Prologue #5
I give a choked laugh. “But that’s the point.” My eyes search his. “We’re not family, Alexei. No matter how connected we are by marriage and history. We’re no more related than any other two random people on the street.”
His face hardens. “Blood has nothing to do with it,” he says roughly. “My sister is married to your father. I’m your uncle by marriage, Ofelia. Do you honestly think your father—or mine—would see it any other way?”
But you’re still here.
Still holding me. Still so close we could be lovers.
In the years since that cell, have you been haunted by the same questions that torture me?
I turn my head slightly, my cheek against his shoulder, my lips just beneath his jawline.
He shivers slightly—but he doesn’t move away.
His thumb moves slowly back and forth across the bare skin of my lower back, a maddening movement that sets every nerve in my body on fire.
“The torture was never what the Orlovs forced you to do to me with your knife.” My lips are so close to his neck I’m almost kissing his skin. “Torture has been five years of living with the secrets we share and never, ever being able to talk to anyone about them.”
Alexei pulls back like he’s been burned, his lone eye boring into mine. “There must be someone you can talk to.” His voice is harsh. “A therapist. A friend. Someone.”
I stare right back at him. “Do you have someone you can talk to?”
His eye narrows. “That’s different.”
“Is it?” I touch his face tentatively, his jaw hard and set beneath the smooth lines of his scars. “Torture,” I whisper, “has been getting to twenty-one without ever being kissed.”
“You can’t be serious.” His hand comes up to cover my own, his eye searching my face.
I nod slowly, my heartbeat thick in my ears.
“But you’re so fucking beautiful.” He strokes a strand of hair back from my face, the gentle touch a direct contrast to his rough tone. “How is it possible that nobody has kissed you?”
I close my eyes, relishing his touch. “It wasn’t them.” My voice seems to come from somewhere else. “It was me. It was . . . you.”
It’s the raging libido I keep carefully hidden. The savage desire your knife awakened, which I’m afraid to feel in case I drown in it forever.
His hand still rests on my face, but I can feel the tension in it, just as I can sense the internal struggle behind his stone-cold stillness and his thumb paused on the very center of my back. Closing my eyes, I lean slightly forward, my body curling into his.
“Look at me.”
I open my eyes to find him staring at me, his lone eye glittering dangerously. Then his hand slips around to cradle my head, and before I genuinely believe it, his lips are on mine.
For the longest moment, his mouth barely touches my own, just brushing it in a featherlight caress that is both maddening and so sweet I never want it to end.
Then I lean forward, or he does, and suddenly the kiss explodes into bone-melting heat.
His hand twines in my hair, and my head falls backward into his palm.
My mouth opens beneath his and he groans, a delicious vibration that fires my every cell like a tuning fork.
The hand on the base of my spine presses me closer, arching my back.
My hands curl around his neck, drawing him toward me.
He slides my dress slowly up my thighs as he steps between them, his kiss deepening until I’m writhing beneath it.
It’s everything.
Everything I always knew it would be. Everything I’ve waited for, from the day Alexei put his hands on me in that cold Miami cell.
I’ve never wanted anything except this.
I’m crushed against him, his hand around my bare upper thigh so deliciously close to where I want it that I fold my legs behind him and pull him closer, every cell on fire for more.
Then suddenly his mouth is gone.
Through the liquid haze of desire, I become vaguely aware that voices are approaching. I open my eyes to find Alexei still as a statue, his head turned slightly to the side like a hunter testing the wind. He brings one finger to my lips, shaking his head warningly.
“I’m sure I saw her come this way,” I hear Darya say. There’s the brief sound of bushes rustling, then she and Abby erupt into giggles.
“That was totally your fault,” Abby says. “You pulled me into that bush.”
My stepmother gives an extremely unladylike snort. “Please, please tell me nobody is watching.”
“No, I think we’re safe,” Abby gasps between giggles. “But maybe we should give up the hunt. We’re hardly good models of parenthood at this stage. Anyway, if Ofelia is down here kissing some guy in the shrubbery, I’d say it’s about time, wouldn’t you?”
“Maybe. Just don’t tell her father, for God’s sake, or whoever it is will be running for the hills with a dozen bullets after him.
” There’s another clatter and an ensuing burst of muffled laughter.
“I swear that having babies has completely destroyed my alcohol tolerance,” Darya says, still laughing.
“What tolerance?” Abby says dryly. “You were always a lightweight, Borovsky. Come on.” I hear them helping each other to their feet. “Let’s get back to our respective husbands, before they decide to come looking.” Slowly, the sound of their uneven footsteps fades.
I’m suddenly very aware that my dress is hitched up to my waist, my legs are still wrapped around Alexei’s hips, and that almost every part of our bodies are touching.
He steps out of my embrace, tugging down my gown as he backs away, his expression starkly distant.
“Here.” Leaning down, he picks up my shoes from the ground and hands them to me.
“You should leave first. If anyone asks, just tell them you were taking a moment.” He scans me with critical detachment.
“Find a bathroom. You need to fix your lipstick. And your hair.”