Chapter 5 - Nadya
“Get the fuck out of the car.”
I force the words out past the lump that is my heart, lodged in my throat. Somehow, the words come out unflinching. Steely and acidic. How I manage to sound this pissed, I don’t have a fucking clue. I roll with it, though.
My eyes narrow to slits.
I realize in retrospect that I expected a fight from him. I realize it once I’m already surprised by his readiness to comply. I can only hope it obscures my body’s visceral reaction to his proximity.
He slips smoothly out of the dark grey Audi Avant. Unfazed, like this confrontation costs him nothing. His gaze drips over me in trails of fire. Amusement toys with the corners of his luscious mouth.
I have to swallow the urge to sink my teeth into him.
For an endless moment, he stands there and looks at me. I’d call it staring, but it isn’t that, not really. I’ve been harboring an addiction for too long to not know what floods me is pure, unadulterated adrenaline.
I look back. Let’s pretend it’s a choice.
It should be, right? He’s on my turf. It isn’t the no man’s land of an alley behind a ritzy club or in the lust-hazy cocoon of a hotel room.
But bathed in the shadows and headlight-flashes, he’s worse than just a tall, dark, and handsome man.
There’s a primal danger that wafts off of him in waves.
It calls to something deep inside me like a siren call.
His grin, once it shamelessly sprawls, belongs to a wolf. He doesn’t say a word, and it still feels like he’s won something. That means I lost.
“What the fuck are you playing at, Viktor?” I spit, uncaging his name from between my teeth. A dislodged weapon I’ve been carrying all week, unbeknownst to a single other soul.
There is no relief in wielding it.
If possible, Viktor Zakharov grins wider. He relishes the syllables spilling from my lips, his tongue darting out to rove across his own mouth.
It encourages him.
He says, “Nadya Yuri.”
I stumble backward, out of the line of fire. It doesn’t work. My breath shallows. He may as well have poured a bucket of ice water over my head. “Did you know?” I choke out.
His body is an unrelenting tower. Like Pisa, he leans backward, his spine flush against the car door. His caterpillar-thick brows arch arrogantly, folding lines into his forehead. Despite the floodlights’ assistance, the night renders the warm hazel of Viktor’s eyes dark and daunting.
He doesn’t answer.
“Oh, God, you did,” I gasp, my palm a resuscitation paddle against my chest. “Jesus fucking Christ. I’m so fucking stupid. What the fuck?”
His footsteps don’t disturb the gravel beneath his steel-capped boots.
Shock flashes through my system when, out of nowhere, his massive fingers are wrapped around my wrist, drawing away my touch from my body.
It isn’t the first time they’ve done so.
But my body doesn’t react with familiarity.
My heart mimics my Ducati, speeding till it’s screeching.
It crashes to a halt when he says flatly, “No.”
That’s it. That’s all he gives me. One word.
At least until he’s punctuating it with the backs of a second hand’s fingers, pressing over the warmth of my cheek with the hotter skin.
The contact sears. “It’s nice to know you flush when you’re furious, Nadya,” he says huskily.
“I’ve dreamt about pressing that face into my sheets more than once this week. ”
My nipples pucker over his depraved invitation—and it is an invitation, that fact is indisputable. The bralette that’s typically enough for my unimpressive tits isn’t built to be a barrier against this.
The breathless, whining sounds of my own cries come back to me. Every memory mocks me, reminding me how much I’d enjoy it. Again. They throw in my face how much I’d reveled in the praise he bestows on me now, frank and filthy. There’s no bravado there. This isn’t a line. He’s been dreaming of me.
I can relate.
“Do you have a death wish?”
Viktor lets loose a considering grunt. “I’m not deterred by it, no. But I’m not the adrenaline junkie you are either.”
“I’m not—” I snap.
He interjects. “I’ve been watching you. Yes, you are. And I’m not judging. You’re magnificent. I’ve never seen anyone more alive.”
The way he frames every word, letting it roll off his tongue slowly, makes it sound meaningful. But it isn’t. It can’t be. He is Viktor Zakharov. When he says he’s been watching me…
I know, in this moment, that I haven’t been imagining the feeling of being watched.
All week, I’ve whipped around over and over.
The back of my head burning. Every hair on my body raised.
Feeling like I was losing my mind and possibly experiencing a psychological episode triggered by my guilt.
He’s been watching me. Because that is who he is.
He is a creep—a dangerous, vile motherfucker.
Sexy, my brain supplies. Well-hung. Atrocious.
“You’re stalking me,” I force out.
“Yes.”
“Why should I believe you? That you didn’t know?”
His laughter is soft like smoke. “I am not in the business of shoulds.”
I slap his hands away, both of mine shoving at his chest with every ounce of strength in me. It’s always more than a man expects from me. But I work hard to ensure I can protect myself. “Oh, I’m well-acquainted with what business you’re in, Zakharov.”
“I liked my name in your mouth, Nadya,” he tuts. He shakes his head like I’ve disappointed him.
I glare at him. “That is your name. Zakharov.”
Viktor glares back. “I regret not exchanging names that night.”
“Right back atcha!” I snarl, bristling. The reaction erupts so swiftly, I have no chance to rein it in. Not like I’ve ever been good at that. “You have no idea what I’d give to take it back. To not make the fucking mistake of—”
“What, giving me your virginity, Nadya?” It sounds like a dare. He steps closer, and it doesn’t matter where I back away. I can taste the peppermint on his breath.
This close, Viktor’s eyes look molten. I can’t escape the way they flash at me. How I wind up with my back against his car door, my jacket falling off my shoulders, I have no idea. But I am aware of it. Every inch of my body burns, and the glass is a cold reminder.
“Stop saying my name.”
It’s his eyes that narrow now. “Make. Me.”
Two words. No more, no less. He leaves the challenge to hang between us, practically buzzing with an electric charge I should be afraid of. But I’m not. I’m not afraid—and that’s a problem.
This is a problem.
He is a problem. And he’s in me—he’s inside of me, no pun intended—like a disease.
Like an infection that’s driven me to the brink with its fever.
A fever that’s got my limbs in its clutches and urges my nerve-endings to just do it.
Wouldn’t it be so easy to grab him by the collar, just as I did that night?
My fingers tremble with need.
I could reel him in and fuse my mouth to his and silence him.
But how the fuck do I silence my own brain?
A brain that registers a flash of movement over his shoulder and comes back to earth. To this place, where we stand surrounded by floodlights and bikes, and people who know my face. People who know my brothers’ faces. Who just might know the Yuri name.
All it would take is one person.
Reality slams into me like a semi-truck.
“No,” I rasp, grappling for composure.
It takes a second.
It takes real fucking effort to tug into place a mask I’ve been holding at bay; a mask that I hate, because I can’t handle being anything but me. Except this has to supersede my personal hangups. I can’t be this fucking selfish. I refuse to be this goddamn stupid.
I can feel the shift in my spine and the steel in my jaw.
“Nadya.”
“Nadya Ivanovna Yuria,” I hiss, shoving past the cage of his vicinity. “And don’t you make the mistake of forgetting it, Zakharov.”
The corners of his lush mouth twitch.
Good. It bolsters my anger—and that I can use. “We are enemies, Zakharov. You aren’t a stupid man. Surely, you get that this won’t end well for you.”
He dares to laugh at me. “Are you concerned about me? That’s very sweet.”
My hands curl into fists. “I could end this right now. One phone call is all it would take. Tell me you know this.”
I see something flicker behind his eyes.
One can only hope it’s a healthy dose of some fucking trepidation.
“Do you think I don’t know about the things you’ve done?
” I stoke the flames, quick as I can. “If I had known who you were, I would never have fucked you. And that’s what you were.
A good fuck—but not worth this. Not worth betraying the only thing that is worth a damn to me.
My family. A family you target. That, for all I know, you coming after me in the club was part of.
A family that would love to see you hung from your fucking toes. ”
He doesn’t flinch. He just stares at me. “Oh?”
“I could pull my phone out and make one phone call,” I press again, because he clearly doesn’t get it. “That’s all it would take. And all five brothers and all their men won’t rest until you’re pulp.”
“Your brothers and their men have already been hunting me,” he says with a grim smile.
“I could keep you here until they come.”
“Could you? Now, that sounds interesting to me.”
“I think you lied to me,” I accuse. “You are an adrenaline junkie. You must be. There’s no other explanation for this.”
“Hello, pot.” Viktor grins, his brows arching again. “I can think of a couple.”
Fuck. That’s it.
I pull my phone out of my pocket, just to prove that I can. It’s a grenade, and we both should know it. I wait for his reaction—for something to change about that arrogant, lazy grin of his. Nothing does.
“This is your one warning,” I say, waving the phone in his face before I shove it back into my pocket.
“Stay the fuck away from me. Forget you ever met me. Forget that we—” I hate that I can’t say it.
I hate the hitch in my breath, simultaneously barely there and too obvious.
“Just stay the fuck away from me, Zakharov. Or your blood will be on my hands, and I don’t need it. ”
For some reason, my words thrill him. He looks fucking thrilled, like I’ve made some sort of admission here.
Maybe to a monster like him, not wanting his blood on my hands is one.
But I’m just a decent goddamn person. I won’t feel bad about that.
Yeah, I fuck up sometimes, and I can be a mess, but I try to keep my shit contained.
He—and this, this thing between us—was never supposed to be part of it. I can’t take it back now. But I won’t let it go on any further.
“Not wanting your blood on my hands doesn’t mean I couldn’t live with it on them,” I tell him, furious at myself now.
At him, too. At everything about this situation.
“I can. So, do me a solid and fucking go. Disappear back into whatever hole you like to hide in. We’re done here.
This conversation, that night, all of it. Done. Do you hear me?”
“You don’t honestly believe that, do you?” His voice is maddeningly tender. What the fuck?
“Of course, I fucking do!”
“Cute.” Viktor’s head tilts, and his eyes refuse to relinquish their hold on me, watchful. It’s as if he’s trying to see right to the heart of me. I won’t let him. That particular mistake was a one-and-done. “I don’t believe you.”
I snort, my eyes rolling with exasperation. “Okie dokie. That’s not really my problem, dude.”
Yet I’m still transfixed by the sight of his tongue gliding across his bared teeth, a feral gesture that makes my stomach bottom out.
“I don’t agree with you,” he says calmly.
Every instinct I have screams at me to either run or close the distance between us entirely. I do neither. I hold my ground. “You need to leave. Now.”
“I am.” He reaches for his car door. Unbridled relief roils through me in an avalanche, nearly blinding me with its intensity. “But it’s not because you’re threatening me. I would rather like to pull you into my backseat and show you just how unafraid of you I am, Nadya.”
Without permission, apparently incapable of leaving well enough alone, my mouth petulantly argues, “Why, then?”
He stills with his arm on the roof of the Audi, and looks me over, head to toe. My pulse throbs between my thighs. “As I said, I’m not in the business of shoulds, Nadya. But my other business does need tending to. I’ll have to live off of this sparring match for a few days.”
My brain short-circuits. I can’t begin to process the implications of his words. But that’s of little consequence, isn’t it? No matter what, as I watch Viktor Zakharov slip back into his car and glide off with a wink of taillights, his parting message couldn’t be any fucking clearer.
This isn’t the last I’ll be seeing of him.