34. Sienna #3
“Nikolai, you kill men so easily. I think it’s beautiful that, for the first time, you’re choosing not to. But I need you to promise me that you won’t change your mind about him. He’s?—”
“I know,” he says in defeat. “He’s important to you because he’s important to your friend.
What have you done to me, mishka ?” he asks on a groan, leaning into my touch, his green eyes sparking with sincerity.
“You should be terrified. You should be wanting your friends to take you away instead of so willingly returning with me. Don’t you understand you’re being used as a pawn? ”
“I’m where I choose to be,” I say, paraphrasing his words from earlier.
Nikolai is intelligent. He’s methodical, cunning, and has keen insights.
And his presence, despite his size, is only seen when he wants it to be.
Much like these cracks of the real him, breaking through to let me see all of him.
“I’m a man obsessed, mishka . You’re all I think about day and night. I cannot involve you any more than you already are. Had I met you under different circumstances…”
“I wouldn’t change any of it if this was the only way we’d meet.”
His face scrunches up. “You’re too pure of heart, Sienna, to look at me like that . You cannot live an ordinary life with someone like me.”
My heart leaps out of my chest. “I don’t want an ordinary life anymore.
” And it’s the truth. I’d tried to perfectly erect my life in the way I thought everyone wanted me to.
Smiling through it all, convincing myself that all of the outside validation made me happy.
But I lost myself on that path. I was disappointed in myself for being so blinded by a cookie-cutter life that I was never meant to fit in.
I’d decided that if I were to find someone, despite vowing that I never would again, that I would ensure it was right. That I would feel seen. That I could be myself and flourish.
I can do that on my own. I realize that now. But I’m not willing to let him go.
“Don’t look at me like that, mishka .”
I gently place my hand on his heart. “I trust you.” His green eyes spark with fire. “And if I’m a fool for it, I still have no regrets.”
His grip tightens as I slowly lean back. “What are you doing?” he growls, a flicker of panic in his tone.
I can’t help but release a nervous smile, coaxing out that inner courage I felt the day he brought me into that cage with the shark.
That’s when my world truly started changing from the inside out.
When I started finding this braver version of myself, realizing I don’t always need a plan or even a safety net.
“I trust that you won’t let me fall,” I whisper, and his grip on me locks tighter as I lean farther back over the railing.
My heart pounds as I fight the voice in my head telling me to stop, to sit up, to get safely back on the balcony.
But instead, I slowly extend my arms out to the sides, feeling free.
“I want both of us to be free,” I say, smiling as the moon shines down on us.
I can hear the chaos of cars honking at one another below.
I can feel the strength of his arms around me, and I know no matter what, I will always be safe in his embrace.
Even as my heart pounds in my chest from adrenaline.
Every day I’m with him, I feel lighter. Freer.
“So we can choose what we want. I don’t care what people think anymore,” I tell him as I bring myself back up into a sitting position.
That adrenaline gives me the spike of courage to say out loud what it is I really want.
I’ve always waited to be chosen or handed things.
This is the first time I’ve ever wanted something so out of my reach, despite being only a breath away.
“And what do you want, mishka ?” he asks, his voice raw.
“I want it all. And I want it with you.”
The fire in his gaze ignites, and that adrenaline morphs into something far more volatile between my thighs.
I want him.
I need him.
I reach out and brush my thumb over the cut on his lip.
“I’m a killer, mishka .” His accent is harsher, and the sound of it has an electric thrill running through me.
“And I have expensive tastes,” I reply, pointing out something just as obvious, letting him know that I accept that part of him. “But what I know is I want you—more than I think I’ve wanted anything else.”
“If I were to claim you, mishka , it puts you in danger. Your friends will never accept it. And I am a possessive man. Anything I consider mine, I’ll wrap myself around it and never let go.”
My heart fills. I know it should scare me, but I’ve always craved someone to look at me the way he does, to promise me the darkest of depravities and not judge me for them.
To be devoted to me and only me. Someone I won’t have to shrink myself for because he’s seen all the sides of me that I’ve always tried to hide.
I lean in, brushing my lips against his. “Hmmm… I do like it when you constrict my throat.”
A growl escapes him as he spins me around, and I squeal as he carries me back inside, his cock pressing against my core, my heart opening to his claiming.