29. Brooke
I should probably be afraid of what Lev is going to do once he gets me back to his estate. But I’m too pissed off to be scared. In fact, I am furious. He thinks I ratted him out to the feds. After everything I’ve done. After every word I’ve kept. After everything we’ve been through. He dares to question my integrity.
He doesn’t look at me. Just stares straight ahead like he’s a robot. Back straight. Shoulders tense. Jaw tight. Dark energy radiating off him like antimatter.
Whereas, I can barely sit still in the back of the car for all the angry energy tearing through my body.
I read somewhere once that babies can feel what their mothers are feeling inside the womb. So I tell myself to calm down. But being calm is too big a mountain to climb right now. Not when the asshole responsible for making me feel this way is sitting right next to me as still and as incommunicative as an Easter Island statue.
My anger bubbles up inside me, and I decide it’s better out than in, so I turn to the man who has become the bane of my existence and tell him exactly what I think of him.
“You have some nerve accusing me of going to the feds.”
“It’s not an accusation.” He doesn’t look at me. Just keeps looking straight ahead. “I have the pictures to prove you did.”
“I admit I met with him. But only to tell him to leave me alone.”
“You really expect me to believe that?”
“Yes.”
Finally, he turns his head to look at me. His eyes are cold and dark. “Are you telling me he didn’t offer to speak to the parole board to keep Todd Bastik in prison?”
“He offered, but I turned him down.”
“You’ll have to be a little bit more convincing than that. Bastik was denied parole. Thanks to your little friend in the FBI.”
That detail manages to break through my red-hot anger, and I’m grateful that Todd is still behind bars. Even if it makes me look guilty. But I don’t give a damn if Lev believes me or not. The fact that he’s even questioning my word when all I’ve ever done is stand by it, well, fuck you very much, Mr. Pakhan.
“That had nothing to do with my conversation with Agent Michaels.”
He looks away. His jaw is sharp. The muscle in his cheek is twitching. He’s more than angry at me. He’s furious. And not just about me meeting with the FBI. He’s angry at me for leaving.
I cross my arms and turn away to look out the window.
What did he expect me to do?
Play happy families when the world around us was burning down?
“Are you okay?” Henry asks over his shoulder as we pull up to the gates of the Zarkov Estate.
He and Feliks have been talking quietly during the entire drive. While Mr. Robot and I sat in icy cold silence as we both stared out the window.
“I’m fine,” I say to Henry, and he smiles.
He and Feliks are getting along well. Which is a good sign that no one is going to get murdered here tonight.
Well, except Lev. Because I’ve already done that a thousand times in my head since we left the motel room. Nope, wait, I started murdering him in the motel room right about the time he accused me of ratting him out to Agent Michaels. Who, might I add, Lev has also decided I want as my new baby daddy.
Because Lev is an asshole.
The gates open, and we drive toward the grand house at the end of the long driveway.
Henry whistles in awe. “My God, who are you people?”
When we stop, I attack the car door handle until Feliks disconnects the child lock, and I climb out, slamming the door behind me.
Lev follows and slams his door louder before storming up the front steps behind me.
“Where the hell do you think you’re going?” he fumes.
“To my room.”
“Oh no, you don’t. You’re coming with me.” He takes my arm. “We haven’t finished talking.”
I yank my arm free. “If you think I’m going anywhere with you only to hear you accuse me of being anything but a good sport about any of this, then you’re as delusional as you are insane.”
“And if you think you have a choice about any of this, then you’re just as delusional.”
“As if I’ve ever had any choice about any of this,” I yell.
“Then this shouldn’t be a surprise,” he yells back.
Feliks interrupts. “Um, Pakhan…”
Lev and I both turn and snap in unison, “What?”
Feliks and Henry are standing at the bottom of the stairs, watching us.
Feliks tips his head toward Henry. “Where should I put our guest for the evening? I mean, I’m happy to entertain him so you two can keep yelling at each other some more.”
Lev glares at his cousin. “Keep an eye on him. He doesn’t leave until I’ve sorted things out with Miss Masters.”
Henry doesn’t look concerned. And why would he? I can see it on his face—he thinks this is some kind of sexy argument between two people who are hot for each other. In fact, he looks like he’s having the time of his life. Especially when he hooks his arm through Feliks’ and they walk up the stairs and disappear inside together.
I see my chance to get away from the angry pakhan and storm inside behind them, but Lev is faster and catches up with me. He takes my arm again, drags me down the long palatial corridor to his office, and slams the big, heavy door shut behind us.
I shake him off and step away. “Stop manhandling me, asshole.”
“Oh, I’m the asshole?”
“Yes.”
“Remind me again, who ran away without a word and then dined with the FBI?”
I roll my eyes because I’m not prepared to go around in circles anymore. I point a finger at him and press it into his chest. “That’s not me being an asshole, that’s me protecting my baby.”
“Ourbaby,” he seethes. He takes a step closer, forcing my back to the wall behind me. “And no one can protect you and our baby like I can. If you think you can outrun my enemies, you’re wrong. You think you can outrun me… then you really don’t know what a tenacious fuck I can be. If you run, I will find you.”
Heat flares in his eyes, and I don’t doubt what he says.
I suck in a breath to steady my nerves as well as my aching nipples and the insane throbbing that’s taken up between my thighs. Because while my head is angry and ready for murder, apparently, my body is ready for something else entirely. Being this close to him is doing crazy things to every part of me. He’s too much. The heat coming off of him. The intense dark looks on his handsome face. And don’t get me started on how enticing his scent is. It reminds me of safety and orgasms. And unfortunately, my body remembers all too well how he gives them.
He towers over me, but his face is only inches from mine. Close enough to kiss.
I push my palm into his chest. I need space. Air. A psychiatrist.
Even now, as he takes my choice from me by bringing me back here, my body aches for his touch and his need. Not this maniac who is all hard lines and gruff words.
So when he slams his lips to mine, I respond by grabbing him by the collar and kissing him back. Hard.
His kiss is like fire, his lips hot and demanding, his tongue strong and commanding. He takes my jaw in his palms and kisses me harder, sending an overwhelming need sweeping through my body.
I reach around and cup his ass, groaning when I feel his erection.
I want this.
I need this.
The throbbing between my legs pounds relentlessly, and my hips seek out his, searching for the rigid outline of his cock because I need friction, goddammit.
He shoves my hands above my head and holds them there with one hand while the other hooks under my leg and lifts it high so he can step in between. He presses the rigid outline of his erection into me, and I almost come from the contact alone.
I gasp in his mouth and grind against him, and he groans, and it’s a primal rumble that only fans the flame.
His lips find my shoulder. My neck. And travel up to the soft spot below my ear.
My breath hitches.
He grinds against me, and I begin to pant.
His hands roam my body, setting it ablaze.
His lips find my mouth again, and his kiss is fierce. His hand slides between us and rips open my jeans, popping the button and breaking the zip. He slips his fingers beneath my panties, and I tremble when they brush past my clit and slide inside me.
“You like getting me worked up until I fuck you with my fingers against the wall.” He groans into my shoulder. “You’re so damn wet.”
I’m not just wet. I’m sopping wet.
His fingers rub my clit in maddening circles before sliding inside me, then come back around to torture my clit again.
I’m a hot mess against the wall.
I hate him.
I really do.
But right now, I want to come more than I want to hate him.
And why shouldn’t I?
He owes me this much.
I moan. “Oh...”
He rubs my clit faster. Thrusts his fingers deeper. Grinds his palm harder. And I unravel like a ribbon against the wall, clinging to him as days of pent-up emotion burst out of me, and I cry out his name as wave after wave streams through me, turning my bones to liquid.
I sag against the wall and struggle for breath.
I need him inside me.
I reach for his zipper, but he stops me. Our eyes meet, and I don’t see lust in them. I see only darkness.
His fingers circle my wrist. “No,” he growls.
I’m still high on a heady mix of afterglow and an eager anticipation for more, but the tone in his voice cuts through the blissful haze. It’s cold and hard. Emotionless.
I frown. “I don’t understand.”
The muscle in his jaw ticks. “This is the last time we touch. I will make sure nothing like this happens again.”
Suddenly cold and clammy, I pull my hand free from his grasp. “Then what was that?”
Did he just give me some kind of revenge orgasm?
“That was goodbye.” He couldn’t sound or look more cold if he tried. “You and I are done, Miss Masters.”
Hurt soars through me.
And I feel stupid.
Stupid for letting him touch me.
Stupid for not wanting it to stop.
He did this to hurt me.
No, he did this as payback for me leaving.
He’ll say it’s because of my meeting with the FBI, but I don’t think that’s what upsets him the most. I think my leaving gave him the bullet, and he just fired the gun.
He’s trying to hurt me because I hurt him.
No, to hurt him, he’d have to have feelings.
I shove him in the chest. “You jerk.”
I hope he’s proud of himself.
But there isn’t a look of amusement or delight on his face. No, his face is dark and stormy like he’s too angry to enjoy this.
I move away from him before he can see my tears. Because I refuse to give this man any more of my tears. Any more of anything.
Feeling petulant and unhospitable, I cross my arms and set my jaw. “So this is how it’s going to be? I’m your prisoner in this big cold house, and you’re just going to ignore me?”
The look he gives me is ice cold. A stark contrast to the heated lust mere minutes ago.
“Call it what you will. But from now on, Miss Masters, you are nothing more to me than the woman carrying my baby.”