Chapter 21 #2
His jaw clenches ever so slightly. “You make restraint…difficult. And this filthy thing—” He lifts the dying cigarette between us. “It keeps reminding me when to stop.”
His words are like wind to the blaze flushing in my stomach.
I’m stunned and breathless as his fingers skate up to the back of my head, fisting my hair, tugging at my scalp a little.
I lick my lips again, watching him, a little ashamed at finding pleasure in this moment.
Pain is not supposed to feel good, and I’m not supposed to sit here, waiting for more.
“You wore your hair down like I asked,” he groans, keeping my face still, like he’s about to devour me. “Why?”
“Payment for your help with the dress,” I lie. The hairstyle was my choice, my agency, but it was also me wanting him to see me like that.
“And for the rest?” he asks.
I don’t have to think about it.
A kiss. Kiss me, you goddamn bastard.
It must be the way my eyes lower to his lips that shouts out the thought straight to him. His posture loosens, his face dangerously satisfied with the silent resolve.
“Problem is…that would cost me later, wouldn’t it, Cecilia?”
I don’t know what that means. If anything, kissing him would cost me more by lowering my walls for him. But in this moment, I don’t care.
I don’t care.
I don’t care.
Just this one simple—
His mouth collides with mine, and the world stills.
Soft and velvety, his tongue darts out, pressing against the seam of my lips until they part for him.
It roves inside my mouth, licking with restrained tenderness that feels as though it can explode at any given moment.
I taste mint, smoke, and burned whiskey, and I cling to the flavor like a bee to nectar.
I’ve never kissed anyone before, never had to deal with this kind of pure, primal need. I thought I’d be ashamed—self-conscious—because I wouldn’t know what to do. But Mikhail knows, and that’s enough to make me surrender, exactly how it should be.
The kiss is partly taut, partly silken. Warm, a little greedy—in a way a parched man approaches water in the desert.
Molten heat pulses from my core, sending a fluttering sensation between my legs.
It’s impossible to ignore, so much so that the only thing I can think to do is tentatively flick my tongue against his in response.
A throaty groan echoes from his chest, utterly disarming.
His hand tightens in my hair, and that delicious sting at my scalp returns, making me moan.
Moan. He takes me like an offering, slow and reverent, his body leaning into mine a little closer with each stroke of his tongue.
We’re a thread of hunger and lust, winding around each other until we’re both breathless.
“Fuck,” he murmurs raggedly, brushing my cheek with his thumb.
For a second, his forehead rests against mine, my heartbeat pounding in my chest with the force of a battalion.
The boldness that pushed me to kiss him back turns to doubt.
Does he regret it? Did I do it wrong? I don’t get to voice any of it, however, because his mouth flattens against mine for a second time.
And this time, it’s ravenous.
He bites and nips, bumping his teeth with mine, shoving that dexterous tongue down my throat as my thighs clamp together, seeking friction. When he pulls me closer, I brace myself somewhere on his thigh until a hard length tells me that’s not where I landed.
Is that…? Oh my God.
My skin prickles with goosebumps from the sudden rush of blood to my face. By the time I get to move my hand, Mikhail chuckles against my lips, knowing exactly what I’ve done.
“Jesus, fuck! Get a fucking room, you two,” someone at the table cries out. It pulls me back to reality.
The music has subdued, the atmosphere in the club now sensuous. Before acknowledging his friend, Mikhail’s green eyes bore into mine under the dim red lights, stroking my body with heat.
I kissed my husband.
“Credit card’s in there,” Mikhail says, tossing his wallet across the long table. “Pay for the club and get out.”
Niko rolls his eyes dramatically.
My body tenses as I take in the knowing faces around us.
They all saw us kiss, yet we might as well have had sex in front of them—that’s how intense it felt.
Mikhail, however, doesn’t seem bothered in the slightest. If anything, he looks annoyed at the interruption as he snakes his powerful arm around my waist.
“Better yet, why don’t I take you home, hmm?” he purrs in my ear. The sound of his low voice vibrates straight into that small spot between my legs. All I can do is nod, and before I know it, he takes the car keys from Rodion and leads me out of the booth.
Home. That single word turns my legs to water because I know, even if he hasn’t said it explicitly, that once it’s just the two of us, there won’t be any barriers.
We’ll consummate this marriage on a night when neither of us is ready to accept it, and although every thought screams at me to resist it, I don’t know if I’ll be able to.
I hold tight to the hand he offered me as we squeeze in through the sea of people swarming the place. I can feel the cool wind breezing through my hair as we approach the narrow hallway leading outside.
And then—
A gush of liquid splashes onto my dress, smearing it in pale yellow and the stench of beer. I gasp, barely getting to react before my hem is ripped away forcefully, exposing my knees. The person responsible tumbles to the sticky floor, clinging to my hip and taking me down with him.
“Out of my way, stupid bitch,” the guy yells.
I blink, and Mikhail is already in front of me, pulling me to his chest. The crowd parts a little, watching us—or him, rather—apprehensively.
“Are you hurt?” he asks, his eyes roaming my body, jaw locked tighter than I’ve ever seen it.
“I’m fine. Let’s just get out of here.”
He nods slowly, a sign he heard me, but his body is leaning into entropy.
I know this because the corners of his mouth twitch upward in an unnatural way, resembling a smile that isn’t really one—definitely not the kind he offers me.
Despite the backs of my eyes burning with tears, I’m still a little frightened by the eerie calm.
“Take my wife to the car,” my husband says. When I look behind me, Niko and Rodion are here, their carefree expressions completely gone. “Now,” he says, tossing the keys to Niko.
“W-What are you doing? Where are you going?” I ask him, digging my nails into his arm. But he’s not looking at me. He’s gone—somewhere in the darkest depths of his mind—and what I’m seeing now isn’t my husband. It’s the monster who came to claim me from my father’s basement.
“Come,” says Niko, a hand on the small of my back as Mikhail and Rodion disappear through the crowd. “It’s better not to intervene when he gets like this. It will make it worse.”
“Make w-what worse?” I ask, but, deep down, I already know the answer. Whatever Mikhail alluded to doing at the warehouse, he’s going to do it to this person. Tonight.
Niko gently steers me toward the exit, and I comply, continuing to look over my shoulder, seeking my husband. He’s nowhere to be seen, though.
A sense of loss engulfs me as the lack of his warm body next to mine registers harder once I’m outside. The club music booms behind us, and I’m led into the backseat of the car.
It’s like when I left San Maleno, shoved into my father’s Mercedes. Back then, I was staring out the window to see my home. Now, I’m doing it to find my husband. What if something happens to him?
“Relax. It’s going to be fine,” Niko tells me as he gets into the driver’s seat, turning on the heating.
I don’t know how he can be so calm, especially when, moments later, I spot my husband in his tux, dragging a limp weight out into the streets and around the corner into a dark alley.
My body begins to shake—from the cold or from the adrenaline, I’m not sure. Probably both. I can’t see what they’re doing, and it’s making me even more nervous. If Niko hadn’t locked the doors, I would’ve probably gone back outside.
A few agonizing minutes later, my husband returns alone. His jacket is gone, his white shirt soaked in crimson, the sleeves rolled to his veiny forearms. Blood stains his hands, his neck, even across his cheek and jaw.
He opens the car door then stops.
His gaze flicks over my face, lingering on the way my hands tremble in my lap. On the way I press them tighter together, like that might stop the shaking. For a moment, he just stands there in the cold, blood dripping slowly from his knuckles onto the pavement.
His jaw tightens. Then, without a word, he grabs the collar of his ruined shirt and pulls it over his head, tossing it into the trunk before sliding into the seat beside me.
It’s almost as if he knows about my hemophobia—he might.
But if he does, why does he care enough to protect me from the sight of blood?
The scent of his cologne reaches me, clean and familiar around that muscular torso filled with tattoos and scars. The faint tang of iron lingers beneath it now, and I flinch a little.
Mikhail lights a cigarette, the flame briefly illuminating the red stains still marking his skin.
“You should get used to it,” he says quietly, smoke curling between us before his dark eyes settle on mine. “After all, you married a monster tonight.”