Chapter 12 Bella
BELLA
The New York skyline doesn't give a shit about my crisis.
It just keeps glittering indifferently while I stand on a balcony thirty floors up clutching the necklace my brother stole. The summer breeze is unusually cool. But the humidity leaves my exposed back and shoulders sticky with sweat, and no hope of relief.
Spread those pretty long legs that Luca never told us about and get in bed with him.
Is it this obvious?
I pull a deep breath, and look out into the haze of the city amidst the sound of honking cars and muffled music.
Do I look like I want to jump Slava’s bones every time he enters a room? Is my desire so nakedly transparent that anyone who bothers to look can see it? Nico doesn’t even know me, and somehow he managed to pick up on it.
"You look like you're plotting murder."
My body goes rigid for a fraction of a second—a betrayal I'll punish myself for later—but I manage to stop myself from flinching at the sound of Slava’s voice. "Maybe I am."
"Anyone I know?"
You, I think. You, specifically, constantly, for five years.
"Undecided," I say instead.
Slava moves into my peripheral vision, and I hate that my body can track him without my permission. He's carrying two drinks, one in each hand. He stops beside me, and hands one to me.
I turn, and find his eyes hard with something warm and hot that screams he doesn’t want to be here with me.
A part of me—the part that’s honest and realistic about who and what we are—knows that I don’t have to accept it, that I shouldn’t accept it, and that if I accept it, then I’ll be crossing a line that I can’t ever come back from.
I take the glass, our fingers brush again, and I hate how good his touch burns me.
I take a sip and turn back to the skyline because looking at him is too much.
"What did he say to you?"
"Who?"
"Don't deflect, Bella." His voice is soft, but there's an edge underneath it. He’s angry, I can tell. But the anger isn’t directed at me. It’s directed away from me and he hefts it like a shield. "And tell me what the fuck he said, because clearly it's bothering you."
I blink at the skyline. My fingers tighten on the glass.
He murdered her after he raped her.
Why am I having such a hard time believing that? After all the times that his touch has turned so sinfully inappropriate, am I really so na?ve as to believe that he wouldn’t be capable of crossing that final heinous line?
That has to be it, right?
I’ll let him cross line after line, and break boundary after boundary. But until he proves that he is able to do what Nico accuses him of doing, I can’t bring myself to believe that claim.
I stay silent.
"Bella. Look at me."
I don't want to. Looking at him is dangerous. Looking at him makes me stupid and soft. It makes me forget that I'm here to destroy him. And if I forget that, then what is there left?
His fingers touch my chin, and tip my face towards him with a pressure that's firm and commanding, but not violent or cruel.
I comply, hating myself in the process, and look at him.
The sticky evening breeze ruffles his hair, and the evening light gilds the small scar on his chin. His eyes are focused on me with an intensity that steals the breath from my lungs. As the warmth of his touch pours into me, my heartbeat slows until it reaches a steady rhythm.
He's too close. We're too close. When did we get this close?
My eyes drop to his lips.
I can't help it. I've been fighting the impulse all night and I can't help it. His mouth is right there, inches from mine, and I want so badly to know what it might taste like.
His thumb strokes the jut of my chin where Nico gripped me, like he’s trying to erase the evidence of Nico’s touch.
"What did he say?" Slava asks again, and his voice is softer now, which is worse.
I don't know how to fight softness.
He told me you’re a murderer. That you’re a rapist. But I don’t want to believe him.
"He accused me," I say, and my voice is too breathy. Fuck, I need to get it together. "Of wanting to sleep with you."
Slava's expression doesn't change, but his gaze intensifies. A new darkness—possessive and hungry—flits into them. "Don’t you?"
The question is so direct it takes the breath out of me. No games, no subtext, and no double meanings to hide behind. Just a yes or no question, plain and simple. But he delivers it like he already knows the answer and wants to hear me say it.
"No." The word comes out too fast, too fierce. "I would rather die than sleep with my brother's killer."
Slava smiles and my heart skips.
That's the wrong response. That's such a wrong response that I want to reach into my own chest and shake my cardiac muscle into behaving itself. A man I just accused of murder is smiling at me like I'm a puzzle he can't wait to solve, and my body is responding like this is foreplay.
What the fuck is wrong with me?
"Liar." Slava’s voice is as soft as a caress.
"I'm not—"
His hand drops from my chin, and I should feel relieved, I should feel like I've won something, but instead I feel the absence of his touch like a wound.
"You changed your name to get closer to me,” he says. “You inserted yourself into my life and my business. And every time I look your way, I catch you staring.”
He leans in closer with every phrase.
"You’re obsessed with me, Bella. I can feel it. I can smell it. I can practically taste it if I’m close enough.”
My dress has an open back. I chose it deliberately as my armor. I did not anticipate Slava’s fingers traveling up the curve of my spine, and tracing the sweaty exposed skin above the fabric with a light yet hungry touch.
“You’re delusional,” I say. “You’re just projecting what you want onto me.”
“Or I’m holding up a mirror of what you want to do to me.”
We are now so close that we’re far beyond the limits of appropriate distance. My back presses against the balcony railing. Sweat continues to roll down my skin. His body is a wall of fire against mine, burning every inch of me up through my dress.
Then his hand finds my waist.
I need to pull away and throw my drink in his face. But I stay still and let his hand keep traveling upward. A bead of sweat rolls down my back and melts into his fingertips trailing fire up my spine.
His fingers find the back of my neck to cradle my nape in his palm, I clench my jaw in time to prevent a whimper from escaping my lips.
Slava clinks his drink on the railing next to me and the clink of glass on metal might as well be a gunshot going off next to my head.
“Clearly, we’re at an impasse,” he says.
“Clearly,” I echo.
“So how do you want to prove it?”
“Prove what?”
“Prove that you don’t want to fuck me.”
“How?”
“Kiss me,” Slava says.
"What?"
"Kiss me." His fingers tighten slightly on my nape, sending hot sparks down my spine. "If you’re not obsessed with me, then you can kiss me and walk away."
"You’re out of your mind."
"Are you afraid you'll lose?"
The dare lands exactly where he intends, and we stare at each other in the sticky evening breeze.
"Do your fucking worst," I whisper, as butterflies roil my stomach.
"One day, malyshka," he says softly as heat, hunger, and deadly satisfaction flash across his handsome face. "You'll regret those words."
He leans in. But I’m the one who closes the gap.
The kiss is light, quick, and for all intents and purposes, chaste. Our lips barely touch. The contact is nothing more than a brief brush that it’s almost not there.
And yet, it still sets every inch of me on fire, igniting me from head to toe. It races through my veins, makes me forget how to breathe, and sends my head spinning. My fingers curl into fists at my sides because if I don't anchor them, they're going to reach for him.
And if I touch him, I'm never going to stop.
A moan climbs to my throat. I swallow it back before he hears and the only thing in my mind is that his lips are soft.
But then I feel it. There’s a slight pressure of response—a microsecond where he keeps his lips on mine.
And I do something reckless. I let my tongue dart out to feather his lips, and give myself a taste of what a real kiss from him might feel like before I pull away, breathless and wide-eyed at the realization of what I’ve done.
I force myself to regain my composure, reach for the version of me that lied her way into his life, and look him straight in his winter-gray eyes. "See? Nothing."
The silence stretches between us. He's reading me. I can feel him looking for cracks, for tells, for any sign that the lie is what it is.
His hand slides away from my neck.
No. The protest rises up instinctively, and I shove it down so hard it leaves bruises.
He picks up the drink he set down earlier, and takes a sip. "If you say so."
Then he walks away, and I turn back to face the city as the sound of the gala crescendos when Slava opens the door, and then dims again when it closes behind him.
I reach for the remaining drink on the railing with shaking hands because I need something to hold.
My fingers are clumsy and the drink topples off the railing.
See? Nothing.
I can still taste him on my lips.