Mine: Ties that Bind Duet

by Zavarelli, A

  He doesn’t reply. I watch his back as he works and remember last night. Remember how he was at dinner. Remember how he was after. My belly does a little flip, but a moment later, my heart sinks.

  He doesn’t want me here, but he’s being polite.

  “Here,” Lev says, setting a plate of scrambled eggs in front of me.

  I’m not hungry, but I set my mug down and pick up my fork.

  He doesn’t quite meet my eyes as he pulls out his chair after setting his own plate down. I’m about to open my mouth—to ask if something happened or if I did something—

  when his phone rings.

  Abandoning his breakfast, he goes to the counter and looks at the display. He mutters what I’m sure is a curse in Russian under his breath and picks up the phone. Turning his back to me, he walks into the living room and answers the call.

  I eat a bite of the eggs but taste nothing.

  He speaks in Russian to whoever is on the phone, and he sounds angry. But maybe that’s just how Russian sounds. Or maybe Lev isn’t a morning person.

  When he raises his voice just before disconnecting the call, I focus on my plate, listening as he returns to the table. He doesn’t sit down but takes his still full plate and dumps the uneaten breakfast into the trashcan.

  I cram another forkful into my mouth, cover what I haven’t eaten with a napkin, and follow his lead to empty my plate, but he catches my wrist before I turn it over.

  “You didn’t eat,” he says.

  His grip is harder than it needs to be, like he’s still angry from that call.

  I look down at where he’s holding me, see the difference between us. See how big his hand is and how easily he could snap my wrist if he wanted to.

  My mind races to last night, to how he gripped my knee the same way at the restaurant. What had he said he did? Odd jobs for his uncle? I didn’t think much of it then—probably due to the wine, not to mention my hormones going crazy around him.

  No hormones to muddle my thoughts this morning, though.

  This morning, he’s just scary.

  It seems like an eternity passes as these thoughts race through my head, but I know it’s just seconds, and when I turn my gaze up to his, he lifts his too.

  I bite the inside of my cheek as I stare into his now almost black eyes.

  Clearing his throat, he releases my wrist and takes a step backward.

  I can breathe again and turn my attention to clearing off my dish, then place it on top of his in the sink.

  “Ready?” he asks, his voice tight as he picks up his keys.

  “Ready,” I say, slipping on my jacket and picking up my purse, remembering the pepper spray Rachel had given me. Not that I think I’ll have to use it, but Lev is different this morning.

  He opens the front door and gestures for me to step out. It’s a gray morning with a light drizzle falling. I hate rain, and when it comes, I wish it would rain hard and get it over with, then move on, but some of these gray days seem to melt into whole weeks, especially this time of year.

  Lev opens the passenger door, and I get in. This time, I don’t wait for him to strap me in but do it myself.

  He glances over at me when he settles into the driver’s seat and nods his approval, then starts the car, and we begin the tense drive to my house.

  “I really can take the bus,” I try again when his phone dings with a text message that he quickly glances at before setting it facedown on the console.

  “I’m sure you can, but you won’t.” He keeps his gaze straight out the window.

  I look straight ahead too, gritting my teeth. “I don’t like feeling like a burden. I’m capable of taking care of myself.” I pause. “And you clearly have somewhere else you’d rather be,” I add a moment later.

  He snorts, and I glance over to see him give a shake of his head as he shifts his gaze to me, a smile or a sneer on his face.

  “You’re not a burden. I just have some shit I have to take care of.” He schools his features, and it’s silent again for a long moment. “Who’s Joshua?” he asks again, taking me by surprise.

  Our eyes meet for a split second, and in that instant, I see Lev like he was last night.

  I turn to look out my window as I tug my scarf closer even though it’s warm in the car.

  “You called out his name in your sleep.”

  Shit.

  “Twice.”

  He slows the car as we hit rush-hour traffic.

  Taking a deep breath, I slip my hand beneath my shirt sleeve and rub the skin there. I turn back to find Lev’s eyes on me.

  “Just a friend I used to know.”

  “Past tense?”

  I haven’t talked about Joshua in two years. I haven’t said his name out loud to anyone, not even to myself. I don’t remember the dream, but I can guess what it was. And it’d be more in the category of nightmare.

  A weight settles across my chest like a strap being tightened around me. My jaw tightens too, and I feel my face harden. My eyes go cold.

  “He’s dead. So yeah, past tense. As past tense as you can get.”

  He studies me, but I can’t read if he’s surprised or what.

  Traffic crawls, and I watch the light change from yellow to red. Someone honks their horn, and Lev opens his mouth to say something or maybe to ask me another question about Joshua when he’s being kind of a dick after last night, but I don’t wait to find out. Instead, as soon as the car comes to a stop, I simultaneously push the button to unlatch my seat belt and open the door. I have one leg out, and before he can say a word, I turn to him.

  “It’ll be faster if I walk from here. I know a shortcut.”

  “Hey.” He reaches over, and I just slip out before he can grab my arm.

  I lean down as the light turns green, and the car behind us honks its horn. “Thanks for dinner and the ride.” I slam the door shut and sprint through three lanes of traffic, not looking back until I’m on the sidewalk and ducking around a corner and out of sight.

  I stop there, hugging my jacket to myself. The zipper’s broken so I can’t close it, but I take cover from the rain that seems to have picked up as soon as I got out of the car under the overhang of a closed shop. I take in big gulps of air and scrub my face with my hands as my heart races.

  My head hurts. Probably the wine and lack of sleep. I push off the wall. There’s no shortcut, but there is a bus. Although it’s not a direct route, so it’ll take me a good forty-five minutes to get home. I need to get moving so I duck my head against the rain and start doing just that because it’s what I do. I go on. I survive.

  Last night was amazing.

  Last night, I felt something I never thought I’d feel. I’m going to chalk that up to not having had sex in too long. And sex with Lev, well, I’ll miss that because I know I won’t see him again, and even as I try to shut my brain up, I know it’s more than that. I liked him. It’s stupid, but I did. And maybe what’s pathetic about it is that it wasn’t just the sex or that he looks like he does or any of that. It’s that he seemed genuine and nice. Like he really cared about me.

  “Fuck.”

  I shake my head and snort. I’m an idiot.

  I liked him because he was nice to me. Pathetic.

  Wiping what I want to say is rain from my eyes, I dig my phone out of my purse and text Nina.

  Me: Hey. You there?

  Nothing. But I’m not surprised. It’s early, and Nina doesn’t do mornings.

  Me: You knew the guy at the club the other night. Lev Antonov. Who is he?

  I hit send and tuck the phone into my back pocket just as the bus turns the corner. I run the last half-block to make it. But just before I get to the stop, I see the little black Audi turn the same corner the bus just turned and I stand, my mouth falling open as Lev easily overtakes the slower bus and pulls up in front of the shelter.

  He opens the driver’s side door and gets out, and he looks pissed off.

  The bus honks its horn as it approaches the stop
, making me jump, but Lev ignores it. We’re only a few feet apart, and rain is coming down in sheets now, soaking us both as we stare at each other.

  “Get in,” Lev orders.

  I open my mouth, gesture to the bus, but before I can utter a word, he stalks around the car, takes my arm, and forces me to the Audi.

  “I said get the fuck in,” he repeats, voice icing my spine as he deposits me roughly into the passenger seat.

  As if suspecting I might try to make a run for it, he clicks the lock on the door as he makes his way around to the driver’s side, the bus a hulking, angry shadow behind us as a soaking wet Lev gets in behind the wheel and shifts into gear. He speeds off so fast, I scream when we swerve on the slippery road.

  I don’t expect him to actually stop at the stop sign, but he does and turns to me. I know why a moment later when he angrily draws the belt across my lap and clicks it into place.

  “I told you I’d take you home,” he says through gritted teeth.

  I press my back into the seat. He’s so close, I feel his breath on my face, smell his smell that still does something to me.

  A moment later, he’s speeding to my house, seeming to know every street and every alley. The car moves fast, swerving around the slower vehicles and pissing off more people than I can count.

  I reach into my purse and wrap my hand around the pepper spray, and when we get to my apartment building, I’m not sure what to do.

  He parks the car at the curb, not in a parking space but just right there. I clear my throat, hand still around that canister as I reach with the other to open my door. My heart is racing, has been during the entire time of this second drive.

  But before I can open my door, he’s out and around the car and opens my door for me. He wraps a hand around my arm to pull me out.

  “I’m coming,” I try as I stumble out, my purse falling off my lap, my wallet and keys spilling to the ground.

  He doesn’t look at those things though. His gaze is on the pepper spray. When he meets my eyes, which I’m sure are like those of a deer in headlights, he just snorts, shakes his head and closes his giant hand around my wrist, then releases my arm to use that hand to pry the pepper spray from me.

  “Smart to have that,” he says. “You should always have pepper spray. You never know when you’ll need it,” he adds, keeping hold of my wrist as he bends to pick up my fallen purse and keys. He drops the canister into my bag and walks me to the door.

  “Roommate home?”

  I shake my head, knowing Rachel is at work.

  Using my key, he unlocks the door and walks me inside. He stands there a moment and looks around, and I see it how he must see it. Small and ugly and a little sad.

  “Your room?”

  “Uh…”

  He tugs me to him, holding my wrist at a painful angle. “Your room,” he repeats.

  “Last one.” I point down the hall.

  He walks toward it, and I follow because I have no choice. He opens my bedroom door, and we step inside. He closes it, and once again, he stops, taking in the messy space. The unmade bed. The clothes strewn over the back of a chair and on the floor.

  “You’re a mess,” he says.

  “Lev?”

  He walks me into the bathroom, eyes the other door of the shared space and locks it from the inside.

  I sneeze, suddenly shivering.

  “Get undressed,” he says. “You’re going to catch a cold.”

  He still has hold of my wrist as he pushes the shower curtain back and runs the water, testing the temperature before shifting the flow to the shower.

  When he turns back to me and sees I’m still dressed, he raises his eyebrows.

  “My hand,” I say, my voice trembling.

  He nods, releases it, and watches as I peel off my jacket, drop it to the ground, then my shirt, which is soaked through. I drop that too, but when it comes to undoing my jeans, my hands are too shaky to unbutton them.

  “Christ,” he says, gripping the waistband of my jeans and tugging me to him, and I realize again how much bigger than me he is. Taller and so much stronger.

  His eyes are almost black again, and I see the hunger and desire I saw last night. He holds my gaze as he undoes my jeans, and with his other hand, he grabs the back of my head and pulls me to him. His mouth, wet with rain, on mine, kisses me with a fierce hunger as he unzips my jeans.

  I make a sound, wanting him again. I’m turned on by this violence, which I know is sick and wrong, but it’s how I’m wired. How I learned sex is.

  And so, when he grips my hair and pulls my head back, I’m panting, and I want more.

  He spins me around, putting my hands on the edge of the sink.

  “Don’t move.” He gets behind me so I can see him in the mirror. He pushes the hair off my neck and kisses my thudding pulse, then bites just hard enough to hurt as he slides one hand inside my jeans and panties and cups my sex.

  I moan with the contact, his fingers roughly kneading my clit, rougher than he was last night.

  “Lev.” I turn my head to kiss him.

  He tugs my wet jeans down over my hips and pushes me forward a little. I look at him looking down at me, then feel a hard smack.

  I gasp, meeting his black eyes in the mirror.

  “I should have spanked your ass for the night at the club, but I thought I gave you enough of a scare at the restaurant.”

  He smacks me again three quick slaps to the same spot. The sting is sharp and does more to turn me on than punish me. He grins, raking his fingernails over my ass.

  “You like this, Kat?” He spanks me again. “If I’d known…”

  I hear the zipper of his jeans, and a moment later, I feel his length at my back.

  “Watch. I want to see your eyes when I fuck you.”

  I turn to the mirror as he spreads my ass open, and I moan at the length of him as he rubs himself through my folds.

  “Fuck.” He sucks in a breath, and I’m panting. When I lean forward, he grips a handful of hair and tugs my head up. “I said I want to see your eyes when I fuck you.”

  He pushes into me then. I’m still sore from last night, but he feels even bigger than last night, and I can’t get enough of him.

  “I like fucking your tight little cunt, Katerina. I like coming inside your wet little cunt.”

  He’s squeezing my ass cheek in one hand and pulling my hair with the other, and fuck, I want to come.

  I slip my hand from the lip of the sink and slide it between my legs, and Lev grins a wicked grin.

  “And that’s your punishment for this morning,” he says, smacking my ass one more time before taking my hand and pressing it back to the counter, trapping it as he fucks me hard. He grunts with each thrust, his cock so deep I swear I can feel it in my belly.

  “I need…” I try to pull my hand free, but he laughs.

  “You need to come, but you’re not going to.” His thrusts come faster, and I feel him thickening inside me. “You get to watch me come instead.”

  Fuck.

  My God. Fuck.

  “Please!” I cry out, but his grip only tightens in my hair. He tilts my head to the side, and when he closes his mouth over my throat and stills inside me, I feel him throb, feel him empty. I watch his face, his beautiful, wicked face as he takes his fill of me, and I think I hate him and I love him at once. I want him. I want more of him. Him inside me like this.

  When he’s finished, he blinks his eyes, then draws his head back.

  He looks at the smear of red at my pulse and licks the spot he’s just been biting hard enough to break the skin. He lets go of my hair and holds both of my wrists behind my back as he pulls out of me.

  I feel the gush of warmth as cum slides down my thighs, and I smell us. I smell sex and want, and I smell my own hunger. My need.

  He leans in close to my ear. “Get in the shower and keep your hands off your pussy.”

  When he lets go of my wrists and steps away, I have to grip the counter to
stay upright.

  He tucks himself back into his jeans and zips up.

  I turn to him.

  “You’re wasting water, Kat.” He gestures to the shower, wipes something from the corner of his mouth with his thumb, then folds his arms across his chest and leans against the wall.

  I move to strip off my jeans, embarrassed as he watches me, embarrassed at the smear of wet on the insides of my thighs. I step into the shower and go to pull the curtain closed, but he shakes his head.

  “Nuh-uh. I want to watch. Make sure you don’t get yourself off when you wash my cum off you.”

  Fuck.

  I wash myself, embarrassed again, but also turned on.

  He checks his phone. I don’t know if it’s a message, or he’s just checking the time. He did seem like he was in an awful rush this morning. He tucks his phone into his back pocket.

  “That’s good enough,” he says, reaching in to switch off the water. He looks around for a towel, grabs one, and unfolds it.

  I step out and let him wrap me in it. Let him dry me.

  He walks me into my bedroom. “Get dressed before you get cold.”

  I open a dresser drawer, then pull on panties, a pair of yoga pants, and a sweater. I don’t bother with a bra.

  Lev is standing across the room, looking at something. He turns to me, picks up my phone, and holds it up.

  “Nina texted you.”

  Shit. He must have read what I texted her, and I have no idea what she texted back. My phone is so old it doesn’t have a lock screen so he’d be able to just get into it by clicking on the message.

  He walks toward me and looks me over.

  “Don’t ask her about me, understand?”

  “Why?”

  “Because I’m not good, Kat. And I’m definitely not good for you. Stay away from the club. Stay pure.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “You won’t see me again.”

  With that, he turns and walks out, leaving me stunned as I drop on the edge of my bed.

  6

  Lev

  “This is so fucking boring,” Andrei complains for the tenth time this hour. “I don’t see the point of sitting here like a couple of goddamned morons all day waiting for this asshole to screw us over like we know he will.”