by Amarie Avant
“Damn you, Mikhail. Stop arguing with me like we’re an old couple. We’ll never be—”
“An old, married couple,” he huffs.
My gaze falls. His does too. His perfect ass leans against the table as he comes to a stop next to me. His hand lands on my thigh. Just like last night, I’m foolish enough not to issue a threat. My hand roams over his, fingers colliding, gathering into his larger ones. Both of us are staring off into space. His thoughts align with what should be while mine are stuck on the could have been.
Why did I recreate my version of perfection and include him?
“Mikhail, we can’t do this. I just returned from . . .”
“Oleg.”
Teeth chewing into my bottom lip, I sigh. This is the millionth reminder of how Simeon has yet to learn the name of my old headmaster.
Mikhail gives my hand a quick squeeze. Then he plants himself between my legs. “I don’t want you vulnerable, Nastiya.”
And you can’t have me, anyway, period.
His forehead falls flush against mine, breath whispering the things that neither of us should say.
“Good Doctor, you’re grieving—”
“I’m not fucking grieving Igor, anymore,” he growls, framing my face with his hands. “Who was there for you, yesterday, Nastiya? Who?! I won’t tell you the things Simeon did while you were away. How he acted! Know this; loyalty is standing right here in front of your strikingly gorgeous face!”
Mouth dangerously close to mine, I attempt to remove myself from his grasps.
I could.
I can’t.
Not even my loaded precious Colt could save me. Only words will. Mikhail Resnov doesn’t respond through actions. The Good Doctor sifts past my rotten core and straight to my soul and the tiny spark leading to a colossal connection that only Mikhail can pluck.
“I was there,” he declares. “I’d die for you.”
Pummeling at his chest, I growl, “For the past eighteen days, I breathed, I dreamt, I coveted Simeon. I would die for—”
In an instant, his hand collides with the side of my face, thumb trailing a thin line down my throat. Hard lips crush against mine. Mikhail’s teeth sink softly into my flesh, begging for entrance. I grant him access. My eyes close at the taste of him. Kisses tease my neck. He bites softly at the curve of my exposed throat. I arch against his waist, fingers scraping into his shoulders. His skin is warm and smooth. His scent floods me with protection and craving. Each touch spirals through me. His hand burns up the inside of my thigh.
Trembling fingers wrought with desire begin to pluck at the button of my jeans. The sheer act crashes me back to reality. This is where I exit stage left. I gasp, “Stop, Mikhail, we can’t. Not—”
“Okay, okay,” he says, breath ragged. “I’ll bandage you up, Nastiya. I’ll be here for you, mend you one last fucking time. But I’m not staying in Russia. Not a second longer.”
With a scarce nod, I start for the seam of his thermal, coercing myself not to inhale him again while slipping it over my head. When Mikhail touches me this time, all the fireworks in the world go off. His hands are tender, skirting like a feather over the delicate stitching.
Tender. Delicate. Simeon is incapable of such actions. My eyes warm over Mikhail, senses heightened. I find myself comparing him to a favorite canvas painting of mine. Artist unknown. Tiny blond, silver stubble graces his square jaw. He pauses from fixing my stitches to look up.
Like an idiot, I look away. There never was an us. Besides, all my mind could conceive for the last eighteen days was his younger cousin. I ignore the fiery sparks and cling to his blood.
The Tsar.
My obsession.
My first adoration.
The heaven and hell I’ve delved in, and I’m too far gone to ever let go of. Falling for Mikhail Resnov while crazy about Simeon Resnov would make me nothing more than . . .
A Castle Girl.
Chapter 26
Simeon
Saving Anastasiya was all that I’d ever aspired to do. Keeping her at my side and loving her. Last night, I dreamt of the day my father placed his dirty hands on her. That evening with her in Moscow at my side, where she should’ve been all along, I made a mistake.
I touched her before she was ready.
I let the dream rove through my mind.
Maybe she never truly was. My cousin, Kirill, who has slept for over two weeks, breaks through my contemplations by clearing his throat. When my hard glare lands on him, he nudges his chin to the food on my plate. “Are you eating that?”
“Dah.” I grab the crispy bacon. It tastes like shit as I chew and shovel it down my throat. Nothing is the same.
“You going to kill me?”
I lean back in my seat, surrounded by too many fucking chairs. The dining room could be filled with children, all the little babies Anastasiya was to bless me with. But it’s not. I nod to my cousin’s inquiry. “Dah.”
“Sim,” he groans.
“I’ll kill you softly.” Half of me isn’t lying. For one, he’s my blood. Two, he saved me from a mistake yesterday. Assassinating Irek Chutin would’ve been my death sentence. The death sentence of the entire Bratva. “I have no intention of murdering you, Kazen.”
Kirill lifts his mug of coffee. I lift my mug of vodka. He mutters in hesitation, “Good.”
“You have my word. That mudak, Mikhail, finally left. His lack of follow-through is the reason you woke up.” I grit my teeth. Where is that weasel, Mikhail? I hadn’t asked about him since the day Anastasiya disappeared. I hadn’t ordered any byki to monitor him since then, either. Nevertheless, I was told he left early, yesterday morning.
Late the night before, the mudak had assumptions written all over his face, as if he thought I’d cheat on Anastasiya! I played into Mikhail’s notions. I had been deep in concentration while reviewing the old Resnov Castle rosters for a missing link. I may have even fallen asleep with my eyes open. I hadn’t noticed the maid’s ass in my face until Mikhail brought me back to reality with his blatant accusations.
My loyalty to Anastasiya has never wavered physically.
Though I have doubted her since getting my hands on the letter she left me, no other woman in this world can compare. My next taste of the female race will be the honey between her thighs. Then she’ll be dead to me—literally, physically. I toss back my drink, needing the burn of Resnov Water to numb my heart.
“Kirill, you woke up right on time. I don’t understand how you’d think I’d poison the president’s tea. What have I always told you, Kirill? What do I thrive off of?”
“The how.” His mouth pulls into a line. “When we find Anastasiya, with all due respect, Tsar . . .” My cousin looks me in the eye. His loyalty to me as a ruler is on the same level as it once had been. “How?”
How will she pay for Luka’s death? Part of me, the idiot who fell for the girl all those years ago, wishes I had given her the means to leave the country, to leave me.
The demons in me will search for moya Anastasiya from the surface of this earth to the depths of hell.
And the darkness will win.
I’ll find her.
I’ll appeal to the Seven, especially Kirill’s father, for keeping his son’s death a secret. And I’ll kill the woman I once—
“My apologies, Tsar.” The very maid Mikhail accused me of staring at bows her head at the archway of the dining room. “The Tsarina.”
My hand slams onto the table. “What of her?!”
“She’s here. The byki at the perimeter confirmed it was her, driving in now.”
All the muscles in me are propelled out of my seat. The suka’s lips continue to move. I’m followed by my closest crew. Someone suggests having her searched before she sees me. I continue across the grand sitting room and to the doors.
“Move!” I growl at another maid in the process of opening one.
Gripping the hand-carved knobs, I pull both doors open. A car is sputtering along the road, ga
ping bullets at the driver’s side.
The door opens, the woman, the vision who swallowed the sun and commanded its glow, climbs out. Puffy, crinkled tresses are in her face. My eyes latch onto hers. I start down the stairs. Anastasiya flies up them.
She’s in my arms in seconds. I fist her hair, smell the soft soap of her. But beneath that, she’s tired. I scoop her into my arms.
Kirill stares, awaiting my regard for Luka. They all stare. Without saying a single word to them, I carry Anastasiya to our room.
Her legs lock around my waist, cheeks flooding in tears. “Simeon, I never thought I’d come back to you . . .”
My jaw clenches. The letter sears in the pocket of my lapel as the backs of my fingers brush her cheek. I taste her mouth. I’m drunk but not too drunk to distinguish reality. She’s here. Our tongues begin to twine, though fire burns inside of me, consuming me. The fury transitions into a supernova, warning that her life is in my hands.
Anastasiya comes up for air. She moans against my mouth. “It’s been a nightmare. We have to—”
“Moya milaya, I’m so lucky to have you here, right now.”
“Me too,” she gasps. “I was taken—”
My mouth descends on the liar’s again. Maybe the kiss will suffocate her half to death, so these hands are spared the guilt? But then my cock gets in the way. Its wishes conflict with mine.
Kill her later.
Fuck her now.
“All will be right, Asya. Not this second, but I promise you. I. Will. Make. Every. Wrong. Right.”
I nip at her jugular. Funny, I did the same years ago. She’d been in the shower after my father had touched her. I shouldn’t have touched her the same day. She hadn’t been ready then. It took another year for her to stop trembling, save for an orgasm.
But after I’m satisfied, she will quiver at the tips of my fingers. The part of me who loved her entirely too soon will soften as her heartbeat tapers into nothingness.
I kiss her with every ounce of me. This is the last time I will love her body without Asya understanding how ruthless I can truly be.
Her fingers are silk on my jawline. “Sim, I love you. I’ve missed you.”
My tongue twines over the sparkling tears at her cheeks. “I love you more.”
My kisses form a trail of fire down her neck. I tangle a hand in her hair. Her sex welcomes me, hot between our clothes. Asya’s legs lock tighter around mine. In one fluid motion, I plant her on the balcony railing.
“Sim.” Anastasiya glances over her shoulder. It’s a long way down. She tries to press herself into me. Distress singes across her honey skin. My hands plant around her throat, mouth stopping her cry of apprehension. I lean her body back over the ledge.
“Sim, you’re drunk—”
“Hold onto me,” I growl, as her heart thunders against my palm. “I’ll continue to hold onto you. Like we always do, dah?”
I sit her back up on the ledge. She snatches a piece of my shirt, attempting to level her upper body as I descend to my knees. I rip the jeans from her flesh, tearing them to shreds.
Nyet panties.
The inferno building inside of my chest is almost at a crescendo. Nyet motherfucking panties! She has the audacity to create a façade with that crap automobile and these tattered clothes.
I dig in. My lips fly to her pussy. The animal in me overshadows all thought, reason, killing my brain, and all the ways I planned to murder her.
Her fingers cling to my hair, ass rocking on the ledge. Anastasiya’s pussy blossoms into a wet funnel, suctioning my tongue as she growls in orgasm. The fear of her upper body no longer warns about misplaced equilibrium. My tongue strokes her core, and she sighs deeply. She levels her calves against the short wall in an attempt to keep steady.
Asya’s entire body reacts, shaking violently as I eat my fill of her. My cock strains as my mouth engulfs the lips of her pussy, slurping up her orgasm.
“Simeon!” Anastasiya screeches, momentarily broken. A second later, she’s whimpering and hugging against my face. Her legs wrapped tightly around my head. “Sim, this is . . . scary . . . but so fucking good.”
I clamp a hand along her thigh, remove her curvy legs from around me, and stand. Asya reaches for me again, and my jaw grits.
She left.
Now, she wants me to support and protect her?
“I’ve already promised not to let you go. You trust me, dah?” My thumb strums her clit while my other hand unbuckles my belt.
“Yes.”
I cock a brow, glancing at the vice grip she has of my wrist as I toy with her pussy. My fucking beguilement. Slowly, her silk fingers unwind around my wrist. She holds her body in a tilted position, still hoping not to topple down to her death.
Too easy.
Gripping her hips, I guide my cock into an ocean. My hands wrap around her neck. My lips plant delicately at her mouth.
Her fucking letter. A silent vow between us that she failed me. I’m sending moya milaya to heaven today because of it. She’ll have my forgiveness in death. My hip movements slow, the pace becoming her torture. I can almost taste her blood.
“Faster,” she groans.
My speed increases to a punishing rate. She bucks, gasps, her declaration of love coming in a crescendo.
“Fuck, Sim!”
Was that pain flickering in her eyes?
Why should I care? She killed me four years ago. Then I was resurrected in Miami at the sight of her. My little Tsarina played the game of double jeopardy, killing me again the day she fled and left that note.
I fuck her hard, the letter before my eyes. I’ll frame it. Her sorry excuse for an apology will be the reason I never let another suka bat their big, gorgeous eyes. My cock pistons through her cunt, juiced all up.
Fuck. Before her, I’d never met a wetter suka.
After her, it will be the same.
My cock sweeps into her swollen cunt, diving deeper, faster, harder. My cock twitches and convulses as her pussy walls cling tightly to it. I grunt my release, holding her tight.
Breathing yet to return to normal, Asya moans. “Shit, I . . . that was heaven, Simeon.”
Dah, my sentiments exactly.
“I love you so much.” My hands tighten. I let her upper body descend more, over the ledge, parallel to the ground, forty feet below. The sun shines down on all her glory, all her gorgeous curves. Heaven opens up. The light suffuses her, deeming her worthy. Time for the Man upstairs to take her. He forgives. For the first time in my life, when it regards Anastasiya, I won’t.
Chapter 27
Anastasiya
My brain had been pleasantly fuzzy, deliciously delirious. Now, my pupils expand. I stare up into Simeon’s eyes. The unsettled feeling that I hoped wouldn’t become familiar to me from earlier returns. It lines the pit of my stomach with rocks. Simeon’s dark orbs are glossed, but not a single tear falls.
“Moya milaya, moya Tsarina, moya everything.” Voice growing thin, Simeon repeats, “My everything, my everything,” his words trailing off. The look on his face is complex, thoughtful, haunted. It dims into grief like the fallen angel’s last thoughts before plunging into the abyss.
He. Is. Hurting. Me.
He is purposefully using those murderous hands of his, which have claimed lives but meant me no harm, to hurt me. Realization collects like fresh rain growing stagnant down an alley’s drain. Our love dies in his eyes.
Simeon has choked me while fucking. And I have loved it. Orgasming and passing out is euphoria. That’s not this.
Fire lights along my throat. The pain is more excruciating than anything I’ve ever endured.
This is murder!
For a while, I stare at him. When Kosta and I lived in the states, the show 20/20 was one of my addictions. During one episode, in particular, the cheating husband was in bed with his wife. The reenactment played out where the husband was choking her to death. The forensic analysts, or whatever they’re called, suggested that the wife hadn’t
expected a thing. She did not attempt to save herself. Her husband didn’t have a single defensive wound. The analyst had a theory. She didn’t expect to die.
Well, I have a theory.
The bitch loved her husband too much.
My hands fly up at the last second before death claims me. At the thought of falling, I buck.
Simeon lets me go. His hand curls through my tresses. He yanks me to the ground. A flash of relief of not being propelled to my death passes through me.
I growl, “What the—”
It’s Miami all over again. He does something. Touches my neck, and I pass out.
Now
My eyes flutter open to an immaculate ceiling. Chandeliers clutter the vast ceilings like clouds in the sky. The hand-crafted crystals blur as hot tears burn my gaze. I start to raise my hands to press them over my face, to do something I haven’t thought of in ages, to pray. Yet my arms don’t heed to my request. Volk!
My thoughts fly to him. A swarm of barmy memories takes siege. The shame of Oleg rewinds. The hot sludge of his semen coating my skin moves in my mind’s eye in reverse.
“Ssss,” I groan Simeon’s name, my sobs muffled by duct tape over my mouth. Please, please don’t let this be real. I’m home. I’m home! I dreamt that I’d driven home.
How? My mind taunts. How the fuck did you get home, Asya, think! You were in a room at Oleg’s then—
“You’ve awoken.”
My head zips to the side. The voice is heavy with animosity. Yet my sight doesn’t fail me.
Simeon climbs onto the bed, planting his knees along the sides of my hips. With a scrutinizing gaze, he says, “Watching tears slide down someone’s face right before the end—it’s all a pleasure to me. But you, my Anastasiya, you’re irrefutably beautiful when you cry.”
Brain still collecting information, I recall Mikhail was the reason I could flee Oleg. It all led to me returning to Simeon, who welcomed me home, gathered me into his arms.
Gentle, firm lips catch the tears across my cheeks. Meticulous, he presses his mouth against the barrier between us. Yanking at the delicate silk confines, I pull with my arms, and my soul screams.