7. Lena
LENA
This is wrong. This is so wrong. This is every shade of wrong that has ever existed.
I’ve been sitting with that thought for hours now, turning it over and over in the dim cell light, and it hasn’t gotten any more useful.
My body doesn’t care about useful.
My body has been running its own quiet mutiny since he stood over me with his hand around my throat and his eyes on my mouth and said what he said, and no amount of mental authority I try to throw at it is making any difference.
I’m wet. Have been for hours.
That’s the humiliating, unforgivable truth of what’s happening in this chair, this slow insistent heat that has worked its way into my blood and sits there humming no matter what I tell it to do.
I’ve tried thinking about my father.
I’ve tried thinking about the tattoo and what it means and what I promised myself in that Vienna street.
I’ve tried cycling through every piece of hatred I have stored up for the man on the other side of this door.
My body listens to none of it.
He killed Papa. I press the thought down like a bruise I need to feel. He killed Papa and you are sitting here wanting him and you should be ashamed of every cell in your body right now.
Except.
Except I’m going to die soon.
That’s the other thing living in this cell with me, the thing that has been sitting in the corner since he told me I had one day and that day has come and gone and another has passed and I’m still here, but I know it’s coming.
I can feel the shape of it getting closer.
And maybe that’s what this is, maybe this is just what the body does when it knows the clock is almost out, grabs at warmth and want and sensation because those are the things that confirm it’s still alive.
Maybe I just want to feel something before I don’t feel anything at all.
Maybe I just want him and there’s no pretty reason for it.
The door yanks open.
I look up and he’s standing in the frame.
The breath I pull in doesn’t come back out.
He’s in a dark shirt, collar open, and he looks like he’s been drinking, not sloppy, nothing about this man is ever sloppy, but there’s something loose in him that isn’t usually there.
He’s looking at me like I’m on fire.
Neither of us speak.
The silence fills the cell from wall to wall, and I should be afraid.
I know the shape of afraid, I’ve been living in it for days, but what’s moving through me right now is not fear.
He steps inside and the door swings behind him and he stands there looking at me and I look back and neither of us moves.
The air gets heavier and thicker with every second that passes until I shift in the chair without meaning to, my thighs pressing together, and I watch him watch me do it.
Is he here to kill me?
He crosses the cell and crouches in front of me. He looks at my face for a long time with an expression I have no name for.
“Why do I want you this much?” he asks, his hand is under my chin, tilting my face up to his, and his grey eyes are storm clouds about to break. I can smell the whiskey on him, feel the heat coming off his body in waves.
This is wrong. This is so fucking wrong.
My own body is a traitor.
A slow, slick heat has been pooling between my thighs for hours, a relentless ache that laughs at my logic, at my grief, at the memory of my father’s face.
He killed Papa.
And I am wet for him. Soaked.
A sound leaves me that’s almost a laugh. “You’re the enemy,” I say.
Something moves across his face. “So are you.”
Before I can even think of a comeback, he moves and his lips are on mine.
He is kissing me.
His lips are firm, demanding, and they taste of whiskey and dark intent.
For one endless second, every thought I own screams in protest.
Then his tongue traces the seam of my lips and something deep in my gut unclenches.
A moan rips from my throat, vibrating into his mouth, and I am kissing him back.
Oh I’m so stupid! I’m—oh fuck.
Razvan pulls me flat against him and I can feel his hard chest against my nipples.
My hands fist in the dark fabric of his shirt, pulling him even closer, and I kiss him with a hunger that scares me, all teeth and tongue and furious need.
Yes. Fuck, yes.
When he pulls back, we’re both gasping. His forehead rests against mine, his eyes squeezed shut. A rough, pained sound works its way out of him. “It’s not enough,” he growls. “It’s not fucking enough.”
I shake my head. It isn’t. God help me, it isn’t even close.
He moves fast.
A knife flashes in his hand, and with two sharp tugs, the plastic ties around my wrists snap apart.
Then my ankles are free.
I don’t move to run.
And that’s stupid as hell but I don’t know what’s going on with me.
I don’t move, I watch him, my vision hazy with want, as he sheathes the blade. His eyes never leave mine.
He yanks me forward by my waist and I go, stumbling into him.
His mouth finds mine again, and this kiss is deeper, messier.
I can feel the hard ridge of his hardness straining against his pants, pressed against my stomach, and I grind against it instinctively.
A ragged groan tears from his chest, and his hands drop to my ass, kneading the flesh through my pants, pulling me tighter into that delicious friction.
“Fuck, Lena,” he mutters against my lips, his voice shredded.
He stands suddenly, lifting me with him.
I lock my legs around his waist, my arms around his neck, and he carries me out of the cell. I don’t look at the corridor.
I press my face into the warm skin of his neck and breathe him in—cedar, iron, male sweat. He takes the stairs, his steps sure and steady even with my weight, and pushes through a heavy door.
It’s vast and dark and warm, a bed the size of a small country, heavy curtains, wood and leather, the kind of room that belongs to a man who is used to taking up space.
He doesn’t put me on the bed. He takes me through another door into a bathroom where he sets me down and turns on the shower, the water runs warm then hot.
Then his hands are on me again, slower now.
Deliberate.
He peels my ruined jacket from my shoulders, lets it fall to the tile with a slap. His fingers hook under the hem of my shirt, and he draws it up and over my head.
The cool air hits my skin, and my nipples pull into tight, aching points behind my plain bra.
His gaze drops, and his thumbs sweep over the peaks through the fabric.
A sharp gasp escapes me.
“Look at you,” he murmurs, his voice low. “All this time, wanting this. Needing it.”
His hands move to my back, finding the clasp of my bra. He pauses, a question in his eyes. I nod, once, and the garment falls away. My breasts spill free, and the air feels like a caress. He just stares, his expression one of hunger. It makes my chest hurt.
He pushes my pants and underwear down my legs in one motion, and I step out of them. Naked before him, I should feel exposed, afraid.
I don’t. I see the way his throat works as he swallows, the way his eyes darken as they travel over my body. I arch my back slightly, letting my hips tilt, a slow, provocative roll that makes his jaw tighten.
Then he’s undressing, his movements efficient.
His shirt, his pants, his boxers. And then he’s just…
him. All of him. My gaze drops and my mouth actually goes dry.
He’s thick and long, his cock standing rigid against his stomach, the head flushed a deep, angry red.
A primal part of me clenches in anticipation, in sheer want.
He takes my hand and leads me into the shower.
The water is blissfully hot, cascading over my shoulders, sluicing away the grime and fear of the past days.
He reaches for a bottle of shampoo, pours a generous amount into his palm, and then his hands are in my hair.
He massages my scalp, his fingers working in slow, firm circles, and a moan of pure relief escapes me.
I lean into his touch, my eyes closed, letting him wash away everything.
The Vienna cold, the cell floor, the scent of cedar and despair.
His hands smooth down my neck, over my shoulders, tracing the line of my spine.
They slide around my waist, pulling me back against him.
I feel his hard length press into the cleft of my ass, and I push back against it, a slow, grinding motion.
He curses softly, his lips finding the sensitive spot behind my ear.
One hand glides down my stomach, through the wet thatch of curls, and finds my folds. I am so ready, so open for him. His fingers slide through my slickness with ease, and a broken sound leaves my throat.
“Razvan,” I breathe, my head falling back against his shoulder.
“I know,” he says, and it sounds like an apology for what he’s about to do, for what I’m about to let him do.
His fingers delve inside me, two of them, curling upward, and my knees nearly buckle.
“Fuck, you’re tight,” he grunts, his mouth on my neck, sucking the skin there.
His thumb finds my clit, circles it with a sharpness that is utterly devastating.
He sets a rhythm, his fingers pumping in and out of me, his thumb applying perfect, maddening pressure.
I’m babbling nonsense words and pleas, my hands braced against the slick tile wall.
The pleasure coils, tight and hot, deep in my belly.
“Come for me, Lena,” he commands, his voice rough in my ear. “Let me feel you come on my fucking fingers.”
It’s the command, the filthy promise in his words, that shatters me. My orgasm crashes through me, a violent, blinding wave that wrings a scream from my lungs. My inner muscles clutch and spasm around his fingers, and he works me through every last pulse, until I’m shaking and boneless against him.
He turns me around, kissing me deeply.
Then he washes me, every inch, his hands worshipful and thorough. He dries me with a towel so soft it feels like clouds, patting my skin gently, before drying himself.