6. Kira
KIRA
I'd been staring at the same wall for so long, I could've drawn the pattern of the paint texture from memory.
So when Vlad unlocked the door and told me to come downstairs for dinner, I didn't argue.
Boredom didn't begin to describe what I felt.
My legs were stiff from lying in bed most of the day and my stomach had gone past hunger to the point where my stomach no longer growled.
Like my body was adjusting to starvation and not even crying for help anymore.
I hadn't eaten a real meal in close to a week.
Anya brought trays and I picked at them, mostly moving food around the plate until she came back to collect it.
It was a hunger strike in its truest sense because I was miserable, and miserable people don't eat.
But the look on Vlad's face told me I didn't have a choice.
I was cursed with being forced to dine with Nikolai and watch him devour food right in front of me.
Niko was already seated at the head of the table with a glass of red wine when I walked in and his eyes raked over me hungrily.
I hid behind my crossed arms, embarrassed by his attention.
I was still in his boxers and his T-shirt because he hadn't bothered to give me anything else, and I felt half-dressed even though I was technically covered.
"Sit," he said, nodding at the chair to his right.
I pulled it out and dropped into it as Anya had set the table with roasted chicken, potatoes, some kind of greens, and bread that was still warm enough to have steam curling off it.
A wineglass sat at my place, already filled.
Despite my hunger, I reached for the wine first.
"You look thin," Niko said as I drank, "and pale."
"Mind your own business." While his tone was one of genuine concern, I was still angry with him.
I didn't need his pity or sympathy.
He was a monster.
"You are my business. You're living in my house."
"I'm a prisoner in your house. I don't live here." I took another long sip and set the glass down. The wine was too good. It went down easily. I could already feel it warming my empty stomach, which was a dangerous combination and I knew it.
This was how it all started last week when he dragged me here, playing hero.
Niko cut into his chicken and ate without responding to me.
I watched him for a second and then pulled the bread toward me and tore off a piece.
I didn't want to give him the satisfaction of eating his food, but it felt like torture at this point.
He had no intention of letting me go just because I was starving myself.
I didn't know if he was even paying attention to that or if Anya had told him.
"You should eat more than bread," he said without looking up.
"You should stop telling me what to do."
He set his fork down and leaned back in his chair, studying me.
I hated the way it made me feel like I was being observed under a microscope.
My cheeks burned and I shoved another bite of bread into my mouth. It melted on my tongue as I closed my eyes and tried to savor how delicious it was.
When I was done chewing and swallowing carefully, I chased it with the rest of the wine and finally got the nerve to say what I wanted to say to him.
"You know what I don't understand?" I said, pushing my wineglass toward him. As I was speaking, he took the bottle and refilled it. "When we were texting you were so…" I trailed off because the word I wanted felt stupid coming out of my mouth.
"So what?" Nikolai set the bottle down, watching me with amusement on his face.
"Kind." I couldn't keep the bitterness out of my voice. "You were kind, Niko. You asked me about my day. You remembered things I told you. You made me feel like you actually cared about me, and the whole time, you were just setting a trap."
It only made me angrier when he kept eating, shoving food into his face without a care in the world.
"I trusted you," I continued. Maybe I was a fool for going off on him, but it had to be said. I deserved better than what he'd done to me, and he had hurt me. "I literally broke my father's rules to sneak out and be with you."
Tears started welling up in my eyes as I thought of how hard I had fallen for him.
He was so incredible and it felt so perfect.
Too good to be true, really, which was my mistake.
I knew it was too good to be true, but I went with the thrill of chemistry, not the wisdom of logic.
My hand shook as I downed the second glass of wine and set it back on the table, then tore into the chicken hungrily.
I ignored table manners, eating with my fingers rather than cutting the meat off the bone with a knife and fork, but it distracted me from crying.
Letting him see me cry would only feel worse.
It would legitimize the heartbreak I felt which he had caused.
Niko refilled my glass again and I didn't stop him.
I should've.
I knew where drinking on an empty stomach was going to take me, but the wine was dulling the sharp edges and after days of being angry and crying, I wanted to feel free again.
"You seem flustered," he said after a minute of silence where I drank and picked at a potato.
"I'm angry."
"I noticed something, Kira…" Nikolai leaned forward, resting his elbows on the table, and said, "When I'm around you, you get bent out of shape. That makes me react and I raise my voice… Then you get all flustered. Your pupils blow wide and your breathing changes."
"Because I'm scared of you." My heart fluttered as I stared at my plate, refusing to make eye contact. He was right, though. He did get me flustered.
Somewhere under the fear, there was something that responded to his authority.
When he pinned me to the wall and told me he didn't have to play nice, my heart was pounding so hard I could hear it, and not all of that was terror.
Some of it was the same thing I'd felt on the couch the night he took me, when he told me what to say and how to say it and my body was set on fire by his voice alone.
I hated it.
This man could scare me and turn me on in the same breath and he knew it.
I drank more wine and pushed my plate away.
The food was good, but I couldn't focus on eating when my head was already swimming and my thoughts were going somewhere I hadn't planned.
I didn’t want to be turned on by him, and I didn't want to feel aroused.
But an idea played at the back of my mind.
The man who texted me for two weeks was calculated, sure.
He'd built a version of himself designed to win me over.
But those calculations and schemes could go both ways.
Niko was a hard man, difficult to read.
But like every man, he had a weakness, and I was willing to bet that weakness was sex, just like every other man on this planet.
It was stupid and reckless and probably the wine talking.
But the only weapon I had was the one thing I knew affected him.
I ran my finger along the rim of my glass and let my eyes stay on his a beat longer than I needed to.
"This wine is really good," I said as my mind tried to figure out how to do this. I'd been nasty with him and treated him poorly. It wouldn't do to just start throwing myself at him in hopes to manipulate him. He would see right through me.
"It's from a vineyard in Tuscany. I go there every fall."
"Do you travel a lot?" I tilted my head and let genuine curiosity into my expression. It wasn't hard because I was genuinely curious. I'd always been curious about him and that was the whole problem.
I had been hooked on him and that dazzling smile since day one.
Faking being interested wasn't really all that fake for me.
"When business allows."
"You never told me that when we were texting. You told me about St. Petersburg and your mother's cooking, but you never mentioned Italy."
Nikolai lifted an eyebrow and cocked his head.
The corner of his mouth twitched like he wanted to smile or maybe smirk, but he kept a placid exterior as he chewed his food then swallowed. "There's a lot I didn't tell you," he said.
"Like what?" I leaned forward on my elbow and let my chin rest on my hand. The T-shirt shifted when I moved. I felt the V neck dip a little, maybe exposing some cleavage, and I didn't fix it. "I mean, if I'm stuck here, you could at least be interesting."
He wiped his mouth and sat back, saying, "Careful, Kira. Remember what happened last time you drank around me." I almost rolled my eyes and scoffed at that. The "last time" was the only time I'd drunk around him and I remembered very clearly.
It was why my body already felt warm at the thought of him touching me again.
But this time, I was in control of myself.
I wasn't drinking alcohol to lose my inhibitions with a man I just met.
I was choosing every sentence cautiously to craft a specific response from him.
So far, it was sort of working.
"You're the one who keeps refilling my glass," I pointed out.
I held his stare and took another slow sip. The wine was warm going down and it made my whole body feel loose and heavy, and I told myself the flush creeping up my neck was the alcohol and nothing else.
This was going to be a dangerous game.
I knew that.
Playing with someone like Niko was like reaching into a fire and hoping you'd only get warm.
But I didn't have any other cards left, and if flirting with my captor was the only move available to me, then I'd play it until something broke.
I just had to make sure it wasn't me.
I kept my eyes locked on his and let my finger trace the rim of the glass one more time, picking up the droplet clinging there after my last sip.
The wine hummed in my veins, loosening everything that had been knotted up inside me for days.
"You know," I said softly, "I used to picture you like this when we texted. Sitting across from me, looking at me the way you are right now." The way he looked at me was almost devastating, and it would be if I let it. He was so handsome.
Nikolai pushed his plate aside and rested his forearms on the table.
His gaze dropped to the way the T-shirt collar had slipped lower on my chest. "You pictured me?
" One eyebrow lifted as he folded his fingers together.
I had him eating out of my hand now. I imagined his dick was already getting hard.