Chapter Four #3
“Then don’t wear lingerie.”
Her eyes narrowed. “You have an answer for everything.”
“No. Only for clothes and soup so far.”
This time the sound she made almost became a laugh.
It cut off too quickly, but I saw it.
I would take that from Gennady’s night. A half breath of humor she hadn’t meant to give me.
I walked her to the guest room myself.
Not because she needed escorting. Because every guard, every camera, every locked door between the elevator and that room was part of what I had done to her, and she deserved to see me stand inside it instead of hiding behind men with earpieces.
The guest room faced east. Warm lamps glowed beside a wide bed dressed in cream and gray. A robe waited folded on the mattress. On the chair: soft black pants, a pale sweater, thick socks, and a silk nightdress Irina had included because Irina believed in covering all possibilities.
Nadia saw the nightdress and gave me a look.
“I didn’t choose it,” I said.
“You expect me to believe you don’t personally arrange kidnapping wardrobes?”
“I delegate where my expertise is limited.”
She looked down at the clothing again. “You’re joking.”
“Badly.”
“Don’t do that. It makes this confusing.”
“Then I will stop.”
Her face changed at that, not because I’d said anything important, but because I’d listened.
I walked to the door that connected to the hall and touched the lock. “This turns. No one can open from outside without breaking the door or overriding it from the security panel. No one will do either without fire, blood, or your voice asking for help.”
“What about you?”
“I own the security panel.”
Her mouth tightened.
“I won’t use it to enter while you’re changing or sleeping.”
“You keep saying things like they should mean something.”
“They should not mean anything yet.” I stepped back. “They can start meaning something if I keep them true.”
Nadia looked away first.
Her fingers touched the sweater.
“Can I call Petya?”
“Yes.”
“Now?”
I took my phone from my pocket, unlocked it, and held it out.
She didn’t take it. “You’ll listen.”
“I’ll wait in the hall.”
“You could still listen.”
“Yes.”
Her eyes came back to mine.
I put the phone on the dresser and stepped to the door. “Call him. Tell him you’re safe. Tell him whatever else you choose. I won’t listen outside the door. I will stand at the end of the hall where you can see me if you open it.”
She watched me as I left.
I walked to the end of the hall.
I kept my back to the room and my eyes on the city beyond the glass.
That was harder than violence.
The house was quiet around me. Below the floor, security moved in patterns I knew by silence, not sound. Somewhere beyond the glass, traffic crossed the city. My phone was in Nadia’s hand with access to numbers, names, and pieces of my world most men didn’t touch without permission.
I let her have it.
The guest room door stayed open a crack. Her voice came through only once, not the words, just the sound of Petya’s name.
It broke something in me more cleanly than the cracked glass at The Samovar Room.
A woman who had sold herself to save her brother should have been eating soup in a warm room while someone else carried the fear for once.
When she appeared in the doorway again, she wore the pale sweater and soft black pants.
The sleeves covered half her hands. Her dark hair fell in loose, shining waves over her shoulders, still styled by the auction’s hands but less controlled now.
Without the chemise, without the stage light, she looked more dangerous.
Mine, something in me said.
No.
Not yet.
Hers first.
She held out the phone. “He thinks I’m working a private event.”
“You lied well?”
“I’ve had practice.”
I took the phone without looking at the call history. “Is he home?”
“He’s home. He’s angry. He thinks I’m avoiding a lecture.” Her voice thinned. “He heard men outside the building.”
“My men.”
“That’s what I told him.”
I looked at her. “Thank you.”
“I didn’t do it for you.”
“I know.”
Her eyes moved over my face. “Do you?”
I slid my phone into my pocket. “Come back to the living room. You should finish the soup.”
“I’m not hungry anymore.”
“You are hungry.”
“Vadim.”
My name again. Less accusation this time. More warning.
I stopped.
She stood under the warm hall light with sweater sleeves pulled over her knuckles and bare feet in thick socks Irina must have laid out for her.
Her face had color again, not much, but enough.
The rose-pink lipstick was gone. She had washed it off in the guest room, along with the powder.
Her mouth was bare now. Her eyes looked bigger without the auction’s softness painted around them.
“I’m not going to break if I don’t finish soup,” she said.
“No,” I said. “You’re not.”
“And I’m not going to be grateful on command.”
“I did not ask for gratitude.”
“You keep not asking for things.”
“Would asking help?”
Her lips parted.
The air tightened around us.
Not soft. Not safe.
Charged.
She felt it too. Her fingers tightened around the too-long sweater sleeves.
I should have sent her into the guest room and walked away. I should have called Lev, my mother, the doctor at my father’s house, every man whose throat needed my hand around it by morning.
Instead, I stood in my hallway and watched Nadia weigh fear, anger, and the danger she should have run from.
“What do you want?” she asked.
I answered before wisdom could interfere. “You.”
Her breath caught.
“But not like they did,” I said. “Not for a night. Not as a price paid to another man. Not bent under debt. I want you in my bed because you came there. I want my ring on your hand because you put it there. I want our son raised knowing his mother stood between monsters and her family before she ever stood beside me.”
She stared at me as if every sentence had put another locked door between us and opened another one at the same time.
“That’s insane,” she whispered.
“Yes.”
“You know that?”
“Yes.”
“And you’re still saying it.”
“I’m trying not to say worse.”
Her face flushed. “Worse?”
I took one step toward her, slow enough that she could move away.
She didn’t.
“Worse is telling you I wanted Gennady’s blood on my shoes for looking at you.
Worse is telling you I sat in The Samovar Room and watched you protect your brother, and something in me decided before I gave it permission.
Worse is telling you I have had women in my bed who knew the rules and wanted what I could give them, and none of them made me think of a future past morning. ”
Nadia’s breathing changed.
I stopped two arm lengths away.
“Worse,” I said, lower, “is that I saw you on that stage and thought, wife.”
Her hand moved to the doorframe.
“Not virgin?” she asked.
The question cut quietly.
“No,” I said. “Not first.”
“But you thought it.”
“Yes. I’m not noble enough to lie. I thought about being the only man who would know you that way. Then I thought about killing every man in the room for making that thought part of a sale.”
Her eyes searched mine.
“What happens now?” she asked.
“You sleep. I deal with Gennady. Tomorrow, you yell at me again.”
“That’s your plan?”
“My full plan has more violence.”
Her mouth twitched.
Then her gaze dropped to my mouth.
I felt it like her hand.
Heat gathered low in my body. My cock hardened against the front of my trousers, and I held still so she wouldn’t mistake arousal for action.
Nadia saw enough. Her cheeks went pink, but she didn’t look away.
“Are you waiting for me to run?” she asked.
“I’m waiting for you to choose.”
Her eyes flashed. “I chose last night. Look where that got me.”
“This choice is not signed on a tablet. No one gets paid. No one is watching. No one takes you through a locked door afterward.”
“You keep saying the right things.”
“Then distrust me while I keep saying them.”
She took one step closer.
Every muscle in my body locked.
Nadia saw that too. Her eyes narrowed, not in fear now. In curiosity edged with anger.
“Do you always stand like that when you want something?” she asked.
“When I want something I can’t take, yes.”
The words landed between us.
She came closer again.
I could smell the soap from the guest room on her skin now, clean and faint beneath the last trace of lilies from the auction venue.
She had washed them off as much as she could.
Not enough. I wanted my shower steam on her, my sheets, my mouth between her thighs until every scent in that room was hers and mine.
Her chin lifted.
“If I kiss you,” she said, “it doesn’t mean I forgive you.”
“No.”
“It doesn’t mean I’m not angry.”
“I know.”
“It doesn’t mean I’m staying because you locked the elevator.”
My hands curled once at my sides, then opened. “If you kiss me, it means you wanted to kiss me in that moment. Nothing more unless you say more.”
Nadia stared at me.
Then she closed the distance, rose on her toes, and pressed her mouth to mine.
I didn’t touch her.
For one breath, I let her have the kiss completely. Her mouth was soft, unsure, angry. She held the front of my shirt in both fists, pulling herself up because I would not pull her in.
Then she made a small sound of frustration against my lips.
“Touch me,” she said.
I broke.
My hands went to her face first, not her body. I held her cheeks, angled her mouth, and kissed her back with the control I had left.
It wasn’t enough.
Nadia opened for me, and heat went through me so hard I stepped her back against the wall before I remembered myself. I stopped with one hand braced beside her head and the other still at her jaw.
She looked up at me, breathing fast.
“I didn’t say stop,” she said.
“I know.”
“Then why did you?”
“Because I want too much.”
Her fingers tightened in my shirt. “I’m tired of men deciding what I can handle.”
I shut my eyes for half a second.
When I opened them, she was still there. Still angry. Still flushed. Still watching me like my restraint offended her more than my hunger.