Chapter 32 Show Me
Show Me
Ididn’t slam the door, and I didn’t take off my heels, just walked straight through the apartment to the bedroom, and sat down on the edge of the bed. My purse toppled over and fell, its contents clattering and spilling on the floor.
“Something wrong?” Vitali asked from the doorway, and I almost burst out laughing. His shoes were off.
“I saw a man die,” I said, voice shaking—but I couldn’t tell if it was nerves or cackles.
His hand brushed my neck, then he sat beside me, cupping my chin to face him. “He touched you. There are consequences.”
My numbness ruptured, and the anger came up like bile. I shoved him, palm flat against his chest. My hand stung with the impact. I was on my feet and across the room in moments as if he would chase me, but he only rested his arms on his knees, face effortlessly calm.
“You done?” he asked.
I had been there for weeks, and yet at that moment, standing by the bathroom door, was the first time I noticed the splintered wood in the grooves where the hinges should be. Where they were ripped out.
“You made me watch you kill a man…”
“I allowed it.”
I opened my mouth to shout something, but didn’t know what to say. He crossed the room with the sheer audacity of meaning to comfort me.
“Get away from me,” I snarled. I’m not proud to admit it, but I swung.
He caught my wrist in mid-air, fingers closing in like a manacle, and jerked me against him. “Careful, Kotik.”
I tried to distance myself with my free arm, but he trapped it tightly between us.
For fuck sake—was he hard?
My breath caught between anger and a fogged-up brain, because my line between rage and surrender was a thin one when it came to Vitali.
“I don’t want anything to do with you,” I said through my teeth.
“I warned you not to lie to me, Katya.” His breath was hot and ragged against my temple.
I grew so used to the cigarette smoke I could almost lick it off him.
His free hand tangled in my hair and wrenched my head back to expose my throat, lips hovering a millimeter from my skin.
“I told you I would do anything for you, and I did. You don’t get to like it only when it’s flowers. ”
“You’re cra—”
He didn’t let me get the words out, crushing his mouth against mine. The impact drove us against the wall, rattling the picture frames. His body pinned me, and all the rage and heat and violence blurred into one, molten where it pooled in my lower belly, and an inferno in my heart.
I gasped for air against his lips, and he yanked my head to the side, his mouth hot on my ear.
“Show me how angry you are.” His teeth nipped the lobe, hard enough to sting. The stiff ridge of his cock dug into my hip.
I shoved again, doing my best to wedge my elbows between us.
“Fight me,” he encouraged, grinding his hips against mine. “Show me how much you don’t want anything to do with me.”
The delicate strap on my dress caught on his cufflink and snapped as I twisted. I grunted and kicked, but his grip was paralyzing. My heel infuriatingly tangled in the fabric of his pants.
“That’s it,” he murmured against my neck, lips dragging on the sweat-misted skin. A low growl rose in his throat. “That’s my Kotik.”
I jerked back only to hit the wall again, the frustrated scream rising but still vaguely aware that it was past midnight and we had neighbors.
“You killed someone,” I seethed, losing my drive but not willing to make peace with the fact that I wasn’t going anywhere.
“That’s not something you need to worry about,” he said, his hand raking down the dress until he had a firm grip on my hip. “But if someone looks at you in a way I don’t approve of, I will again.”
He pulled me into him, his cock like steel between us.
My life—my new life—flashed before me, erratic, like an unraveling cassette. Everything from that damned day I met him. Every sadness, every fear, every disappointment. Every time he showed up and brought color to the bleak, gray world.
The last of my dignity caught on the early spring draft, six months after meeting Vitali Konstantinov. That is how long it took him to break me, and he did break me.
I arched into him.
He froze.
One second, it was a fight for my life, and he was a furnace against me. The next, he dropped me and took off as if stung. The change was so abrupt, I staggered, trying to get my bearings as he disappeared into the bathroom.
The faucet screeched as he slammed it open, and water splashed in the sink.
I stumbled to the bed and collapsed, not quite able to make sense of anything that was happening.
The digital clock on my nightstand blinked 2:13 AM.
Wind beat against the window in uneven gusts, forcing low whines out of the frames, and somewhere an old car’s brakes screeched against still-icy pavement.
When he reemerged, his hair was wet, and water droplets slid down the hard planes of his chest and down his bare abdomen. His eyes were sobered now, and he strolled over without a word, sinking to his knees.
“You can’t wear shoes in the house,” he murmured, and ran his hand up my ankle. The other raised my foot and eased the stiletto up against his bent knee with unnerving gentleness so unlike the violence just moments ago.
I shivered as he brushed his fingers up my nylons and back to the straps. “Are you kidding me?”
“I’m sorry I scared you, Kotik,” he said, unhooking the clasp with one hand as the other held my ankle. “I wanted you to see that I am always going to deliver on my promises. What happened to you will never, ever happen again.”
I blinked, weakly attempted to move my foot away from him, and gave up when he wouldn’t let me. I did not try very hard.
“What… what is going to happen to the other one? Baranov?”
“The policeman?” He slid the heel off, fingers lingering briefly to massage the arch. “I have him, but you won’t be there.” His gaze traveled up my legs and across my dress, until it met mine. He held it as he lifted my left foot. “Unless you wish to.”
I shook my head.
The light tugging sensation of his fingers on my tights was dizzying.
He tossed the stiletto to the side, rubbing my foot with a firm roll of his thumbs.
Holding it up, he kissed the top, then slowly placed another kiss on my ankle, watching as my mouth parted.
I scooted back on the bed, and his unhurried hands massaged the muscle as they slid higher, completely shattering my defenses.
On the fourth kiss, he caught the black nylon with his teeth and tugged it, testing, then pulled—like a dog wrenching it free.
The rrriiip sent a bare arrow up to my thigh—sudden cool air mixing with his hot breath.
He gazed at me with that sly half grin, and I sucked in a sigh, because I was still probably mad at him.
He crawled toward me, shoulders flexing, pulling at the thin fabric. The springs groaned as the bed dipped under his weight, light playing across his shifting muscles like a big cat stalking its prey.
The tear snaked upward, his bite shredding the stocking in jagged lines, unraveling them and setting me free of the last barrier between him and I.
I ran my hands through his hair, unwittingly inviting him closer, as his mouth stopped at my hip.
One last snap—he pulled back the band and it came undone between his teeth.
His silhouette suspended over me on his locked arms, so close that I could see each individual protruding vein on his forearm.
“Vitali,” I whispered, needing him to touch me more than I’ve ever needed anything in my life.
“Look at you,” he said, eyes traveling the curves of my bare skin. “Your chest flushes the same way your face does, Katya.” He leaned down, hips pressing mine into the mattress as he whispered against my temple, “Don’t move.”
He slid a hand beneath my shoulders, where the thin zipper came open with a soft ripple. The dress eased off, the act eclipsed by my pounding heart.
“Still angry?” His lips traced the frantic pulse at my throat as he dragged the dress down over my breasts and bunched it up over my hipbones. “Still my angry Kotik?”
“Getting there,” I whimpered, but he didn’t hear me.
I had never been naked in front of Vitali.
He never let me, and God knows I’ve tried to orchestrate that accident on several occasions.
But now that I lay under him, he took in my body with a raw, hungry interest I was yearning to drink in.
If I didn’t know better, I would think his fingers trembled as he traced the swell of my breast.
“Christ, Katya—you’re beautiful.”
His thumb circled my nipple, and then his mouth eagerly took over. I gasped, clenching my jaw as he deliberately scraped his teeth over my flesh.
“Please,” I breathed out, not knowing what I was asking.
He needed to move faster—harder—or I would lose my mind.
His cock pressed against me, and the heat of his body was driving me insane.
This—this had to be the night. I couldn’t stand it if he did all this and then made me go to sleep alone.
He spent every night for the past two weeks sleeping on the couch. Like a Goddamn gentleman. Screw him.
“Please what?” he asked through a grin. His palm cupped my breast, kneading and squeezing. Prolonging the torture. When I didn’t answer fast enough, he bent and kissed the underside of each one, lightly sucking, making his way around.
“Please, Vitali.” Please for the love of God give me permission to touch you.
“And what is it that you’re asking, Katya?” He dragged his hand down my ribs and pushed aside the lacy underwear I admittedly wore hoping to end up in this exact position. “Is it this?”
I couldn’t take what he wanted to put me through. He wouldn’t have made it fast, and my whole body screamed for more. I shook my head no, so fast my neck nearly snapped.