Chapter 13
MIKHAIL
Iwalked Claire out of the room, scowling at how I’d found her so frightened again.
It hadn’t been easy this week, knowing she was here within my reach, yet so aloof and afar. Her dislike of who I was wasn’t something I could fail to notice. I felt her ire and frustration in the tension stringing between us. I saw her instant irritation at having to be in a crime lord’s home.
But there was no changing that. She was right. We were from two different worlds. I still couldn’t talk myself out of keeping her in mine for a little longer.
“It will be all right,” I told her, guiding her from this hallway and back toward the front of the building.
“Nothing is all right here, Mikhail,” she snapped. “Nothing is all right about this life you live.”
I bit my tongue, not rising to the obvious bait to argue with her on that point. We’d never see eye to eye. She’d never understand why I was in this position and how I would always keep this lifestyle. Being in power was in my blood. It was who I was in my soul.
Her judgment wasn’t necessary, though. I was keeping her safe.
My men were looking into the Popovs and the Giovannis to determine which one, or if both, had targeted her.
The Giovanni assassin I killed in the parking garage pointed the fingers at them.
But Andre and Roman uncovered and intercepted a sniper waiting to take her out at her apartment building, too, and that had Niko Popov’s name written all over it.
“Nothing is all right about deliberately choosing to hurt people. To kill them. To torture them!”
I urged her up the stairs faster, not willing to let her reach a hysterical decibel of protest out here where anyone could hear.
“Sometimes, things are as black and white as you might want them to seem.”
She whirled from me, yanking out of my grip as we reached the landing near her guest suite. “That’s not true! There is a clear difference between wanting to do good versus doing harm.”
“If you’re trying to persuade me to become a saint, it’s a lost cause, sweetheart.”
She slapped me, whipping her hand out with the hit.
I narrowed my eyes at her as I backed her into her room.
“Don’t you dare call me sweetheart. Like I’m some toy for you to keep, a prisoner to lock up here just because you think you’re the boss of me.”
I tilted my head to the side, knowing she would never, ever forgive me if I laughed at her now.
I was tempted to. Because I was the boss.
I would always be the fucking boss around here.
The longer I watched her, her eyes blazing bright with anger, her lips parted in a scowl, the more I couldn’t wish this away.
She was radiant, arguing back with me and giving as good as she got.
She wasn’t as na?ve and weak as I first thought.
Sheltered, yes. But so fucking passionate about her beliefs, too.
“I am the boss around here, Claire,” I reminded her tightly.
Instead of pushing her a little further and staying to argue some more, which would seriously challenge the control I had with her within my reach, I shook my head and backed up.
“Next time, don’t think you can go snooping.
If you can’t handle seeing a little bit of the hard side of life, stay in here. ”
“No.” She followed after me, furious and fired up. “I don’t want to stay here, dammit. Not anymore.”
I studied her, knowing she had to mean that to some degree. I’d heard her express it plenty of times.
Just this morning, I nearly tripped over my own feet, doing a double-take at catching her talking to Anya in the kitchen. My angry daughter had yet to speak to me. So, when I saw them seated together and both of them actually having a conversation, I accepted it as a breakthrough of some kind.
“I don’t want to be here,” Anya said stiffly when Claire asked if she wanted to be in school instead of stuck in this building all day long. “I don’t want to be here at all,” she insisted like the spoiled brat Olga’s family had turned her into.
Claire didn’t freak out or rush into a plan to spare my daughter, to free her. Instead, she candidly stared back at her and said, “Me too.” Raising one brow, she leaned over to rest her elbow on the counter and her chin in her hand as she asked, “What’s your story?”
Anya scrunched up her face. “You first.”
Claire shrugged. “I am a doctor. Your father came into the emergency room needing me to save his life.”
“You should’ve thought twice.”
Claire shook her head and lowered her gaze to her uneaten toast on the plate. “No. If I start thinking like that, I’m no better than any of them.”
It pissed me off, overhearing that. Not just because it proved how hateful Anya still was, but also because it sounded like Claire knew she was better and superior—at least morally—than I was.
And damn it all if that wasn’t the clearest reason I should give up on keeping this sexy doctor or imagining a start to anything with her.
“I need to leave,” Claire stated, jarring me out of the memory from this morning. “I can’t stay here, Mikhail. I should never have come here at all!”
“No.” I stalked toward her, pushed to counter her and make her understand that it wasn’t possible yet. For her safety. And for my desire.
“You can’t tell me what to do!” She flung her arms up, flustered, as she backpedaled.
I didn’t stop, walking her further into the room.
“I appreciate your saving my life that night. I do. I truly respect that you did a hard thing and killed that man before he killed me. Thank you. But I can’t stay here. I need to leave.”
“You can stay here,” I lied. “And you need to understand that I’m nowhere near ready to let you go.”
“It’s not up to you,” she shouted, pushing at my chest as the backs of her knees hit the bed. “You can’t control my life. You can’t decide when I’m a witness or accomplice to your crimes, dammit.”
“It’s not up to you, either, to escape.” I gripped her chin with my thumb and finger, tipping her face up as I stepped into her space. “I won’t let you decide when you can give up on this pull between us.”
Before she could retort anything else, I slid my hand up, quickly caressing her cheek so I could frame her face. Holding her secure, I pressed her toward me.
Our lips collided. Meeting in the middle with a sordid and brutal kiss, I forced her to feel the truth of what neither of us wanted to say.
This draw linking us like this wasn’t just chemistry we refused to address.
This deep desire that lurked beneath the surface wasn’t the result of the heat of the moment.
We were both riled up arguing, but caving to taste her lips, I experienced how this was lust ruling both of us. This need to strip her and peel all of her defensive layers away gnawed at my soul, leaving me wretched and yearning for her.
She was too good. I was too much of an asshole and a criminal.
After the initial surprise of my mouth hard on hers, she whimpered with need. As she lifted her hands and set them on my shoulders, she slanted her body toward mine.
“You can’t fight this,” I warned her once I parted from her lips.
She scowled, staring up at me with her mouth hanging open, her sweet breath whipping against my chin. In her eyes, I saw the submission, the bare realization that I was right about this.
“I don’t want to fight this anymore.” Hauling her against me until her slender form was flush with my body, I drowned myself in the potent bliss of kissing her. Of parting her lips and slipping my tongue in to explore and taste and devour.
There was not a fucking chance in hell that we could deny ourselves this inexplicable awareness and longing that bridged us together. We were opposites, there was no doubt about that, but we were in sync with how badly we craved each other.
Concluding our argument only happened with sparks flying. With her hands running through my hair so she could hold my head lower. With her breasts smashed against my chest as she tried to climb up into my embrace.
Kissing. Sucking. Moaning. And panting, staring at me wildly when we broke for air.
She was young, much younger than me, but with her kisses and her hungry touches, she proved to be a mature lover, a woman with needs and wants and naughty desires.
She wanted me. And I lost the fight to tell myself not to get involved with her.
“You can’t walk away from this.” I yanked on the zipper of her sweater, baring her in an instant. Seeing more of her smooth, fair skin revealed, I picked her up and brought my head in.
No bra. No constraints on her breasts. As I hoisted her into the air, I latched my mouth onto her nipple, tracing the hard bead with my tongue until she dropped her head back and cried out. Her legs wrapped around my waist as I carried her to the bed.
“You can’t walk away from me,” I declared, exerting all dominance into this moment.
She fell back onto the mattress, bouncing slightly as I gripped the waistband of her pants and panties before tugging them all the way off her slender legs.
Once more, before she could protest or lie that she didn’t want it, I kneeled and took hold of her thighs.
Forcing them apart, I stared at her pussy, dripping wet and shiny with her arousal, exposed and all for the taking.
I leaned in, swiping my tongue over her folds and smearing her juices.
“Oh, fuck, Mikhail. You—”
I put my hand on her stomach to push her down, forcing her to lie flat as I tasted and sucked on her sweet cunt, so ripe and juicy.
Then her clit, teasing that bundle of nerves.
Keeping my hand on her stomach and forcing her to stay down as I pleasured her, I gave it me all.
I set out to show her a world of blunt, wicked desire that she never could’ve expected.
Eating her pussy satisfied me for a while, but when she gripped my hand on her stomach, holding my fingers as if she needed to cling to something and ground herself, I doubled down. Lapping at her clit, I added my fingers into her tight cunt and fingered her smooth walls until she cried out.
“Mikhail! Oh, God. I… I… Fuck!”
She bucked and trembled, breathing so hard as she came with her first orgasm of the night.
“You don’t get to walk away from that,” I told her, cocky and smiling smugly as I continued to rub her pussy so she could ride out the waves of bliss from her climax.
Almost like she was thrashing on the bed, she shook her head quickly.
“And you don’t get to think about walking away when you drive me insane like this,” I said, using my free hand to undo my pants and shove them down. Still in too many clothes, I leaned toward the bed at the same time I dragged her closer.
Her legs wrapped around my waist.
Her tangy, sweet taste clung to my lips.
And her pussy sucked me in, gloving me snugly, as I lined up my cock to her entrance and slammed all the way in.
Crying out loudly, she arched her back and reached her hands out to me.
“You can’t deny this,” I growled at her as I began a quick pattern of thrusting into her. “You can’t walk away from what we share.”
Right now, I was fucking her mindlessly, but this lust that had propelled us closer to each other was a mutual connection we couldn’t hide from.
“Fuck. Mikahil. Oh, fucking…” She clung to my forearms as I kept my hands on her hips, plowing into her tight heat. “I’m going to come again,” she moaned, the torture on her face so exquisite that I wanted to brand this night into my mind forever.
Seeing her submit. Watching her come apart.
It was the reward I’d been craving. The high I had been chasing and talking myself out of for days.
“Come. You’re going to take this dick like the good girl you are.” I gritted my teeth, pounding into her and holding back until she beat me there. “Come for me, Claire. Suck my dick into that fucking cunt and take it all.”
She cried out again, trying to lift her hips to match my thrusts.
In the next stroke, she stiffened then jerked up toward me.
Shouting out incoherent sounds and words, she fell back just as quickly.
Her thighs quivered as she cinched her legs around my waist. Clumsy and disoriented, she lifted her arms up to let them fall on the bed.
Wrapped around my dick, her pussy clenched me and pushed me to finally let go.
To give in.
To break down and realize as my climax had me roaring and gripping her hips to the point of bruising her, that I was delusional to believe I’d never have another woman in my life.
I had her—right now, right here.
And as I collapsed over her, wedging my dick deep into her and flooding her with my cum, I knew this wouldn’t be the first and last time I’d need her like this.