Dariy
“I don’t even know who you are,” she whispers.
I grip her chin, tilting her face up to mine, the same touch that spared her life downstairs, sealing her fate instead.
The name must mean something to her as recognition briefly lights up her eyes.
“He got married not long ago,” she murmurs. “I was one of the servers that night. It wasn’t as big or fancy as I’d thought it was going to be.”
“No,” I agree. “He and Jasmine aren’t the type.”
“What did your brother think about this, about me?”
Adrik’s voice echoes in my head from earlier, when he met me in the room downstairs as I was finishing up wrapping the body and waiting for my men to come and dispose of it.
“Are you going soft?” he’d snapped, looking at me like I’d lost my mind. Maybe I had.
“She stays alive,” I’d replied. My tone left no room for argument, but Adrik never needs one. He looks through you until he finds the crack, then he pries it open with his bare fingers.
“You’re willing to risk everything for a stranger,” he’d stated.
“It wasn’t that long ago you were doing the same, big brother.” My words were gentle, but they were edged with something sharper. “You couldn’t explain that then, and I can’t explain this now.”
“Does she feel it too? Because if not, this doesn’t end well for either of you.”
“I don’t know. I mean, she must do right?
” I heaved the body onto the tarp, and my words came out a little strained with the effort.
“It makes no sense. This immediate, unwavering connection I feel to her. The urge I had to make her mine right here on this floor. To fuck my bloodline into her right then and there.”
Adrik glanced down, his lips twisted at the sight of smeared blood.
“Part of me thinks she would have let me,” I’d continued, “But I didn’t trust it wouldn’t be a bid to save herself.” I’d stood at full height and observed the neatly wrapped corpse at my feet.
“Make her yours so no one can question it. There will be no loose ends in this family. Not now, not ever.” He had taken a moment to look at me, before nodding and adding, “I’m going home now, Jasmine wants pears.”
“Heh,” I smiled, despite the weight in the air. “How is she coping?” Since finding out she was pregnant, Adrik has been tending to her every need. To see this side of him feels almost unnatural, and yet the most natural thing in the world.
“Well. She is strong.”
He clamped his hand on my shoulder and squeezed.
“You know what needs to be done,” he’d said, and then he turned and headed for his next mission. Finding pears after midnight on the Strip.
I’d felt like I’d done ten rounds when I returned upstairs, my mind in overdrive trying to make sense of it all.
I’d tried to convince myself it had been a while since I’d had a satisfying encounter with a woman.
Perhaps the lack of sex and the revealing uniform barely masking such sinful curves was clouding my judgment.
Then I walked into the penthouse and found her standing there in my clothes, a T-shirt and sweatpants.
Nothing special or sexy. And something inside me shifted so hard I almost fell sideways.
Now she has eaten food at my table and stands before me with her chin lifted, asking questions I don’t know how to answer.
The T-shirt slides over one shoulder like she’s presenting a gift that belongs only to me. More of her was on show in the glitzy gold beaded scrap of fabric, but something about seeing her in my clothes has possession threading through me like a wire in my blood.
“He said I should make you mine in a way that no one can question it.”
Her eyebrows flash quickly, betraying the surprise. “What does that mean?”
I let the silence hang between us. I wouldn’t know how to word it without sounding vulgar. Part of me wants to be vulgar because this woman has my blood running hotter than molten rock. Instead, I take a deep breath and release it slowly.
She lets out a startled laugh. “You want to…” she lifts her eyebrows fully now in question as she flicks her index finger back and forth between us. She spins away from me with a laugh, pacing to the window before turning back to face me.
“And how often do you kidnap your employees in a bid to fuck them?” she demands, and now it’s my turn to be surprised.
“It’s not like that,” I say, keeping my voice measured. “And I would never hurt you or touch you without your consent. No matter how much I want to.”
She narrows her eyes as my words land, appraising me from across the room.
“Right,” she says. “Even though I walked in on you murdering a man in cold blood.”
“That does complicate matters,” I confess, pushing a hand through my hair this time, as I try to keep the frustration at bay.
I take a step closer, slow and deliberate, because if I move too fast, I might prove myself a liar by caging her against the nearest wall and forgetting every line I’ve drawn tonight. She doesn’t flinch. She watches me like she’s bracing for impact, but not retreating from it.
“You saw something you shouldn’t have,” I say, words ground out through my teeth. “And the moment you looked at me; I forgot how to be the kind of man who fixes loose ends.”
Her pulse jumps visibly in her throat. I follow the movement with my eyes, drawn helplessly to the life beating there.
“I do not kidnap women. I do not fuck every woman I come across. Tonight's circumstances were not usual, and I’m doing my best to do the right thing by my work, by my family, and by you.”
My phone buzzes on the counter. My brother’s name flashing on the screen.
Rurik: Heard you’re hiding something. Call me.
I turn it facedown. He can wait.
“You’re not making sense,” she says, voice barely more than breath. “First you terrify me. Then you feed me. Then you tell me I belong to you now, but you won’t touch me.” She shakes her head slightly. “What am I supposed to think?”
“It’s not about what you think, Callie. It’s about what you feel.”
“That’s not fair,” she fires back, a spark lighting behind her frustration. “I don’t know what to think or feel.”
The flicker of anger, that brave defiance, fuck, it ignites something feral in me. The urge to push her back against the glass and claim her mouth until she stops questioning everything and just feels.
She tips her chin up, and for a moment, she doesn’t look confused at all.
She looks like a woman daring a monster to bite her.
“You aren’t going to kill me,” she whispers.
“You already decided that. And my life is serving drinks in this place to earn enough money to keep my grandma safe. Nothing you can do to my life currently can make it worse.” Her voice goes high as she admits that truth and the possessive creature inside of me swells, wanting to give her everything, show her everything “So what now, Dariy Korolyov? Because one way or another, you will put me out of my misery before daybreak.”
The steel in her voice makes my cock throb. No one talks to me that way. No one has ever dared. But the grit and ferocity in her demand don’t anger me. Nor does it feel disrespectful or insubordinate. It feels like a dare.
God help me, she’s going to ruin me.
I crowd into her space, close enough that our breaths tangle. She doesn’t back away, she rises onto her toes, meeting me at the edge of something neither of us knows how to pull back from.
“What I want…” My voice comes out rough as gravel. “You can’t handle.”
“Try me.”
I curse under my breath. The room tightens. The air thickens. She is standing there in nothing but my clothes and every damn weakness I didn’t know I had comes to the surface.
My hand lifts before I can stop it, fingers brushing the side of her throat, sliding to the delicate hinge of her jaw. Her skin is warm. Soft. Alive.
She closes her eyes, just for a heartbeat, and leans into the touch like she has been starved for affection for too long.
“How old are you?” I ask, noticing she has peeled the false lashes off. Her face looks so much younger without the layer of makeup hiding who she really is.
“Twenty-two,” she says, her face crumpled as though her heart is breaking.
There are fifteen whole years between us.
I should stop, but I can’t.
“I can see you,” I murmur, my lips so close to hers I can taste her exhale. “And I know you can see me, too. You may have walked into the wrong room tonight, Callie. But I walked straight into my fucking downfall.”
Her eyes open and lock on mine, wide and searching.
One more breath. One more second. One more slip of control.
I bend my head, our mouths inches apart. I feel her tremble. Wanting. Afraid. I stay in the moment, relishing the way my pulse has increased, my heart galloping in my chest. Nothing has made me feel this way in the longest time.
“Tell me not to,” I whisper.
She doesn’t. Or can’t.
Her lips part, and I’m right there, my restraint unravelling thread by thread.