he says, voice so sad it almost breaks me further open.
I go to say I’m not crying, but the wet on my cheeks as Kon releases my hair and wipes under my eye with his thumb just makes more tears seep out.
He’s so lovely. He can’t be mine. He’s a powerful mafia boss who I’ve already caused a lot of expense, inconvenience, and risk. Maxim told me Kon wouldn’t accept any money for the rescue, and that’s without the further consequences of stealing the Volk’s ballet company.
But needy little thing that it is, my heart longs for him.
More than anything or anyone since I left Moscow, Kon feels like home. Being in his arms makes me feel understood.
Loved.
“That’s better,” he croons. “That’s my good girl. My brave, sweet girl. Zhizn moya.”
He said that the night we met, and I don’t know the Russian phrase. I recognise moya, of course. It means, “my”.
His what? His responsibility? His problem? I’d rather not know. The illusion is too beautiful that maybe he’s saying something nice. That honestly, being his in any way is wonderful.
I barely look as he guides me around and lowers us into a chair, gathering me onto his lap, my knees over his thighs and my shoulder snuggled against his chest. Our breathing synchronises, deep and slow.
My tears dry, and the comfort of his embrace slides like honey off a spoon into another feeling.
Closeness, yes. Awareness. My pulse hitches, and when I breathe in, I really savour it. His scent of spice and caramel brings back the memory of that night.
The wrong, taboo, dirty thing I did to him, and the filthy, brutal, tender things he did to me. The way I begged him to stop, and he growled that he couldn’t, then whispered, “Say mercy. Taylor,” reminding me of my safe word even as he used my body savagely.
Heat pools between my legs. I tilt my chin up and the scent at his neck is more intensely Kon. It lights something inside me. Then I turn my head inwards and the solid lump of his Adam’s apple and the sandpaper of his stubble scrapes my cheek.
“Taylor.” He rumbles the warning, and I feel it in my chest and under my lips. It’s pure masculinity. The coarse hair, hardness, deep vibrations.
He’s so different to me, and the women I’ve spent years with.
And I want him. The change is imperceptible at first. A swallow that makes his throat bob. A tightening of his arms around me. Then against the side of my thigh, there’s a touch. Slight, then a hard press.
His erection.
Kon wants me.
The knowledge tingles over my skin. And it’s magic, this feeling. The power, the closeness.
Could I get him to lose control?
“Kon.” I push my lips onto his neck, a desperate kiss that expresses my need to be close to him.
“Have you seen Taylor?” The voice is shrill but muffled from the corridor. “She’s not answering her phone.”
My sister.
I scramble off Kon’s lap, and he lets me.
“I have to go.” They’ll be worried, especially if they find me with Kon, a former member of Volk.
They try to shield me from any reminders of my captivity, and I think they’d be horrified that Kon dragged me away.
They think I’m vulnerable, and I guess they’re right, given I’ve been crying at my sister’s wedding.
“Of course.” Kon rises slowly to his feet. His voice is hoarse.
There are footsteps outside.
“Thank you,” I trail off, unable to say what I want to, and not sure it wouldn’t be silly anyway.
“You asked,” he replies softly. “It’s my privilege to provide what you need, especially when you’re so brave as to tell me with words.”
There’s a connection between us, as he looks at me. It’s a tug from my navel, and from my heart.
If things were different, I’d go to him. Hug him. Thank him properly and not in this stilted fashion. I want to be in his arms again more than anything.
Except, to get Kon into trouble with the other London mafia bosses, or let down my sisters. But the longing for Kon, and the deep comfort and rightness I felt with him is like a tide.
“Anytime you need help Taylor, you can come to me,” Kon adds, low and harsh, almost savage in his intensity. “Anything, do you understand?”
I nod, my heart rate spiking.
It’s wrong. I know that. He probably feels responsible. Maybe just sympathetic, since we’ve been through some similar things.
I guess I’m so starved of affection that I’m misreading it.
Because to my stupid heart it feels like it’s… It’s not that.
I’m being crazy. A few intense experiences, a sense of rightness when we’re together, and tummy flutters whenever he looks at me don’t make this… Love?