Chapter 6 #2
I manage to sneak in using a few lock-picking tricks—ones I learned on the streets after I’d escaped my childhood prison—and then I tiptoe to his bed. It’s hard to be really stealthy because I’m still a little dizzy, but I manage to wiggle my way into his bed without him waking up.
But as soon as my body settles next to him, he’s on me, his body trapping mine beneath him. His hand is at my throat, the other holding a syringe near my jugular.
My dick twitches excitedly.
“Blyat, Bane. Do not sneak up on me while I sleep.”
“But you look hot when your eyes are closed.”
“You’ll rip your stitches.”
“There aren’t that many of them,” I say, touching the bandage on my shoulder where he implanted the tracking device. It makes my heart pitter-patter wildly in my chest. I can’t believe him.
He’s so romantic.
“I don’t want to have to suture you up again,” he says.
“You enjoy it. Admit it,” I reply with a wide grin.
He slips off me, tucking the syringe under his pillow and pulling the blankets up to his chin. He’s always wearing something. Right now, he’s wearing these silk pajamas that expose nothing to me.
It’s very infuriating.
I want to see more of him.
I want to see him naked.
“I would enjoy it more if you were quiet.”
“I can be the quietest,” I whisper as I shift on the bed. I never did bother to put clothes on. We really are quite the opposite.
I reach down for the sheets, tugging on them a little too roughly. In a flash, they’re pulled off Georgiy, and he sighs.
“Bane,” he murmurs.
“Sorry about that. I got a little aggressive with the sheets.”
“You should be lying in your own bed.”
“I don’t want to. This is better for me.”
I try to arrange the sheets, but end up making a bit of a tangled mess. They bunch at the end of the bed, and Georgiy ends up lying there without anything to cover him. Which is much better in my opinion. He looks wonderful in those pajamas.
“Umnyashka,” he rumbles, and my heart pitter-patters when he calls me that. I love when he talks Russian. I don’t know what it means, but I know it’s something special.
“Sorry. I know I sometimes get a little overzealous.”
I step out of bed and rearrange the sheets, trying not to touch him if I can help it. But my fingers may skim the fabric covering his chest. I can feel his eyes on me as I move, calculating and curious. He even eyes my cock for a long moment, which means he likes what he sees.
“There. Better?”
“Passable,” he says, and I puff up slightly. Passable is very good in my book.
Crawling in next to him, I pull the sheets carefully over my body and turn to face him.
When he doesn’t acknowledge me, I wiggle a little closer.
“Stop moving,” he says roughly, and I try to stop, but I can’t help myself.
“I can’t. I’m like a moth attracted to the light. Just let me live, Georgiy.”
He huffs and then scoots a little to the right, only for me to follow until I’m almost pressed up against him.
This close, I can smell him, the scent so masculine and potent. I want to lick my way up his body. Not that he’d let me. He never lets me touch. It’s worse than torture.
My nose brushes against his arm, and I burrow in a little further.
“Did I say you could touch?” he asks, always needing to be in control.
“Um, in my head, you did. It was the best response, considering you ignored me for weeks.”
He huffs and then shifts slightly, letting me nuzzle into him.
“Fine. No skin though. Not until I tell you you can.”
“Okay.”
I throw my leg over his and press my hand to his chest.
“Can I ask you a question?”
“If I say no, will you listen?”
“No, probably not.”
“Go on then.”
“Why did you disappear?” I ask. “Why did you ignore me?”
He doesn’t respond, but I can feel the uptick in his heartbeat.
“Is it going to be a mystery?” I ask and then lean up slightly, looking into his eyes—which are closed. So I pretend he’s looking at me through his eyelids.
“Go to sleep, Bane.”
“You know I can’t just fall asleep.”
He huffs, and then I close my eyelids, letting myself just exist.
And within minutes, I’m dead to the world.
I remember again—the smell of wet soil, the way my fingernails ache as I dig through the walls. I want to breathe. I want to see the sky. But as I attempt to escape this prison, I realize that the darkness is my friend.
If I’m quiet, the men who are sent down here have a hard time finding me. Sometimes they miss me entirely.
I stare down at my dirt-covered arms and hands, and I smear some on my face.
If I don’t breathe, if I stand perfectly still, I blend into the earth.
I still don’t know what he wants from me. He’s never told. He wants me to figure it out, but I’m not a mind reader. I’m just a child.
Well, not a young child anymore. I don’t know how long I’ve been down here.
My fingernail catches on a rock and rips in half, making me whimper in pain. It slithers through me, setting my teeth on edge, but then I breathe through it and let it strengthen me.
Little do I know that the pain I swallowed, that I kept hidden inside me, would be the cause of ecstasy one day.
But right now, as a feral child, it’s nothing more than something to strengthen me. To make me fight against those who want to torture me.
Something moves above me, and I freeze, pushing myself farther into the hole I’ve dug out of the crumbling wall.
Footsteps.
“Where is the little rat?”
I hold my breath, closing my eyes so they can’t see the whites of them.
“He’s always hiding. Boss wants him upstairs.”
I remain still as the two men move around the cellar, trying to find me. But I’m hidden.
That is, I think I am.
Suddenly, hands grab onto me, dirt spilling off me and onto the ground as I’m wrenched from the hole.
I struggle, fight like hell to escape, but I’m shaken so badly that my teeth rattle, my body going limp as they drag me through the tunnel.
My body knocks into stones and glass, and I feel the way my skin bleeds.
I expect to be dragged up the stairs, but I’m not. Instead, I can feel him. The presence of evil.
My eyelids blink up at the man looming over me. The one in the shadows.
Death incarnate.
“He’s covered in filth,” Death says.
“He’s always like this.”
I hear knees pop as he lowers himself next to me, his hand stroking my hair gently before those talons grip onto me tightly and force my face into the ground. I can’t breathe, my hands trying to claw their way out, to be free. But I’m inhaling it. I can’t breathe. I can’t…
I wake up, my eyes opening, my breathing slightly ragged.
The vision of the man from my past fades.
The man who tried to kill me so many times, who stuffed me in the cellar and watched me bleed, but I don’t know his name.
I don’t even know his face. He’s a shadow.
A ghost of my past. The one who made me who I am today.
“What is it?” Georgiy asks, and I swallow roughly, nuzzling into him, smelling the scent of his deodorant. It settles me.
“A memory,” I rasp, my hand settling on his heart. It’s a steady thrum.
“Not a dream?”
“No.”
He’s silent for a long while, and then I hear him exhale. “I’ll keep you safe, umnyashka.”
“What does it mean? The name you call me?”
“It’s a pet name, not entirely proper Russian. It’s more like slang. It means…” he hesitates, trying to put it into words. “…clever boy.”
“I am clever.”
“You are.”
I sigh, letting his words settle over me. Comforting. No one’s ever really looked out for me like this. He cares, in his own way.
“Sleep.”
I close my eyes and lean into him more. I rest, but I don’t go back to sleep.
I don’t want to remember.