Chapter 19 Svetlana
SVETLANA
His face darkens, and I can tell that he really thought that bringing me strawberries and cream and chocolate, running an errand for me, was enough to make up for letting me walk out of that warehouse alone.
That all of the past and the present can be fixed by giving me something I wanted.
One thing. "You can't keep me here. You can't just lock me up and expect me to—"
"I'm protecting you." His voice is stubborn, firm. He really believes his own bullshit.
"You're imprisoning me!" My voice rises. "You're keeping me here against my will, watching me, controlling everything I do—"
"Because you can't be trusted!" He's shouting now, too, his control finally snapping. "Because the second I turn my back, you try to run. You try to leave, to go back out there where anyone could find you, where you'd be alone and vulnerable and—"
"That's my choice to make!"
"Not when you're carrying my child, it's not." The words hang between us, sharp and brutal.
I laugh humorlessly. "There it is. That's what this is really about, isn't it? Not me. Not keeping me safe. The baby. Your baby, or so you’re determined to think. Your property."
"That's not—"
"Isn't it?" I take a step toward him, my hands clenched into fists.
"You don't give a shit about me. You just want to make sure your heir is safe and sound.
Well, guess what? I haven't decided if I'm keeping it yet. Maybe that’s where I was trying to run to.
Somewhere I can finish what I started when you grabbed me. "
His face goes very still. "What?"
"You heard me." I spit the words out, wanting to hurt him. "I haven't decided. And you can't make me. You can lock me in this apartment, you can watch me every second of every day, but you can't force me to—"
He moves so fast I don't have time to react.
He picks me up and—carefully, I have to admit—puts me back through the window, depositing me in the living room before following me inside, clearly determined not to have this argument on the rickety fire escape.
He reaches for my wrist, turning me to face him.
"Don't." His voice is low and deadly. "Don't even think about it."
"Or what?" I try to pull away, but his grip is iron. "What are you going to do, Kazimir? Hit me? Hurt me? Punish me like you did back at the cabin?"
Heat flashes in his eyes—heat and anger and clear lust at the memory of that night.
"If you weren't pregnant," he says, his voice rough, "I'd do exactly that."
My heart slams against my ribs, and I feel a bloom of lust in my own veins, which I try desperately to ignore. "Of course you would. I wouldn't put it past you to abuse a pregnant woman."
He laughs, and the sound makes my skin prickle.
"Abuse?" He leans in closer, his breath warm against my cheek. "Is that what you call it? Because I remember it differently. I remember you soaking my fingers. I remember you begging me not to stop."
Heat floods my face. "I did not—"
"I had you on the verge of coming all over my hand." His voice drops lower, intimate and cruel. "You were so close, weren't you? So desperate. And you want to call that abuse?"
"Let go of me." My voice shakes, and I hate that he can see how much his words affect me.
"You enjoyed it." He's so close now I can feel the heat of his body. "Admit it. You enjoyed every second of what I did to you."
"I didn't—"
"Liar." His free hand comes up to cup my jaw, forcing me to look at him. "Your body doesn't lie, Svetlana. I felt how wet you were. How ready. How much you wanted it."
"Stop." The word comes out as barely a whisper.
"Do you know what I did after?" His thumb brushes across my lower lip, and I feel the touch everywhere, down to my center, my clit suddenly throbbing as if he touched me there instead.
"After I left you there, aching and desperate?
I went outside, and I jerked myself off with your arousal still on my hand. "
Oh God.
"I used it." His voice is rough, raw. "The feel of you, the smell of you, while I stroked myself. Came so hard I could barely stand. I came in the snow while I could taste you on my tongue."
I can't breathe. Can't think. The image he's painting is obscene, filthy, and my body is responding, no matter how much I don't want it to.
"There are other ways I could punish you." His hand slides from my jaw to the back of my neck, fingers tangling in my hair. "I could make you beg."
"I would never—"
"You would." He pulls me closer, until our bodies are nearly pressed together, the small gap of space between us making me ache to lean in. I fight against it with everything I have. "I could make you beg so prettily. Make you plead for me to let you come. Make you admit how much you want it."
His mouth is so close to mine I can almost taste him.
"I could tie you down." His voice is barely above a whisper now, low and dark. "Spread you open. Use my mouth on you until you're crying. Until you're so desperate you'd promise me anything just to feel me inside you."
My breath hitches. I know he hears it.
"I could make you come over and over until you can't remember your own name." His breath is warm against my lips, the echo of his body touching mine. "Until the only word you know is mine."
He's going to kiss me. I can feel it in the tension of his muscles, in the way his hand tightens in my hair.
And God help me, part of me wants him to.
But the other part knows exactly what that would mean. It would mean surrender. It would mean giving in. It would mean letting him win.
So before his lips can touch mine, before I can lose myself in whatever dark thing is building between us, I pull my hand back and slap him as hard as I can.
The crack of my palm against his cheek echoes through the apartment. He goes very still.
For a moment, we just stare at each other, both breathing hard. His cheek is red where I hit him, and there's something in his eyes I can't read.
Then I wrench myself out of his grip and run, using his shock to my advantage.
I don't go for the window this time, or even the front door. I know I’m not going to escape with him here.
I go for the guest bedroom, slamming the door behind me and locking it.
My hands are shaking so badly it takes three tries.
I press my back against the door and slide down to the floor, my heart pounding so hard I think it might burst out of my chest.
What the fuck was that? What the fuck is wrong with me?
He was describing ways to torture me—because that's what it would be, no matter how he dressed it up—and my body responded. I got wet. I wanted it. I wanted him.
I press my hands to my face, trying to breathe, trying to think past the chaos in my head.
He doesn’t come after me. I can hear him moving around in the living room, but he doesn't try the door or demand I come out. Maybe the slap actually got through to him.
Or maybe he's just biding his time.
I sit there long enough for my breathing to slow, for the heat in my body to fade into something more manageable. Long enough to start thinking clearly again. And when I do, a memory surfaces. Sharp and clear.
Back at the cabin, when I was still trying to figure out how to survive, I'd used his desire against him.
I'd seen the way he looked at me, the way he responded when I got close, and I'd used it.
I'd made him think I was softening, that I was starting to trust him.
Made him lower his guard just enough that I thought I could escape.
It hadn't worked then. But that was different. We were in the middle of nowhere, and he was watching me constantly. Here, in the city, with his business pulling him away, with a thousand distractions and demands on his time—here, it might actually work.
I just have to make him believe it. I just have to make him think I'm giving in.
The thought makes my stomach turn, but I force myself to consider it. He wants me. That much is obvious. He wants me in his bed, in his life, carrying his child and playing house like we're some kind of normal couple.
He wants me to want him back. So what if I let him think I do? What if I stop fighting so hard? Stop trying to run every time his back is turned? What if I soften, just a little? Just enough to make him think he's winning?
He might relax. He might stop watching me so closely and start to believe that I'm actually staying because I want to, not because he's forcing me.
And then, when he's comfortable, when his guard is finally down—
Then I run.
The plan takes shape in my mind, cold and clear.
I'll be sweet. Compliant. I'll eat the food he brings me and wear the clothes he buys and let him think he's taking care of me.
I'll stop throwing his guilt in his face and stop reminding him of what he's done.
I'll let him get close. Maybe not as close as he wants—I know better than to think that sleeping with him again wouldn’t backfire on me—but close enough to make him think it's only a matter of time.
Right now, I just have to survive. I have to play the game long enough to get out. And if that means lying to him, manipulating him, using his own desire against him—well, he deserves it.
He kidnapped me. He's keeping me here against my will. He let me leave without protection, and I ended up in a Russian cell. Now he wants to be my savior, but it’s too little, too late.
I don’t believe he’s being genuine, that he’s really sorry. I think he wants me, that he feels like my child is his, and that he’s no better than any other man.
Strawberries and cream aside, he’s a Bratva enforcer. A brutal villain.
And since he decided to make this a war, I’m going to make sure I’m the one who wins.