Chapter 5 #3
Streetlights pulse through the tinted glass, catching her face in bursts of yellow and white. What they reveal makes rage burn through my blood like wildfire.
The silk slip does nothing to hide the bruises on her arms, purple and green blooming across her skin like poisonous flowers.
Raw marks circle her wrists where she's been restrained, angry red against her pale skin.
Her makeup is smeared, mascara tracked down her cheeks, lipstick smudged, probably from the "preparation" they put her through before the auction.
My hands curl into fists against my thighs. My jaw tightens until I feel the ache in my molars. Every instinct I have screams at me to turn this car around and go back to that basement with a knife and enough time to make every single person who touched her regret the day they were born.
But I keep my voice calm. Flat. Give her nothing to fear from me.
"Da." I reach into my jacket pocket and pull out the folded paper. Her wish. I've been carrying it since the conference room, the edges soft now from my fingers tracing them in quiet moments. "I'm the one."
She stares at the paper like it might explode. "And you're... you're going to honor it? The terms I offered?"
"You offered protection in exchange for intelligence on your uncle." I keep my voice flat, neutral. "The Syndicate accepts your terms." My chest constricts from the pain in her voice. I have to treat this like any other wish and stay detached.
I should, but the multiple cracks to the piece of ice over my heart is proving hard to keep frozen. If it’s like this now, what will getting behind a locked door with her do to my resolve to never let a woman close enough to thaw out my heart?
Her eyes flick to Cristian in the driver’s seat and then back to me. Like she is trying to figure out if this is all a horrible game.
"And the other part?" Her chin lifts, but I catch the tremor in her voice. The fear she's trying so hard to hide. "My virginity. That was part of the deal."
I study her for a long moment. The defiance. The terror. The stubborn refusal to break even when everything in her world has shattered.
I lean my body toward her. "That part," I say slowly, "is between you and me. When you're ready. If you're ever ready. Not before." I have no need to take what isn’t freely given to me.
Surprise and confusion flickers in her eyes. It’s the first real crack in her armor I’ve witnessed this evening.
"Why?" The word comes out rough. "You just paid a shitton of money for me. You could do whatever you want. I know how this world works."
I raise a heavy shoulder. "I could. Da." I hold her gaze, letting her see the truth of it.
"But I won't. I know what it means to be sold, огонёк.
I know what it feels like to have no choice.
I won't be the man who takes yours by force.
" I have no shame in talking about my past. From the wide-eyed look she’s giving me, this also surprises her.
“A man like you? In the position I’m in? That hardly sounds real.”
“Real? Don’t judge others before you’ve learned their truths. What is unbelievable to you in another’s nightmare.”
The silence stretches between us, heavy with things neither of us is ready to say.
Then she nods. Once. Sharp.
"Okay." She settles back against the seat, some of the rigid tension leaving her shoulders. "Okay. So what happens now?"
"Now I take you somewhere safe. You rest. You heal. And when you're ready, you tell me everything you know about Seamus Malone." I let a cold smile touch my lips. "And then we burn his empire to the ground."
For the first time since I laid eyes on her, something other than fear crosses her face.
It looks a lot like hope and I gave it to her.
I pull my tuxedo jacket off and slip it over her shoulders.
I watch her push her arms through and draw the lapels to her nose.
She inhales my scent and swear to God as my witness every alpha male instinct I have to roar with possession fires through me.
My dick hardens and it takes everything I have not to drag her sweetness across the seat and pull her delicate…
Fuck it.
I reach for her, slip an arm around her middle and hook her legs over my other arm. One pull and she is in my lap. She gasps and flings her hands out, planting them on my chest. She is breathing hard but she doesn’t fight me like I expect.
I have this deep-rooted need to wrap her in a protective bubble and make the fear creasing her brows together and tightening every muscle in her body disappear.
And then there’s this hardcore need to kiss her.
I want to replace every bad memory with something good. Good for her what no one has ever done for me.
“Shh, огонёк. I won’t hurt you. But you're cold and I am warm. Let me take care of you.”
Her eyes dip to my mouth and then to the bowties pinning my collar closed. “I don’t even know your name.” Her lips part and I watch as she licks the plumpness of her bottom lip with the tip of her tongue.
“Konstantin Vetrov. I am usually the brother who grants wishes that end with bodies buried in cement.”
She begins to relax in my hold. There’s no doubt she feels my arousal. Not with the blush working over her cheeks.
And then she says the damndest thing.
“Sorry my wish isn’t that kind of wish, but I think we can still manage to get you some bodies to bury.”
My lips peel back in a wolfish grin. “Da, огонёк. Da.”