Chapter Twenty-Two
Arkady
This is a fuck-up. I have no doubt about it.
I grab her arms, intending to push her away—the smart move, the safe move.
Instead, I slam her against the wall hard enough that the framed photograph near her head rattles.
One hand cups her jaw, thumb pressed against her pulse point.
The other pins her wrist above her head.
Her mouth opens under mine, and I taste mint and hunger and something dangerously addictive.
Don’t do it, mudak.
But I ignore the voice in my head. That voice is an asshole.
Weeks of restraint evaporate. I kiss her harder, deeper, swallowing the sound she makes when my teeth scrape her lower lip. She clings to my shirt, pressing against my chest. Her fingers brush against me, and I feel the exact moment she stops thinking and starts feeling.
Everything inside me screams this is wrong.
I’m her employer. She has no idea the danger my world holds, the blood on my hands, the enemies circling like sharks.
She doesn’t know about the bodies I’ve buried.
Doesn’t know about the darkness that lives in me, the violence that’s as natural as breathing.
She doesn’t know, and I should keep it that way.
I growl against her lips, and she whimpers into my mouth. Breath sweet, skin smooth, body soft where it molds against mine. So different from the hardness of my world. From the cold calculation I bring to everything else.
“Fuck it.” I lift her, her legs wrapping around my waist as I carry her toward my room. Her heat presses against my belly, her mouth hungry on my neck as I kick the door shut behind us. The lock engages with a solid click—a reinforced deadbolt. The kind that keeps people out. Or in.
I stride across the room and drop her onto my bed.
She bounces once, hair spilling across my sheets like dark silk. I stand between her spread knees, drinking in the sight of her. Flushed cheeks. Swollen lips. Eyes wide and wanting.
“I’m going to fuck you till you understand who’s in charge.” The words come out raw, honest. The same tone I use when I’m making promises I intend to keep.
Her eyes widen, but she doesn’t move. Doesn’t speak. Just stares at me with lust and confusion warring in her expression.
I wait for her to resist. Three seconds. Five.
She stays. Says nothing.
Good enough.
My hands move to my belt—Italian leather, expensive, solid. I unfasten it slowly, the leather sliding through the loops with a hiss. Her breathing quickens, her chest rising and falling faster now. She remains still, watching me with an expression caught between fear and want.
The belt in my hands feels familiar. Comfortable. I’ve used it before for control, for dominance, for making sure people understand their place.
“Turn around,” I command.
She hesitates, uncertainty crossing her face.
I don’t wait. I grab her shoulder and turn her myself, gathering her wrists behind her back.
The belt wraps around them—not tight enough to cut off circulation, but secure.
Restraining. I’ve tied people up before.
Different context, different purpose, but the mechanics are the same.
This is different, I tell myself. She wants this.
But the line feels thinner than it should.
I reach for the zipper of her dress, dragging it down slowly.
The fabric parts, revealing the curve of her spine, the delicate ladder of her vertebrae.
My fingers trace each bone, feeling her shiver under my touch.
Her dress is held up by thin laces that snap with almost no effort.
I push the fabric off her shoulders, letting it pool at her waist. Her strapless bra is emerald lace against pale skin.
My hands—scarred from years of violence, marked by the choices I’ve made—trace down her back, feeling the tremor that runs through her. These hands have done terrible things. Broken bones. Pulled triggers. Signed death sentences.
Now they’re touching her. Claiming her.
“You’ve been making my life hell,” I tell her, my voice low and rough. “Walking through my house like you own it. Touching my things. Breaking my rules.”
And it’s true. She’s been a disruption from the moment she arrived. Getting into spaces she shouldn’t. Asking questions. Making me think about things I’ve spent years burying. Like what it might be like to have someone in this house who doesn’t flinch when I walk into a room.
She tries to speak, but I unclasp her bra with one practiced hand, yanking it away.
My palms slide around to cup her breasts, feeling their weight, the softness of them.
Her nipples are already hard, and when I roll one between thumb and forefinger, she gasps—a sharp intake of breath that goes straight to my cock.
“Tonight,” I continue, applying more pressure, twisting gently until she whimpers, “I’m going to take what I want.”
Because that’s what men like me do. We take. We don’t ask permission. We don’t wait for invitations. We see something we want, and we claim it.
I turn her roughly to face me, pushing her back onto the mattress.
With her hands bound behind her, her breasts thrust upward, exposed and vulnerable.
I pull her dress down further, over her hips, dragging it off completely and tossing it aside.
Her panties match the bra—emerald lace that barely covers her.
I can already see the damp spot darkening the fabric.
“Christ,” I mutter, looking at her. Taking in every sweet curve. The swell of her breasts. The dip of her waist. The flare of her hips.
I strip my shirt off, watching her eyes track the tattoos that cover my chest and arms. Black wings spreading across my collarbones, feathers trailing down my biceps.
Each one represents something from my past. The wings for my brother.
The eight-pointed star on my left shoulder marking what I am, what I’ve become.
The dagger on my ribcage for betrayal avenged.
The marks of what I am. What I’ve done.
She sees them, and I wonder if she understands. If she realizes that these aren’t just decorations. They’re a record. A confession inked into skin.
I push the thought away, focusing on the woman spread before me. Her lips are swollen from my kisses, her chest rising and falling rapidly. She shifts on the bed, testing the restraints around her wrists.
“Arkady,” she says, her voice unsteady. “I think we should—”
“Unless you’re screaming my name,” I tell her, kneeling between her legs, “I don’t want to hear what you think.” I shove her knees apart, spreading her thighs wide.
“Dear God,” she chokes out, dropping her head back as my hands slide up her flesh. Her skin is impossibly soft under my calloused palms. I hook my fingers into her panties and drag them down roughly, pulling them off and throwing them aside.
And then she’s completely bare before me. Pink and already wet, glistening in the low light.
I don’t even want to control myself. Not anymore. The woman is impossible to control. I don’t know how to handle her—I want to slap her and fuck her and own her in equal measure. The admission is dark, honest, wrong in every way that matters.
But looking at her now, bound and spread and waiting, I can’t bring myself to care.
“You think too little,” I tell her, tracing one finger along her inner thigh, stopping just short of where her pussy is gleaming wetly, lips unfurling. “Taking risks. Breaking into rooms you have no business entering.”
The smart move would be to end this right now. To push her away.
Instead, I’m about to bury myself inside her.
“Arkady—” she starts again, then gasps when I lower my head between her thighs without warning.
My tongue drags through her folds in one long, slow stroke, tasting her.
She cries out, her hips bucking against my mouth.
I hold her down with one arm across her pelvis, using my other hand to spread her wider, opening her completely to me.
She tastes like salt and musk and something clean. Innocent. Everything I’m not.
I find her clit with my tongue, circling it slowly at first, then faster.
Her thighs tremble on either side of my head, her breathing ragged and desperate.
I’m methodical about it, calculating every movement.
Finding what makes her gasp, what makes her moan, what makes her try to twist away from the intensity.
I slide one finger inside her, feeling how tight she is, how her muscles clench around the intrusion like a fist. She’s so wet my finger slides in easily despite the tightness.
I add a second finger, stretching her, feeling her body resist and then yield.
I curl them upward, finding that spot inside that makes her cry out, while my tongue continues working her clit without mercy.
“Oh, God—Arkady—” Her words dissolve into incoherent sounds as I increase the pressure, the speed.
My fingers thrust in and out of her while I suck her clit into my mouth, flicking it with my tongue in a rhythm that has her entire body going rigid.
The wet sounds her body makes fill the room in an obscene rhythm that matches my pumping fingers.
“Oh, God, I—” Her climax hits suddenly, her body convulsing.
Her inner walls clamp down on my fingers so hard I expect to hear my knuckles crack.
I feel every pulse, every contraction, as she comes undone.
I don’t stop, working her through it with my tongue and fingers until she’s shaking, trying to pull away from the overwhelming sensation.
Only then do I rise, unbuttoning my pants and shoving them down along with my boxers. My cock springs free, hard and aching, already leaking at the tip. I reach into the bedside drawer for a condom, tearing the packet open with my teeth.
The thought of a child feels impossible. Especially knowing what happened to Mishka. I can’t bring a child into this world. Into my world. Can’t risk loving something that breakable.