Chapter 6 #3
The way he smelled—leather, cedar, smoke, something unmistakably him.
He bent his head and pressed his lips to my cheek. Not rushed. Not demanding. Almost reverent. The kind of kiss that carried restraint instead of hunger—and somehow felt more dangerous for it.
When he finally pulled back, his hands lingered at my sides, reluctant.
His eyes were dark, pupils blown wide, control hanging by a thread.
He moved to the bed and sat on the edge, posture deceptively relaxed, then patted his thigh.
I let out a sharp laugh. “Hell no.”
I walked past him deliberately and dropped into the armchair across the room, folding one leg over the other, putting space and furniture between us on purpose.
I faced him squarely.
He sighed, running a hand through his hair, but the corner of his mouth lifted—just barely. Amused. Resigned.
My gaze betrayed me anyway.
The bulge straining against his trousers was unmistakable.
“You’ve been having sex with Seraphina, haven’t you?” I asked flatly.
“No.” His answer came too fast to be rehearsed. His voice was rough. “I haven’t.”
I looked up sharply. “How is that possible? They made you believe she was your lover.”
“They made me believe you were dead,” he corrected. His jaw tightened. “That was more useful to them. A grieving widower is easier to control than a man in love.”
That landed harder than I expected.
“Besides,” he continued, leaning forward, elbows braced on his knees, hands clasped. “I never found her attractive. I’ve seen her naked—multiple times. Forced proximity. Nothing.” His mouth twisted faintly. “She might as well be furniture.”
I raised an eyebrow. “And you’re hard now because...?”
He didn’t dodge it. Didn’t soften it.
“Because you fucking turn me on, Penelope.” His voice dropped, stripped of pretense. “That’s it. That’s the truth.”
Silence stretched between us, thick and humming.
“That’s why I wanted you as my sex slave at first,” he went on, unflinching. “I didn’t understand what I was feeling, so I reached for control. Ownership. Something temporary.” His eyes locked on mine. “But the more I thought about it, the more wrong it felt. I don’t want temporary.”
He straightened slightly.
“I want permanent,” he said. “I want you in my life—not as property. As mine.”
The words knocked the breath from my chest.
I exhaled slowly, lowering my head, fingers tightening around the armrest.
“I can’t help how I feel about you,” he said quietly now. “It’s old. Buried deep. But it’s crawling back up, piece by piece. And I don’t want to fight it anymore.”
I lifted my eyes to his.
The legendary Dmitri Volkov—cold, calculating, feared by entire syndicates—sat on the edge of my bed looking at me like I was the last solid thing keeping him from coming apart.
No commands.
No threats.
Just need.
Dmitri stood abruptly.
In two long strides he crossed the space between us, closing the distance until there was nothing left but heat and breath and the quiet hum of tension humming through my veins.
He stopped inches away.
Close enough that my body reacted before my mind could catch up—skin prickling, lungs tightening, pulse skidding.
The faint scent of cedar and leather wrapped around me, familiar in a way that hurt. Once, that smell had meant safety. Home. Sleep with my back turned and my guard down.
He lifted his hand slowly, giving me time to pull away if I wanted to.
I didn’t.
His thumb brushed beneath my chin, warm and steady, tilting my face upward until my eyes were forced to meet his.
His touch wasn’t claiming—it was grounding, anchoring, like he was making sure I was still here.
“Don’t think about it,” he said quietly.
“About what?” My voice betrayed me, thin and unsteady, the way it always got when I was standing on the edge of something dangerous.
“I know what the Albanians did to you.” His thumb stayed where it was, firm, solid. Not allowing me to disappear into myself. “I know how hard it is not to think about it. How it creeps in when everything goes quiet.”
My throat tightened.
“Is there anything I can do,” he continued softly, “anything at all—to take your mind off it right now?”
I swallowed, the motion tight and painful.
His face was so close I could see every detail—the sharp planes of his cheekbones, the faint scar along his jawline I had once traced with my fingertip under a Brooklyn moon, memorizing him like a promise.
My body betrayed me with humiliating speed. My nipples tightened beneath the thin silk of my pajama top, heat pooling low in my belly, sudden and undeniable.
The room felt smaller. The night pressed in around us, intimate and dangerous, heavy with unspoken want.
I tried to lower my head, to look away, to hide the flush creeping up my throat and into my cheeks.
His thumb refused to let me.
“Can I...” His voice dropped, roughened, barely more than a breath against my lips. “Can I kiss you?”
Something inside me fractured.
Not gently. Not slowly.
I surged forward, fingers curling into the front of his shirt, fisting the fabric as I yanked him down to me.
My mouth crashed into his—hard, desperate, reckless. There was no hesitation, no permission left to ask.
He responded instantly.
One hand slid to the back of my neck, fingers threading into my hair, holding me in place as the other wrapped around my waist, pulling me flush against him.
He sucked on my lower lip, teeth grazing just enough to sting, devouring me like a man who had been starving far longer than he wanted to admit.
The kiss was brutal and tender all at once.
Teeth clashed. Tongues tangled. His low groan vibrated straight through my mouth and into my chest, and I felt it everywhere. I kissed him back with equal hunger, like I could erase months of pain if I pressed hard enough.
Tears burned behind my eyelids.
They spilled over anyway, sliding hot down my cheeks, caught between us.
He still wanted me.
After everything—the cell, the chains, the way my body had been taken and used until I barely recognized it as mine—he still looked at me like this. Like I was something worth desiring. Worth touching. Worth wanting.
The realization cracked something open in my chest, grief flooding in fresh and sharp. I’d thought I’d gone numb to it. Thought I’d buried it deep enough.
I was wrong.
He broke the kiss just long enough to breathe, his forehead resting against mine, his hands shaking slightly as if he were holding himself back.
Then he lifted me.
Effortlessly.
His hands cupped my ass, strong and sure, and my body responded without conscious thought—my legs wrapping around his waist, clinging to him like instinct remembered before fear could interfere.
He carried me to the bed without breaking our connection, kisses trailing along my jaw, my throat, my mouth again, before lowering me gently onto the mattress.
Gently.
The contrast nearly undid me.
He straightened and pulled his shirt over his head in one smooth motion. Muscles shifted beneath scarred skin—old bullet wounds, knife marks, pale lines etched into him like a map of violence survived. A life lived hard and dangerous. A body that had endured and kept standing.
My hands shook as I tugged at my own top, shoving it over my head, breath coming too fast. I arched, reaching behind me to unhook my bra, but my fingers fumbled uselessly. They wouldn’t cooperate, trembling like they didn’t trust what came next.
Dmitri was there instantly.
He knelt between my thighs, movements slow now, deliberate, as if he were approaching something fragile instead of something he wanted desperately.
His hands slid around my back, warm and steady, anchoring me again.
“Look at me,” he murmured.
I did.
He unhooked the bra with practiced ease, then drew the straps down my arms slowly, reverently, like every second mattered. Like he was reminding me—reminding himself—that this was my body, my choice, my moment.
The lace fell away.
Cool air kissed my skin, raising goosebumps along my arms and ribs.
He didn’t rush. Didn’t touch right away.
He simply looked at me.
Not with hunger alone—but with awe. With something dangerously close to devotion.
Like I was still the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen.
And in that moment, lying beneath him with my heart exposed as much as my skin, I almost believed it too.
He stood, peeling off his trousers and boxers.
His erection sprang free—thick, hard, flushed dark with want.
My breath caught.
He bent again, fingers hooking into the waistband of my jeans.
I grabbed his wrist—instinctive, reflexive.
He froze instantly.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered, tears streaming now. “I’m sorry.”
He cupped my face with both hands, thumbs wiping the wet tracks from my cheeks. “I will personally deliver justice to every single one of them,” he said, voice low and lethal. “Every man who touched you. Every man who hurt you. They’ll beg for death before I’m finished.”
More tears fell.
I glanced down—his erection had softened slightly, the raw moment stealing the urgency from his body.
Panic flared.
“No—no, I want this,” I said quickly. “I want you.”
He searched my eyes for a long beat, then nodded once.
He tugged my jeans down slowly, carefully, peeling them off my legs.
My red cotton panties followed.
I was bare beneath him—completely exposed, scars and all.
The memories hit like a fist: rough hands pinning my wrists, cold stone against my back, the sour reek of sweat and liquor, my own screams echoing off the walls.
I flinched hard when his palm settled on my inner thigh.
He paused again. Gently parted my legs wider. Lowered his head.
I braced—expecting his mouth on me, craving it, needing something to overwrite the past.
But he stopped inches away. His breath ghosted over sensitive skin.
Then he lifted his head, eyes wide with something close to horror.
A single tear slipped from the corner of his eye.
It startled me more than if he’d pulled away completely.
“What?” My voice cracked, brittle with nerves and want. “Why did you stop?”
He swallowed hard.
His hand trembled as it hovered over me, then lowered—careful, reverent, as though my body might splinter under the wrong touch.
“You have scars,” he said hoarsely.
His fingertip traced a thin white line low on my abdomen. Not pressing. Just following the shape of it, as if memorizing.
“And here.” Another along my thigh, longer, jagged at the end.
“And this—”
His thumb stilled.
Hovered.
Just shy of a still-healing laceration near my entrance—raw, red, angry. Untreated because I’d learned the hard way that pain drawn attention. Because I’d learned survival sometimes meant neglect.
His breath hitched.
“This needs medical attention,” he said, voice breaking completely now. “Immediately.”
The words hit harder than any slap.
Humiliation crashed over me like ice water, stealing the air from my lungs.
I turned my face away, the ceiling blurring as my eyes burned. I didn’t want him to see this. Didn’t want him to see how ruined I was. How broken. How obvious it all was when someone finally looked closely.
“I’m fine,” I tried to say.
The lie shattered on my tongue.
The sobs came instead—quiet at first, leaking out in broken breaths I couldn’t stop.
Then harder. Louder. Chest-heaving, throat-scraping sobs that tore through me like something feral had been unleashed.
My body folded in on itself, instincts kicking in too late. I curled tight, arms wrapping around my knees, trying to make myself smaller. Trying to disappear.
Dmitri moved instantly.
There was no hesitation, no shock, no recoil.
He dropped onto the bed beside me and pulled me against his chest, firm and unyielding.
One arm wrapped around my back, the other cradled my head, anchoring me there whether I wanted it or not.
I broke.
I buried my face into the warm hollow of his throat and cried—hard, ugly, uncontrollable.
My tears soaked into his skin, my breath coming in gasps that scraped my lungs raw.
My voice went hoarse. My head pounded. Sweat broke out across my skin despite the chill in the room. My hands shook so violently I couldn’t unclench them even when my fingers cramped.
I wasn’t here anymore.
I was back in that cell—stone walls slick with damp, the stink of fear and unwashed bodies clinging to everything. I was pinned, used, reduced to something disposable.
The memories looped without mercy: rough hands, grunts and laughter, the metallic taste of blood when I bit my lip to keep from screaming louder. The way the door always closed behind them, sealing me back into the dark.
I whimpered.
Dmitri’s body went rigid for half a second—like a man restraining a killing instinct—then softened again. His hand moved in slow, steady circles across my bare back. Never straying too low. Never demanding. Just there. Present. Real.
“I’ve got you,” he murmured, over and over, his lips brushing my hair. “You’re here. You’re safe. I won’t let anyone touch you. Ever again.”
Gradually, painfully, the shaking eased. The sobs dulled into hitching breaths. My muscles unclenched one by one. The room crept back in—the quiet, the low hum of the house, the warmth of his skin beneath mine.
I realized, dimly, that I was safe.
Warm.
Held.
Exhaustion finally dragged me under like a tide I couldn’t fight.