Chapter 22 #3
The man I’d spent hours, days thinking about, worrying about… feeling guilty over was here. He was here. I took a deep breath, twisting my hand around the leash while trying to calm my nerves.
“Are you stalking me?” I asked, biting back a smile that I’d wanted to risk earlier.
“Would you like it if I were?” His voice was exactly as I remembered, sultry with a dangerous inflection that instantly tightened my nipples.
“Not if that means you broke into my apartment.”
“What kind of man would dare break into a woman’s private space just to ensure she was okay?” He was close, so very close, the stutter of his breath keeping me wired and alive.
“I would say psychopaths and weirdos intent on doing harm.”
“And what if I was?” He’d inched even closer, so much so I gathered a whiff of the drink he’d consumed. Bourbon. That surprised me.
“Which one?”
“Which would you prefer?”
His bantering was unusual, enough so I was finding it difficult to resist his charm. “Psychopaths are generally more interesting. What are you doing here?”
“There are dangerous men walking the streets even in Paris.”
“And you’d be one of them.” I found my courage to turn around, studying his face as the lights from overhead cast a shimmer of colors.
My heart was still thudding from the heightened level of anxiety from before, but now for an entirely different reason.
Every emotion possible slammed into my system, heat and ice colliding together until I could barely breathe. “That didn’t answer my question.”
The patience my beautiful furry girl had shown was gone. She jumped, pressing her front paws on his chest.
That allowed me to take a good look at him.
He was entirely different than before, dressed in a sophisticated suit that didn’t go with the club’s location.
Yet he looked dashing in the dark shirt and purple tie, the hue matching the color of my dress.
Had he planned that? Had he truly been inside my apartment, looking at my lingerie?
I was still trembling, studying his face, his chiseled features even more prominent.
He was even more muscular if that was possible, the excellent fit of the suit allowing me an incredible look at his stunning physique, yet he’d lost weight.
There were so many questions, so many raw emotions that I had no idea what to say to him.
“Hiya, sweet girl. Did you miss me?” he asked Golden as he scratched behind her ear. For a million reasons anger displaced joy. What the fuck was he doing? Why suddenly appear out of the blue?
“She did. She thought you were inside my apartment. Were you?”
“What if I was?”
I folded my arms. “You can’t walk into my apartment whenever you want. That’s what dangerous monsters do.”
“I never lied to you about being dangerous.” He was inches away, staring down at me with the same darkness in his eyes, yet he was different, angrier. Older. Whatever he’d been through had taken a significant toll. “As far as being a monster, you forget I’m considered the devil.”
The devil.
He was right, the difference in what I’d seen before startling.
He was staring at me, the look colder than the last night I’d seen him.
As if he was as uncertain of me as I was of him.
The intensity of his gaze left me even more breathless.
With the shimmer of light cascading like a halo from above, I was mesmerized by his deep, crystal blue eyes, the color like frozen arctic water, pinned on me as if daring me to move.
While some might say he had the face of a god, I could see why he was called the devil.
There was a fire burning deep inside the man, one so hot my skin threatened to go up in flames. Utter power and strength rolled off him in waves, the lushness of his lips reminding me about the one night we’d shared, a night reeking of the kind of passion all women dream of.
But also, a night that had nearly destroyed my life.
My core was tense, uncertain of his intentions. He was suffocating in a way he hadn’t been before, leaving me wet and aching inside.
“How could I forget? That was one detail you were very proud to share with me.”
“Because it’s who I am and important for you to understand.” Every word was dominating, a man capturing a lost bird and preparing to lock it away for safekeeping.
He took a deep breath, taking time to slide his heated gaze down my face, concentrating on my lips, which was nerve-racking enough. When he dropped his dark eyes even lower, I shuddered in a way he must have seen.
“Ya tak skuchala po tebe, moya malen’kaya tselitel’nitsa. Ty stala yeshche prekrasneye, chem prezhde.”
I’ve missed seeing you, little healer. You’re even more beautiful than before.
His compliment brought another heated wave to my system, not because of the words themselves, but from the way he shook his head slowly enough that if I hadn’t been looking, I wouldn’t have caught it.
“Mne skazali, chto ty umer.”
I was told you were dead.
“You’ve been practicing,” he said while lifting his arm, curling the fingers on one hand.
“Just in case another Russian man crashed into my life.”
“Has that happened?” He brushed his knuckles across my cheek and I leaned into him.
“Would you allow him to live if it had?”
He slipped his other hand underneath my hair, gripping the back of my neck. “No.”
“At least you’re being honest. Why are you here?” I was almost fearful of the answer.
There was no rhyme or reason to the way I was feeling, I was thrilled yet lost, butterflies swarming in my stomach and my mind incapable of processing that he was truly standing in front of me.
Yet he was.
“Why?” he asked as he lowered his head until our lips were almost touching.
I reminded myself he was a killer, someone my father said I should be afraid of, a man who’d all but destroyed the peace even after supposedly being killed.
“Because I made you a promise and I’ve come to collect. You’re mine, Rafaela. All mine.”
For the first time in three years, I enjoyed the way a man looked at me, with utter possession in his eyes and desire dictating his decisions.
For the first time in so long, I didn’t feel the way my father had instilled in me. The sense of being ruined.
Tonight, I was a woman wanted by the man she’d craved.
All the pain and all the heartache had almost been worth the pain. Almost. If I had it to do all over again, I wouldn’t change a thing.
Well, except for one.
With that, he pulled me into a rough kiss.