22. Cady
Cady
The shower helps.
Not with the eye, which has graduated to a spectacular purple, but with the rest of it.
I stand under the water until the temperature drops and my shoulders come down from somewhere around my ears, and then I get out, wrap a towel around myself, and call the front desk.
I tell them I need my locks and the elevator key code changed tonight.
I hang up and stand at the bathroom counter, looking at my reflection. By tomorrow afternoon, it’ll be the kind of bruise that makes people go quiet when they see it.
Killian is going to lose his mind.
Rian is going to be very, very calm, which is worse.
And Misha Makarov will find out what it means to put his hands on a Gallagher.
I smooth my wet hair back from my face and walk into the bedroom.
Then I jump when I see Artem standing in the middle of it, still in his suit.
His eyes go to my face.
“How did you get in?” I question, but there’s no anger in my voice. Why bother? He’s going to do what he wants to do.
“Who did that?”
His voice is kind of quiet that I’ve learned means the opposite of calm.
“I’m fine.” I move past him toward my dresser, pull open the top drawer and search for something to throw on.
“You didn’t have that when you left tonight.”
“Observant.”
“Lisichka,” he warns, “turn around.”
Instead, I pull out a sleep shirt.
“It’s late,” I say. “I’m tired. Whatever you need, can—“
“Turn. Around.”
I hear him cross the room and stop in front of me.
His hand comes up slowly, giving me every opportunity to move, and his fingers brush along my jaw, tilting my face toward the light.
I don’t know why I let him. I’ve been letting him do things all night that I can’t explain.
He looks at my bruised face, and the silence is suffocating.
“Who?” he says very quietly. “Tell me his name like I don’t already know it.”
Does he know?
Artem doesn’t make threats the way other men do, he just states things.
Plainly, finally, with the certainty of an enforcer who has never said something he didn’t mean.
I look at him for a moment. He appears dead set on getting an answer.
I’m not telling him yet.
Not because I’m protecting Misha. Because I don’t want Artem stepping in before I decide what to do with this.
“I’ve had a gun under my chin,” I say. “His hands have been on me. I’ve stood in my kitchen and watched him fuck another woman against my counter like I wasn’t standing three feet away.
” I hold his gaze. “I’m standing in my bedroom in a towel with a black eye, and I don’t want to talk about it. I don’t want to think about it.”
“I didn’t ask for all that yet,” he grinds out. “I asked who?”
Lifting my chin higher, I blurt the next words that come to mind before I can think better of them. “You’re going to have to fuck the name out of me, big man.”
The room goes quiet.
Artem looks at me for one second longer than necessary before he finally moves.
No asking. No checking. No more pushing.
He crosses the remaining distance and his hands find my face, careful of the bruise but certain about everything else.
He forces me backward until my shoulders meet my bedroom wall and there’s nowhere left to go.
“You should’ve thought of a better answer, Lisichka. Because once my dick is inside you, no man on this earth’s going to keep me out of your cunt. And I’ll do whatever I want with it, when I want it, how I want it, and you’re going to like it all.”
Without warning, his mouth crashes against mine. He’s been deciding this since the storage closet, the red dress, and the moment I handed him something he wasn’t supposed to want.
One hand slides into my wet hair, careful of nothing now, and the towel is a problem he solves without breaking the kiss.
I stop thinking about Misha.
I stop thinking about anything.
Artem’s hands stay at my jaw, tilting my face up, and the kiss deepens with slow, deliberate pressure. He’s been patient for a very long time. Now, he’s done waiting.
He doesn’t care about the bruise on my face or the secrets I’m guarding. All he cares about is the heat radiating off me and the way I look at him, daring him to take what he wants.
His hand shoots up, fingers curling firmly around the column of my throat. He doesn’t squeeze to choke, but he applies enough pressure to expose the pale line of my neck and force me to look into his dark, feral eyes.
“You think you can just tell me to fuck it out of you, and I’ll play nice?” he growls, his voice a dangerous rasp against my lips. “I don’t play nice, Lisichka. I take or kill. And right now, I’m taking everything.”
He doesn’t waste time with foreplay; the tension between us has been building for too long.
He reaches down, his large hand gripping my thigh and hiking it high over his hip, pinning me against the wall.
Artem fumbles with his pants until his cock springs free, brushing against my entrance in this torturous little movement that has me squirming.
I don’t have to wait long.
Artem doesn’t ease in; he grips my hips and drives himself into me in one powerful, devastating thrust.
I let out a sharp, strangled gasp while my fingers dig into his suit jacket.
He fills me completely, stretching my walls to their limit. The sensation is overwhelming, raw, intrusive, and exactly what I need.
“Fuck.” Artem drops his forehead against mine, his breath coming in ragged hitches. “You’re so tight.”
He begins to move, his pace feral and unrestrained. Every thrust is a claim and a violent assertion of ownership.
He hammers into me, the sound of our bodies colliding. The wet, rhythmic slap of skin on skin fills the room.
He keeps his hand locked around my throat, his thumb tracing the line of my jaw, grounding me in the intensity of the moment.
“Tell me,” he commands as he drives deeper, hitting my cervix with a force that makes my toes curl. “Who.”
I can only moan, tossing my head back against the wall as I chase the friction. The roughness of it, and the dominance of his presence, drown out the memory of the violence and ignorance that I faced earlier.
With Artem, the power is different.
It isn’t about breaking me; it’s about consuming me.
He shifts his grip, sliding his hand from my throat to the small of my back, hoisting me higher so he can bury himself even deeper.
He is relentless, his movements becoming faster and more desperate. He’s losing the control he prides himself on, the broody enforcer replaced by a man driven by primal instinct, and I’m quickly beginning to love this version.
“I’m going to fuck you until you forget your name.” His teeth graze the sensitive skin of my shoulder. “Until the only thing you can feel or want is me inside you.”
The friction reaches a fever pitch. Artem’s breath is a series of jagged snarls as he feels the contractions of my walls around him, pulling him deeper into my heat.
“Who touched you?” he growls through clenched teeth, sending a warning signal up my spine.
“Who do you think?” I crack a little, and Artem pulls back to look down at me, the expression on his face murderous. “He’ll be dead by the end of the week after Killian and Rian see me.”
I fully expect Artem to drop me on my ass. But his rhythm doesn’t falter; everything else about him does.
“Say that again,” he growls.
“Killian and Rian will see my face tomorrow,” I breathe. “And when they do—“
The expression on his face stops the rest of the sentence in my throat.
His thumb traces the edge of the bruise on my cheekbone, feather-light.
“Tell me,” he orders, needing the confirmation by my lips and not through speculation.
Fine.
“Misha.” Artem’s nostrils flare. “He was drunk—”
“You’re making excuses for him now?”
“No. I’m just telling you—”
“You mentioned a gun.”
I nod slowly. “Yes.”
“Did he…” My eyes narrow a bit at him when he doesn’t continue. “Did he fuck you?”
“No.”
“Did he try?”
I lift my shoulders. “I don’t know. He was upset with me.”
“Why?”
“Because I don’t want to marry him.”
“What else?”
“I don’t want a man to propose to me like a business deal. I don’t want something that’s half-assed. He knows I don’t want him—”
“Tell me what you want, Lisichka.” He leans forward, pressing his wide and hard chest into mine.
“Freedom.”
The response is automatic.
Unfiltered and raw.
“He’s not your problem anymore.” His voice is flat, final.
“No. He’s yours. Handle it before someone else does. He won’t last the week.”
His forehead drops to mine.
“Look at me,” he says quietly.
I do.
“What did I tell you about picking the wrong brother?”
I scoff, turning my head away when he grips my face between his thumb and index finger. “This game. This… spying. It’s over.”
“Says who?”
“You know who says who. I’ll speak to your father tomorrow.”
I attempt to pull back from him, panic surging through my veins. “I’m not marrying—“
“Me?” His grip tightens. “No, you won’t marry me. But you’ll fuck me when I want you to and vice versa. You belong to me. And fuck the dowry. Your pussy is payment enough.”
I don’t know if he’s kidding, teasing, or insane.
He picks his pace back up and makes sure every thrust inside me is as deep as he can get.
My ass hits the wall with each propel of his hips, and just when I think it’s going to be a steady buildup for my orgasm, Artem’s fingers snake between my legs and begins to twirl my clit.
My breathing hitches and my body is thrown into overdrive as Artem’s face finds its way to my neck.
His lips, then his tongue, caress my skin. Every inch of his cock fills me in all the right places, and I’m seconds from coming.
Seconds from screaming.
Artem lets out a low growl, and I combust against his body, stiffening as he delivers several final, punishing thrusts.
He explodes inside me, holding me pinned against the wall, his chest heaving against mine and his heart hammering a frantic rhythm against my palm.
For a long moment, the only sound is the heavy, synchronized gasps of two people who have just burned everything down to feel something real.
Slowly, he slides out of me, but he doesn’t pull away.
He leans in, his lips brushing my ear, his voice returning to a dark, possessive rumble. “Welcome to my world, Lisichka. You’re not free until I say you are.”