22. Rose #2
Lisa plants her hands on her hips. "And who exactly are you?"
"I’m his uncle," he replies. And as he looks back at her, I see something shift in her gaze. Her tears dry as her mind moves to the next possibility.
"Oh, of course," she replies as she runs a hand through her hair. "You know, Petar told me about you. He said that you were... well, that you had plenty of success."
She flutters her lashes at him, and I feel a rush of—wait, is that jealousy?
I mean, I still don’t know where the hell I stand with Ilya, or where my feelings about him leave me, but when she looks at him like that, it sparks something fierce that I cannot deny. Something that I don’t want to ignore.
"I’m sure that you have a much better grasp on this than Rose does," Lisa, practically purring as she takes a step closer to him, planting a tender hand on his chest .
But Ilya remains cold as concrete, not giving her an inch, and he brushes her hand away.
"You should leave," he tells her, his voice leaving no room for argument. His tone wipes the smile from Lisa’s face, and I can’t help but feel a little gratified that he seems utterly uninterested in her attempts to charm him.
"Well, it’s not like I have anywhere to go," she huffs angrily. "I—"
"You have to be at a hearing at the end of the month, don’t you?" he replies. "Best get your ducks in a row and try to avoid prison time. Because I’m sure Petar will be the first to point the finger at you, given the chance."
Her face darkens again, and she glares at the two of us, frustrated that her plans have not worked.
"You’re threatening me now?"
"I’m giving you advice,” Ilya says. “And you’d do well to take it."
A beat of silence plays between them, and I half-expect her to shoot back with another angry remark. But thank God, she seems to think better of it and flounces out past us, the bell above the door ringing to announce her departure.
For a second, Becky just stands there, clearly too stunned to make sense of anything that has just happened. But before I can begin to offer her any kind of answer, Ilya takes me around the waist and steers me to the door.
"Come on,” he grumbles. “We’re leaving."
"What?" I exclaim. "No, I need to explain to Becky what—"
"We have to go," he insists, and his grip tightens on me slightly, a clear sign not to defy him.
I lock eyes with Becky apologetically, and she reaches out to give my hand a squeeze.
"I’ll call you later, okay?" I murmur to her in apology, and she nods just before Ilya steers me to the door. There is no point arguing with him. When he’s made his mind up, he might as well be an immovable object.
"You don’t have to drag me around, you know," I snap as he strides back towards the car.
He pauses, turning to me, and the sunlight casts shadows over his angular face. I find it hard to read his expression—aside from the anger.
"She really thought Petar would come back to you?” he mutters.
I stare at him for a second, surprised that he would take something like that so seriously. "I have no idea," I reply. "I mean, it’s not like I’ve ever given him any indication that I want a fucking thing to do with him, after the way he treated me."
I cock an eyebrow, a stir of defiance showing up in my chest.
"And besides, looked like she was way more interested in you than me by the time that she left," I point out. I am half-joking, but I realize as soon as the words come out of my mouth that I’m still jealous she laid her hand on him. I know it’s ridiculous, that he’s the one who claimed me and not the other way around, but I can’t shake it.
His face darkens as he closes the distance between us. "You think I wanted her to touch me?" he growls. Though he is not laying a hand on me now, I can feel something coming off of him in waves—something insistent, something fiery. The same heat I felt when he fucked me on that table.
"I don’t know what you want," I shoot back. "That’s what I’ve been trying to figure out since I got here, in case you didn’t notice."
His gaze lingers on me for a moment, as though he’s trying to find the best way to respond to my sudden attitude. And then, before I can say another word, he grabs my hand and leads me down the alleyway between the back of the store and the building next door.
"What are you doing?" I exclaim.
He turns, pinning me against the grimy wall right there. "You want me to show you what I want?" he says, pushing my hands above my head, instantly in total command of my body. "You need me to remind you, Rose?”
I hardly have time to think of an answer when his lips slam against mine.
A kiss that’s meant to claim, meant to remind me of just what he needs from me.
He presses himself against me, and I can already feel the stiffness of his cock through his pants, like he wants me to feel every inch of his desire.
I gasp against his lips, wondering if I should stop this before it goes any further.
I mean, it’s the middle of the morning, on a street that’s normally busy with customers.
We could be caught at any second, and I don’t know what kind of trouble that might get us in.
With Ilya’s connections with the cops, it’s hard to believe he wouldn’t find a way out of it, but still...
He hitches me off the ground, hands beneath my ass as he pins me between himself and the wall. The skirt of my dress falls around us, and he pulls it aside so that he can slip his hand into my panties.
"Fuck," he groans. "You feel how fucking wet you are for me already, Rose?”
He draws his hand back, letting me see my own slickness smeared over his fingertips, and I gasp.
I can’t deny how much I want him, even if it means we’ll get caught.
Maybe there’s even a part of me that wants that, for us to be exposed, because it means no one will be able to deny just how badly he needs me.