Chapter 27
Ilya
Learning of the true extent of her inexperience has both tamed the monster inside me and pushed him to the very edge of his control. Her innocence is the only thing that holds my urge to claim her at bay. It’s also the thing I crave most to claim.
I don’t know how someone so alluring, so beautifully sensational and entirely unaware of her appeal, has remained innocent for twenty-one, nearly twenty-two years. I know for a fact that at least one man has tried his hand at making her his. Even thinking of how her boss had asked her out sparks a jealous, possessive wildness inside me that I have to work to tame.
Opening the door of the bathroom, I step into the candlelit space. I’m awarded with a sharp, sugary little gasp. Then she breathes my name in that husky, sweetly tempting way she does.
If she knew how it nearly brings me to my knees every time she does it… Fuck.
The power this woman wields over me.
She tries to cover her naked body from the gaze I rake over her and fails. Desire slams hot inside my body, but I force myself to move to the head of the tub. I shed my jacket and roll my sleeves, lowering onto my knees as she sits up to look over one slender shoulder at me. Her blue eyes are big with uncertainty and—longing?
Christ, I hope so.
“Let me wash your hair.” I reach for the clip she has holding her strawberry gold hair on the top of her head.
“No.” She leans away from me, adding, “I washed it last night. My scalp will hurt if I wash it too often.”
I concede, reaching for the body wash that smells like me. I really need to order some things for her. Or better yet, take her shopping.
But I like when she smells like me. I like her in my clothes.
I should have known better than to think I was cut from a cloth different from my father. I always wondered if the day would come when I’d fall into this dangerous obsession for a woman, I would make mine. Then, when I struggled to feel any kind of interest in any woman, I thought that maybe obsession wouldn’t be for me, after all.
I should have known better. After the way my cruel and unaffected father fell for my mother, and my younger brother, Kane, fell for his now wife, Nevaeh, I should have known my own time to obsess over a woman was only a matter of time.
Rubbing the soap into a lather of suds, I bring my hands to her skin. She’s so soft. A glaring contradiction to the rough pads of my scarred, calloused hands.
Her skin is smooth and unmarred. The wounds of a war shrouded in shadows don’t paint her flesh as they mar mine. Her flesh isn’t thick with experience, colored with the stain of time. Youth clings to her like the innocence I long to taint, to claim. So pale and lovely.
From where her head is still turned to me, I watch as her pink lips part on a shallow inhale. Hunger gnaws inside me that I ignore, my hands caressing her soft flesh as I rub the soap over her back. After a minute, some of the tension leaks from her body, and she leans forward to relax her front against raised knees.
Sighing, she rests her face on the arms she’s folded atop her knees, then, as I continue to massage her gently with my newly gentle hands, she speaks. “Do you really kill people or is that something you said to make me afraid of you.”
I recover from the shock of her words slowly.
She waits, patiently, for my reply.
I clear my throat, working the pad of my thumb into the back of her arched neck. She moans. I savor it like the rarest of wine, the sweetest of chocolate.
This woman.
I don’t want to lie to her.“I’ve killed many men, Irelynn.”
She doesn’t even look at me. My hands work the tension from her body as her head rests against her arms, her lovely eyes closed as though she’s not in the presence of a monster. A killer. An abomination of everything good and tender that she deserves.
When she says nothing, I ask, “That doesn’t frighten you anymore?”
Her shoulder lifts in a shrug, but her eyes remain closed. “Are you going to hurt me?”
“Never.” When she fails to reply, something resembling annoyance pricks inside me. “Do you believe me?”
“Would it matter either way?”
“No.”
She laughs. Why is she laughing? Then, “Will you tell me about your childhood?”
“Will you tell me about yours?”
“Yes.” Behind that one word, I hear the ocean of sadness that swims in her lovely blue eyes.
My heart thuds. I suddenly need to know everything, and I need to know now. My hands move to her arms as I rub the suds in soothing circles. “You first.”
She shakes her head, withholding stubbornly. “That’s not how this works.”
I sigh, not sure how much I should tell her. “I’m the middle of two brothers. My youngest brother is Kane Volkov, from a band you might recognize as Devils Heartbreak.”
At her gasp, I know that she does, in fact, recognize the name of the band, and probably the name of my brother.
I feel jealous.
Finally, her blue eyes are open, and she’s lifted her head to look at me. “He’s your brother?” Her eyes are raking over me now, and she nods to herself. “I guess I can see the resemblance. But you’re?—”
My hands stop moving over her skin. “I’m what?”
Less?
Am I holding my breath?
“You’re so much more intense.” Her words are so quiet, and yet they crash into me like the violent wave of an angry sea.
I am more.
I resume rubbing the suds into her skin, aware now, of the goosebumps that pebble her flesh. “My older brother’s name is Kirill. He runs Volk Vault Bank.”
I don’t expect her to recognize my older brother. She leans into my touch. “Are you close?”
“If you’re asking if I care for them, then yes, I do.”
“Do you see them often?”
“No, not often. But when I can.”
There’s a pause. I’m dying to ask about her now, but she presses, “You’re very busy, aren’t you?”
“I am.”
“If you manage to keep me as your prisoner, do you intend to leave me often while you’re away on business?”
“I will keep you, Irelynn. But I will keep you as my wife.” A shiver passes through her body that I feel in the palm of my hands. “And, although I would like to bring you with me always, there are times that I will leave you here. For your own safety.”
“I’ll never marry you, Ilya.” When I don’t bother to reply, she huffs a sigh. “Tell me about your parents.”
“My father is—” I pause. “He’s a very successful, very dangerous man. He loves my mother fiercely.”
“Why doesn’t that surprise me?” She smarts, and I can just imagine that she’s rolling her eyes. My lovely, brave Little Blue. Before I can respond, she presses, “Does your father kill people, too?”
I don’t answer as I grip her shoulders, pulling her back into the water to rinse the soap from her back and arms. The swell of her breasts draws my eye, and I can’t help but take in the pretty pink peaks of her nipples.
I want to lean forward and flick the tip of one with my tongue. I want to suck on the other.
My groin tightens.
I stand, moving to the foot of the tub, I sit on the ledge. She watches me with guarded curiosity as I dip my hand into the water to close my fingers around one slender ankle. I’m impressed, and a little surprised, when she cocks a daring brow at me when I pointedly steal a glance at her naked, on display, body. She doesn’t even bother to cover herself.
Does that mean she likes when I look? Does she want me to look?
Is she hungry for me now like I am for her?
For the first time in my life, I wish I had more experience with women. I have plenty of experience fucking them. Or I did in my earlier years, when I was chasing the gratification of my own release. As the years passed, the chasing slowed. I tried for interest, and failed to find any in any of the women I gave my time.
Without interest, I’d never bothered to learn to read the subtle signs of a woman’s desire. Before her, I’d never bothered. I took when the urge struck, and walked away when I was done.
I endeavor to watch her closely now. I lift her foot onto my lap, spreading her legs just enough that her cunt is on display. Fuck, she’s perfect.
And my cock is hard, straining against my pants.
Like I rubbed soap into her back, I start again at her foot. Swiping my thumb with pressure along the arch of her foot, I watch, enthralled, as she lets her head relax against the back of the tub, lips parting in silent pleasure because she hasn’t allowed one of her little moans free yet.
“It’s your turn, Little Blue. I want to hear about you now.”
My hand moves to her ankle, then her calf, working into the muscle. This time, she frees a moan that pushes the monster an inch closer to his ledge. “Unlike you, I was an only child.” Her eyes close, and a soft smile I’ve yet to see touches her lips. My heart skips. She’s beautiful. “I was a happy kid. Mom and Dad both loved me, but when Mom died unexpectedly—she went under anesthesia and never woke—I realized that Dad loved her more than he ever loved me.”
Her smile turns sad, trembling on her lips.
My hands stall. My heart seizes. For a moment, I’m rendered breathless.
She begins again, a haunting lilt to the sadness in her voice. “He made me waffles for breakfast one morning. They were my favorite. When she was alive, Mom made them every Sunday morning, with berries and whip cream drizzled in syrup and sprinkled with icing sugar.” A single tear slides from one closed eye to slide down her face. I hold my breath. “He hugged me tight and told me he loved me before I left for school. It was six months after Mom—after she—died.” Her voice cracks, pain seeping from a small sob. “I found him when I came home after school that day. The stack of waffles was crusty on the counter, the waffle iron open and unplugged next to a bowl of hard batter. At first, I thought he was asleep.”
Her eyes open to connect with mine. Sadness swims in the blue.
I croak, “Little Blue…”
“The empty container of pills was on the nightstand. I didn’t register the reality when I first saw it, either. He was lying in bed. He was pale, but he’d been pale since we lost her.” She doesn’t bother to flick away the tears that stream steadily down her face.
She’s beautiful, even when she cries.
“He was holding a big armful of her clothes, his face buried into the fabric as though he’d fallen asleep inhaling the scent of her.” She doesn’t tear her eyes from mine as I listen to her recount a terrible past, I would do anything to erase. “I didn’t realize he was dead until I touched him. He was so cold—” the word hitches on a sharp, bladelike sob. It cuts deep into me. Flaying me. “I was put into the foster system from there. I was fifteen.”
“Irelynn,” I start, but she interrupts me.
“I’m not done.” She pulls her foot from my lap and sits up in the water. Her blue eyes swim, but I hear anger in the sadness. “It wasn’t a good home. My foster father drank too much, and my foster mother hated her life, and everyone in it. She numbed herself with soap operas and pills, but I was too afraid to do anything that would have my life uprooted again, so I never complained. I was quiet, and I kept to my room. I didn’t want to be another foster horror story.”
There’s a bitter bite to her words. She continues, “I’d had enough horror already. But that didn’t matter, because in the end, their son came home from college, and tried to take what wasn’t his. For a while, I was so afraid, I let him touch me?—”
Red bursts behind my eyes, like a vision of blood. My ears ring.
“Then one night, when he tried to take it further, I freaked. I clawed his face so badly; I had his skin under my nails. He’d been bleeding, shouting at me. But I’d been so afraid, I had my calculous textbook on the nightstand, and I slammed it into his head over and over. He’d been unconscious when Mrs. Wilson came into the room. Her scream stopped me—and I thought—I thought I killed him. I grabbed my backpack and ran.” She holds my eyes, tiny and brave, and so sad. “I became just another homeless kid lost to the system. No one looked for me, and I didn’t finish school. My first job, I was paid under the table. This whole time, I thought I killed him. I thought the Police were looking for me. I know now that I didn’t. I saw him not long ago, walking in the street.” It’s the first time she breaks eyes contact with me. “He ruined my life, and he didn’t even recognize me.”
My voice is a deadly calm. “What is his name?”
Her eyes, so bright and blue from her tears, snap to mine. Fuck, even her little nose is red-tipped.
“Why?”
Again, I give her honesty. “Because I have every intention of finishing what you started.”
“No.”
“You’re protecting him?” I’m surprised. And enraged.
How could she after…
“No.” She shakes her head, frowning as she draws her knees up into her chest. She sighs. “I don’t know.”
Reaching for her chin, I capture her in my grip. Forcing her eyes to mine, my voice is a dangerously low pitch that draws goosebumps to the surface of her skin. “I can find his name myself, but I want to hear it from you. Either way, his days are numbered.”
“Why? Because he touched me?” she demands.
“No. Because he touched what is mine.” Her parted lips snap closed. I lean in close, so close, I can taste the sweetness of her on my tongue. “His name, Little Blue.”
“Jeremy.” Her shoulders sag. “Jeremy Wilson.”
“Good girl.” I take her mouth with mine, stealing a slow, claiming kiss. I don’t stop kissing her until she kisses me back.
Flames rage in my veins.
A flame for the passion I feel for this woman. The obsession. The affection.
A flame for the rage I feel at the idea of anyone ever having hurt her, touched her, made her afraid and alone.
And a flame for the dark determination I feel inside to never allow this woman to fight the battle of life alone, ever again.