Chapter 16
CLARA
Dmitri is untamed in the darkest hours of the night. There is still whiskey on his breath, still a slight slurring of the Russian he whispers in my ear. But I know he is entirely in control when he locks his eyes on mine and refuses to look away.
He bites down when he puts his mouth to my rock-hard nipples, and a pain that quickly turns into sparks of pleasure lances through me, a feeling I've never experienced. When I gasp, Dmitri stops and asks, “Did I hurt you? Should I stop?”
“No.” I back the response up with a frantic head shake, winding my fingers in his hair and pulling him back to me.
My hands scratch at his back, my palms running over the shifting muscles there as his mouth remains on my breast, his other hand roving over me as though he’s memorizing every inch.
“Dmitri.” I moan.
“Say my name again,” he growls, the sound vibrating over my skin and down to my core.
“Dmitri. Dmitri. Dmitri.”
I arch my body as he kisses his way down my stomach, then lower, dragging my leggings down as he goes, nibbling on my skin and raking it with his teeth. My stomach tightens and my body tingles as I watch Dmitri stand and take off his pants, kicking them off to the side before diving into me again.
The Smirnov pakhan is all heat and explosive desire when I feel him at my entrance. With one raw movement of his hips, he’s inside me, filling me. My head falls back, and I cry out in pleasure.
I wrap my legs around his hips as he rears up, tilting my pelvis. He goes deep with his next stroke, and I cry out again.
We wrap ourselves around one another, our bodies twisting and writhing. Dmitri pounds into me again and again, losing himself in me, our moans echoing as we come together.
He takes me to his bed, and we get lost in each other again. As we lay in the darkness afterward, the sound of rain hitting the windows, I decide to share the heavy thoughts haunting my mind.
“I didn’t choose this life, Dmitri. I didn’t choose you. Your world frightens me. Sometimes, you frighten me.”
He turns his head toward me, his eyes luminous in the darkness. “You choose me over and over again, Clara. You said you wanted to leave, but here you are, back in my arms and my bed.”
“Would you let me if I tried?” Still slightly drunk and satiated, Dmitri seems more open and truthful, and I have to take the chance.
He considers for a long moment before he answers. “If you convince me that you truly want to go, I will let you go.”
“You swear it?”
“On my honor, as part of the vory v zakone, if you truly want to go, if you convince me that it’s what you want, I won’t stop you. I don’t want my darkness eclipsing your light.”
I have no idea what the vory v zakone is, so I focus on the rest of his declaration. “My light?”
“You are good, Clara. You are a light in the darkness, a guiding star that has been absent from my life for so long. A light I don’t deserve.”
He says the last part so quietly, I can barely hear it. Dmitri’s breathing eventually evens out to sleep, his chest rising and falling softly, his face almost peaceful—a look I haven’t seen before. Gone are the intense emotions, the coldness, the frightening intensity of the mob boss.
Does he deserve goodness and light? Though I don’t know specifics, this man has done terrible things. It’s an impossibility that he doesn’t have blood on his hands, that he hasn’t ordered deaths, taken part in illegal deals for who-knows-what.
But tonight, I also saw a man who feels pain, who has dealt with terrible loss and come out so scarred, he will never be whole again. He’s unable to find true peace.
How do I reconcile the feelings I’m beginning to have for this man? The desire to be with him, not just for the physical pleasure, but for the man I’m coming to know behind the suave billionaire and the frightening mob boss?
I’m a lawyer. Can I knowingly enter into something—whatever this something is between us—with a man I know runs an empire of illegal dealings?
And yet, as frightening as he can be, Dmitri is also human. I am lying in his arms, my head on his chest, as his heart beats beneath my cheek. He has shown me a side of himself that is broken, raw, and suffering; he’s a man who has loved and lost. What I saw today shattered my heart.
I can’t fix him. I won’t fix him. I made that idiot mistake with Dean, thinking I could fix his broken parts, learning my lesson the hard way.
But I can’t help but be drawn to this man, a man who can feel and be hurt and love and suffer, and maybe even love me in the same way I’m afraid I might be starting to love him.
I lay there in his arms, my mind swirling with possibilities and conflicting emotions, until I’m too exhausted to think anymore, and sleep finally takes over.