Chapter 8
If I don’t getout of here, I’m going to lose my ever-loving mind. My sense of time gets lost here, but my watch tells me I’ve been at the mercy of my memories of last night for the better part of today. The dinner hour is rapidly approaching and fuck if I can spend another night like this. I don’t know what I’ll do.
She brought clothes with her alright. More dresses. And now I know what she wears under those dresses. A flimsy scrap of cotton that barely covers anything and reveals everything when she’s soaked and aching.
Come on, Nikolaj.
The crypt is filled with her scent, my mind filled with her cries of pleasure, and my chest and arms ache with the way her nails carved my skin as she lashed out while riding my goddamn thigh.
She succumbed to deep sleep after, never once struggling in the darkness of the single longest night of my life.
But the obscurity I always appreciated at night escaped me entirely. Instead, I replayed every moment in my mind, over and over, resisting the urge to stroke my cock for relief, or worse, bury myself inside her.
Everything we brought into the light between us mocks me, and God help us both; I don’t think I’ll ever manage to put it safely away.
Danger hunts her every day. Do the reasons matter? What if we both left? What if—no. I can’t betray Nikolaj. He’s worked too hard. He’s been building his own empire to join with the one of his father’s. For years he’s nurtured relationships, cemented his place alongside the powerful, and I suspect he’s even joined a secret society here in New York, giving him an admirable foothold globally.
How do I walk away from the promise I made him before he has a chance to change the course of this family?
As long as he’s successful.
I shake away any doubt. He will be. There is no other option.
Now I’m cursed with the taste of her I stole from her fingers. That’s my punishment for taking what was never meant to be mine.
The sound of the foam crumbling draws our attention. Gun in hand, I keep her behind me and wait. When I glance over my shoulder and raise my fingers to my lip, she surprises me by pulling a knife from her bag.
Of course she has a knife.
Question is, does she know what to do with it or is it just one more thing that will get her hurt or worse?
The one thing I do know… she and I are going to have a talk about it.
With a shove and a final scrape, the door breaks free and Dmitri makes his way in and nods. “Boss.”
“What’s Nikolaj’s status?” Grigori stands outside the crypt, his back to us, no doubt keeping an eye out. Not that anyone would be down here. Restorations have kept the crypts closed to the public for two weeks or so now. The church above is closed to the public for one more night as they address a plumbing issue that may or may not have something to do with us tapping into the system. Not that it matters, Nikolaj compensates well for the inconvenience of the web of tunnels he”s building that snake their way under the entire city.
“He lands in an hour. He’ll be here an hour or so after.”
“With reinforcements?”
“Oh yeah. The minute he found out she was here and not in Paris, he called in everybody.”
“Good.”
“There’s more.” His gaze darts over my shoulder to Nikoletta.
I glance back at her and damn that pride in her that has her shoulders pulled back, her chin jutting in the air, just daring me to shut her out.
“Whatever you have to say to me, you can say to her as well.”
He nods. “Vlad also left Paris. He touched down for a brief stop in Madrid. We don’t know where he was off to after that. At least not yet.”
“Do we have someone keeping an eye on the airports in the area?”
“Absolutely.”
He fills me in on the Moretti mess, how the authorities have already begun sweeping it under the rug. Moretti’s family and men know better, and they know who he was to meet that night so we won’t have a choice but to deal with their wrath in the future, but he reassures me there are no eyes on the church.
With the turn of events last night, I couldn’t leave Nikoletta so Dmitri and Grigori handled Silas and retrieved the money. I only hope they did it as painfully as I would have. I find little satisfaction in his death, only resentment it happened by their hands and not mine.
Joining Nikoletta, I let myself get closer than I have since we woke up tangled in one another under the heavy weight of how far we’d let things go the night before. When I reach for the knife, she flicks her wrist, flipping the handle in her hand until the blade is tucked along the edge of her forearm.
“So you do know how to use it?”
“I’m not a child anymore, Kostya.”
When I search her eyes, I see the challenge there, but also the quiet confidence. And love. So much love in those eyes for me. It’s so deep and fathomless I have to glance away.
“How would you like to see the place I first held you?” The words are out before I can consider how bad of an idea it is, and the hopeful look flashing in her eyes keeps me from taking it back.
Her lips part and the smile stabs me right in the fucking chest. Up on her tiptoes now, she moves in to kiss my cheek, but I turn my head so our mouths are right there, just a fraction of space between them.
I’m a fool to take this risk in front of Dmitri. He may be one of my men, but to take the chance of anyone knowing beyond the two of us will only result in weakness.
She settles her lips over the corner of my mouth and the gesture is so fucking intimate, but also innocent in a way that renders me speechless and unable to move.
I can only want.
My frayed control lies in tatters and I swear to all that’s holy, one gust from the Devil and I’ll be doing the things I can’t take back.
“Show me.”
The timing of those two words from her tempting lips with the thoughts burning through my mind take another swipe at my control, but I nod with every intention on fulfilling the offer.
After what she suffered last night, after being so fucking brave facing her biggest fear, what choice do I have?
Taking her hand, I guide her out of the crypts, along the long hall that will take us to the heavy wood doors leading to the vestibule. The tension simmering between us slips away as she takes in the stained glass, ornate woodwork, and brass grates along the stairs leading up to the old cathedral.
She’s all delicate touches and gasps of delight, closing her eyes as she inhales the scent of a long, unique history.
Maksim’s decision to baptize her here stunned everyone. We’d been in New York for the better part of a month while he secured alliances throughout the boroughs of the city. He always gravitated to more lavish spectacles, but when Nikoletta’s mother suggested St. Patrick’s Cathedral in midtown Manhattan, he immediately turned it down.
Instead, he favored something more personal. Closer to the part of the city that welcomed immigrants. The place where the foundation for alliances and power soared.
I’ll never forget that day. For once, we could focus on the family since we didn’t have to manage security in the middle of a global tourist attraction. Maksim’s wife and Vlad’s mother, Elena, had not intruded yet on the day, and Maksim carried a smile that reminded me of the boy I knew all those years before.
For just a few hours, I was able to pretend we were those friends again, that he hadn’t bound the woman I loved to him as he married another. I pushed all worry about the way he pitted his sons against one another out of my mind and focused on Nikoletta.
With confirmation from Dmitri that they have the entrances covered, I usher Nikoletta through the heavy wooden doors into the cathedral. My past and present collide with each step deeper into the place we began, and of late, our sanctuary. Right away, her gaze sweeps up stained glass windows spearing into the domed ceiling overhead.
Her gasp of delight draws a genuine smile from me. I slide my hands in my pockets and hang back a few steps, watching her every move. The way she’s light on the balls of her feet as she flits through the pews, running her fingers over the aged wood with a content sigh on her lips.
I can’t tear my gaze from the way she wraps her arms around the column and laughs at just how big they are and how impossible they are to encompass.
“It’s stunning. I never want to leave.” Her cheeks flush as she makes her way to the altar and for a moment, I’m reluctant to follow to the place where I held her tiny body in my hands so long ago.
But Nikoletta has never been one to let me retreat into the shadows. Running toward me, she takes my hand and drags me along as she jogs up the stairs and stops at the altar draped in purple.
She bends down and lifts the fabric and her eyebrows bunch. “It’s a table.”
I can’t help but laugh. “Yes, but a marble one.”
She gives me a shove that does absolutely nothing to move me. “Show me where you stood.”
I shift into place, to the right of the altar, the toe of my shoe resting along the edge of the marble leg just like it did then. The awe fills me once again at being trusted with something so precious, so vulnerable.
I struggle to clear my thick throat. “You looking to recreate a photo or something, Pcholka?”
“Or something…” she trails off. The gleam in her eyes promises something I’m definitely not going to like.
Trailing her fingers along the fabric, she works her way toward me. When she reaches my side, she plants her palms on the altar and lifts herself onto the surface. Before I can do much more than suck in a gulp of air, she’s sliding before me, right between my legs.
“So you held me, right about here.”
The skirt of her dress settles barely past her hips, revealing her smooth thighs. There on the outside of her right leg, bruises from my fingertips from the night before.
The buzzing in my head grows and I can’t tear my gaze from the spot where I’ve marked her.
I can’t touch her.
Can’t even consider touching her right now with the raw replay in my head. “Cut it out.”
I take one step back, then another, leaving her alone on the altar under the massive cross suspended from the arched ceilings.
My sins are too many to count, but this was the one fucking thing I had that I could cling to. The good deed I could take with me in death to find some sort of forgiveness.
She raises her palms in surrender, the move so unlike her I flinch at the sight. “I’m running out of time, Kostya.”
“You’ll be with your brother. You’ll be fine.”
“Not if Vlad manages to get to me and if he does, I’ll wish for the dark again.” She gulps and the color drains from her face. “Because he’s promised me to Ivan Petrov.”
It’s as though the confession was meant for this place. This very spot where I promised to do anything to protect her. Where we’re both closest to God and the power of his protection.
Here, in this place, eighteen years ago—my vow changed me. And today, under the threat of a road chosen for her, I’m changing once again.
Cold dread slithers through me and I can do nothing but stare at her. He would never turn her over to a Petrov. His own sister—he couldn’t. But even as I tell myself he wouldn’t, I see the truth in her eyes. She’s not lying. She’s been promised to Petrov and that means Vlad will stop at nothing to get to her.
“Have you seen what they do to their women? They carve them into ugly things for breeding.” Her chin wobbles. “Every scar along their cheek representing each time they tried to run away.”
At the fear in her eyes, something in me begins to crumble. There’s no room for error because for her, the consequences are dire.
“Vlad stopped trying to break me the minute he made the deal. He needs me to hold on to what fire is left in me. Because the sick bastard wants to count over how many times I run by the gaping wounds they dig into my face.”
Molten-hot rage pours through me. Images cascade through my mind of them raping her, beating her, cutting her open, and leaving her to suffer.
I can’t speak. I can’t take another step away from her.
Because now I know why this is so important to her. Time is running short. All we have is right here, right now, before our world closes in on us.
“Some of them only have one. They learn that lesson the first time. Some of them have four or five because their fight-or-flight instincts tell them they can still get out. So, they keep trying. Every act of survival is defiance to them so they carve chunks of flesh from their faces that disfigure them with every mark. That could be me, Kostya. You know I’ll fight. I won’t be able to help myself. It’s been your greatest lesson. And I’ll pay.”
The sunset filters through the stained glass pooling behind her, so different than the day of her baptism. Like her innocence of that day is dying here, under the weight of an uncertain future, or by my hand.
How do I even make that choice?
“With you, I’m not losing something, I’m giving it willingly.” One tear slides down her cheek born of anger, hopelessness, frustration—I don’t know, but I can’t tear my gaze away.
“Because I love you.” Her voice breaks on her declaration of love and I break with it.
In a second I’m on her. Scooping my hand along her ass, I drag her against me. Prying her thighs open wide, I rest my aching cock against the place we were never meant to unite. Or maybe we were. Maybe this whole time, a force so much greater has been marching us straight into this moment.
With my hands buried in her hair, I drag her mouth under mine, but I don’t kiss her. Not until she’s looking up at me.
“He’ll never touch you, do you hear me?” I shake her then, my rage and fear crashing into one, turning me absolutely feral with possession. “Never, Nikoletta.”
Her pleading eyes meet mine as her childhood name dies on my use of her given name. With one look, I’m giving in to everything she wants. And maybe there is no better place to do this than here on this altar where I promised to protect her. The marks on her thighs that brought me shame just moments before are just the beginning. She’s mine, goddamn them all.
Mine.
Diving my fingers between her thighs, I tear the panties away from her, the gasp of shock on her lips echoing through the sacred cathedral.
I don’t know what she hopes for in this moment. If she wants soft words and declarations, she won’t get them. She’s had me on the edge for almost twenty-four hours. I need to feel her around me. I need to swallow her cries. I need every fucking tear that squeezes from those golden eyes.
Mine. All of her. Everything.
As much as I am and will always be hers.
Pinned there against me, I clasp her jaw and devour her as I tear open my belt. She struggles for balance under the assault, propped up on her hands as I bend her back. But she meets me stroke for stroke with that wicked tongue, her chest heaving in time with mine.
With my pants shoved down, my cock free and poised at the heart of her, I run the head along her soaking slit before forcing her to look at me.
“Eyes on me, Nikoletta.”
She gives me a frantic nod as she dives her fingers into my hair, gripping me as though I might disappear. Her nails claw my scalp, her fingers twisting, anchoring me to her.
We have no time for finesse, so I drive into her, stealing a brutal scream torn from deep in her chest.
She clings to me, a mess of gulping sobs as I force myself to stay still, but fuck, the way she’s choking my cock right now is every goddamn thing I never knew I craved.
“That was the worst of it. I promise.” My words are low and calm as I stroke her cheek and she curls into me, seeking my comfort and protection even as I’m the one hurting her.
“I need more. Don’t stop.” She thrusts against me and gasps against my mouth. “Even if it hurts.”
But I can’t let it all be pain. There has to be something in it for her other than the choice of who she gives this part of her to.
God, she gave it to me. She’ll go to her grave remembering this day, this experience she can only have once—and she chose me of all people. The weight of that settles in my heart, revealing the cold hard truth.
I love her too.
Yesterday I loved her as a godfather to his goddaughter, but today, I love her as the woman she’s become. It’s all-encompassing, this fusion of love and lust. It’s craving and powerlessness. It’s succumbing to animal instinct and taking.
When I pull back and spot her blood streaked on my cock, something primal takes hold. I want to make sure every moment she roams this earth she feels me with her. Inside her.
I plunge deep once more, my focus fracturing before narrowing again.
Her nails score my skin and I want more. I want her to make me bleed just as I’ve made her bleed. Slanting my mouth over hers, I devour her. My growls and her cries a primitive raw song filling this hallowed place.
Tension eases from her with every thrust until she’s not reacting to pain but chasing pleasure. Sinking her teeth into my lip, she draws blood, making me grin against her mouth before drawing back and locking eyes with her.
“Mmmm, that’s it, little girl. Make me yours.” I lick the blood away and her eyes dilate with pure fucking lust that has me pinning her flat to the altar and wrapping my hand around her throat.
I’ve heard her cries and longing through her mouth, but now, now I will take them all through every single vibration from her pretty little neck.
My fingers dig into her thigh as I pin her there. I watch the way she stretches around my cock, taking every inch of me, despite the pain.
Such a defiant little princess.
Dragging the scooped neck of her dress down, I bare her breast to me, to God, and dare him to watch how I twist the sacred vow I made. How every raw thrust is sacrilege to His house.
Curling over her, I take her rigid nipple between my teeth and bite until she jumps from the sting, impaling herself on my cock even more.
“Just like that, princess. Fuck me back.”
She glares at me even as she bucks her hips against mine. The viselike grip she has on me is maddening, and I’m struggling to keep myself from coming far too soon in her sweet pussy.
Sweeping my thumb through her folds, with the stain of her virgin blood on my skin, I brush over her clit. Over and over, every glide robbing her of much-needed air and stealing all reason until she’s thrashing under me, slapping her palms on the altar, and that virgin cunt locks on my cock so fucking tight I see stars behind my eyelids.
My balls draw up tight, and I’m powerless to stop myself from coming. Leaning over her, my forehead pressed to her thundering heart, I fill her, spilling every fucking ounce of myself into her until we’re boneless and gasping with Jesus looming on a massive cross right over our heads.