Maya ducked her head against my neck. “I’m so embarrassed. I fell asleep.”
“It happens to all of us,” I said smoothly. The reality of what we were doing finally hit me full force. How the hell was I supposed to keep her false memories intact if just being with me was causing her to relapse? It had nothing to do with sex, as I’d originally thought, because I wasn’t touching her.
Kissing wouldn’t be a strong enough trigger.
Sex should be the only thing that would be strong enough to trigger the memory.
And the only way for me to test that theory.
Hell.
She wouldn’t remember it in the morning, my brain taunted me, reminding me that I was doing it for her own good. Protecting her, saving her. Besides, with the way she was already arching against me, the part of her subconscious that I’d just unleashed… wanted it. I wasn’t sure if I should be even more disgusted with myself or thrilled.
It would be too much of a risk.
Because if she had a breakdown on the plane, I had a feeling her father would find out, I had a feeling he truly did have eyes everywhere, it wasn’t a controlled environment. I wasn’t comfortable with it.
Damn it.
I had a suspicious nature.
I wondered, had he seen signs at home? Was this the reason he finally allowed me to have her? Because he knew I would fail? Because I was just another loose end he would finally be able to shut up?
Too many thoughts.
Too many possibilities that made me suddenly thankful we were flying into Chicago, because the only men who would potentially help me, were the Italians, and I understood, in that moment… that I was going to have to call in that favor from the Nicolasi boss. Dread spread throughout my chest, causing my once sluggish heartbeat to pick up speed. I needed to maintain control. Too many emotions were warring with one another. The plan had never been to bring Maya into the lion’s den and ask her to calmly accept the simple fate that she had more in common with them than the average person.
I felt warm wet lips against my neck. She wasn’t acting like herself. In reality, without the drug, would she kiss me? Possibly. Would she be the one all over me? No. She’d rather slit my throat.
“Maya.” My voice came out hoarse and raspy. “Why don’t you sleep?”
I shifted her in my arms, ready to hypnotize her with one of her triggers. Years ago I’d implanted several mental viruses. That was the easiest way to explain it. A person could live their entire lives with hypnotic messages or viruses built into their subconscious, just waiting for someone of my expertise to step in and build on them or simply call them forward. I was the best at what I did, so naturally, I made safeguards, at the time, selfishly needing to protect my name, keep myself from getting killed as well as Maya.
History.
Was repeating.
And I wasn’t sure I would be able to save us both again, or at all.
I opened my mouth to start the trance, when her mouth suddenly pressed against mine, hot, hungry, open. Her hands intertwined with my hair, as her fingers dug into my skull. With an aggressive tug, she nearly pulled us both out of the chair and onto the plane floor.
“I want you,” she whispered against my lips, her tongue rimming my lower lip before making its way back into my mouth adding just the perfect amount of pressure to drive me insane.
“Maya…” I tried to pull away, even though I wanted nothing more than to give into every damn feeling I’d had through the years I’d spent hidden in the shadows, watching, waiting. Keeping my emotions on lockdown around her had been more than painful. At times it had felt impossible. And now it was dangerous.
Maya stopped kissing me then pressed her forehead against mine, her lips brushing mine as she spoke. “You make me feel safe.”
Shit. I closed my eyes. “Maya, you’ve had a lot of wine, you don’t know what you’re saying.”
“But I do.” She moved in my lap, wiggling against me in ways that aroused me beyond what I already had been.
I bit down on my tongue to keep from groaning. Her laugh, sensuous and low, made my every nerve fire, every muscle jump.
“I can feel it, you want me too.”
“What man wouldn’t desire you?”
She gave me her back, her ass positioned directly over me as she dug her heels into the ground and moved hard against me. The seat blocked any sort of escape, and my body wanted nothing more than to allow her to rub up and down until I couldn’t take it anymore and either screwed her or died wanting to.
“Please…” Maya arched back against me. “You feel so good, you make me feel good.”
I let out a hiss as she stopped moving and reached for my belt buckle. My hips drove up as she pulled the leather causing an erotic explosive friction between our two bodies. She tugged again, sliding my belt from its loop. At this point she was still sitting on me, doing her best work without actually looking at her hands.
“Nik…” She was using my nickname. Only two people called me Nik. My grandmother and Andi.
My dead friend.
Sadness washed over me again.
When had I stopped being normal? Had I ever been normal? A normal man could take the woman he cared for without regret.
Without wondering if it would be the last decision he ever made before someone else he cared about died.
Maya was getting restless in my lap. The wine mixed with the drug was most likely causing her to lose all inhibition. Under normal circumstances, I would put her in bed or lock her in her bedroom.
But we were on a jet.
Unless I put a parachute on her and went tandem, we had one option. The one and only bedroom that I was already planning on barricading myself in.
“Let’s go,” I stood, she slid off of me, nearly melting into a puddle on the floor before I lifted her into my arms and walked us back toward the bedroom, slamming the door behind me as I gently placed her on the bed.
Face flushed, Maya lifted her shirt and pulled it off her head, tossing it directly at my face before falling back onto her elbows and thrusting her chest forward. “Kiss me?”
She looked so beautiful.
And I was a man.
A man who had wanted her even when it was forbidden, wanted her still.
I reached for her. “How about we make a deal?”
“Like a game?” Her eyebrows lifted. “I didn’t take you for the type.”
“Let’s just say you bring it out in me.” I confessed, trying not to let my gaze linger too long on the swell of her breasts.
“I’m in.” Maya laughed softly. “What’s the game.”
“You know how I like rules.” I sobered. “There are only two.”
“Two, huh?” She bit down on her bottom lip. “Okay, I’m listening.”
“First rule… no talking.”
“Okay.”
“Second rule.” I smirked. “First scream loses.”
Maya pushed off the bed then stood up on her tiptoes, her lips brushing my ear as she whispered. “You’re on.”
Better to be slapped with the truth than kissed with a lie.—Russian Proverb
I WAS DREAMING. I HAD TO be. He was so… aggressive, nothing gentle about the frenzied way Nik’s tongue slid against my neck as he pressed another heated kiss just below my ear. “Do you give in?”
“Never.” I laughed, feeling more free than I had in years. It wasn’t the wine, because the wine didn’t explain his attitude, the way he held me in his arms like I was both the most beautiful thing he’d ever encountered—and the most dangerous.
Drunk on power, I pulled away just as he dipped his head to kiss me again.
“My turn.”
“Oh, Maya,” Nikolai chuckled darkly. “We haven’t even begun.”
“But—”
Something about that sentence felt like a bolt of electricity through my limbs, chilling me in its wake, making me collapse into his arms as images of blood flashed in my line of vision.
I
jerked away.
“Maya?” Nikolai frowned. “Are you alright?”
“Yes.” I nodded as fear once again trickled down my spine like I was getting a shot of ice through my veins. “Sorry, I just… thought I saw something.”
“Hmm, maybe it is best you go to sleep.”
“No!” I yelled, desperate for the intimacy that always seemed just out of my reach. Then I felt stupid and covered my mouth to keep myself from blurting out more truths about how I felt whenever he was near. Every single word was on the tip of my tongue just waiting to be released into the universe. It was hell trying to keep everything in, and I’d always prided myself on keeping my emotions hidden, they made me vulnerable, and that was something I couldn’t be when around my father, so I’d learned the art of suppressing them.
“You know…” Nikolai slowly started unbuttoning his shirt, and my mouth went dry watching, my body on edge as it anticipated what I’d see next. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to stare at his mouth and imagine all the things it could do to me, or wait to see him completely shirtless—bared to me.
The shirt fell to the floor in one fluid drop.
And my brain had trouble conjuring up any sort of thought other than sweet lord how? How was a man that built?
“Hmm, no scream?” He took a step forward then tugged me into his arms, my hands pressed against his firm, warm chest. “And I thought the shirt tossing would do it.”
“Close.” I breathed him in, the air stirred with electricity. “Very close.”
“Can’t win them all.” He sighed bringing his mouth to mine in a slow tantalizing kiss that tasted like red wine. His tongue was smooth, sliding against mine, tasting and caressing in a way I’d never experienced before.
We kissed for what felt like hours. Maybe it was minutes. Who knew? Time seemed to slow down then speed up only to slow down again.
My back met the soft mattress as Nikolai held his muscled body over mine. This, this is what I wanted, him, only him.
Why did it feel like I’d always wanted him?
Like I’d always craved him?
He leaned down, brushing a kiss across my earlobe as he whispered. “Give in.”
Unable to control my response, I let out a slow whimper as the memory, a very realistic memory of his hands running down my body, ran through me.
“It would be a pleasure to break you.” Nikolai whispered. “I wish you wouldn’t be so afraid… first comes the pain.”
“And next?” It was a miracle I kept my voice from shaking.
“Only pleasure.” His dark gaze met mine. “I swear it.”
“Why?” I jerked against the zip ties. “Why both?”
“They go hand in hand with what you’ve seen, the only way to fuse the memories together… is to make you think it was you… instead of her.”
“So you torture me… and then—“
“—I give you the most amazing pleasure you’ve ever experienced.”
“Is that even legal?” I tried to joke even though my insides were screaming for me to flee, I still couldn’t see his face, he was wearing a white mask, like one a person would wear at a carnival or masquerade but his eyes, his evil eyes were in direct contrast to the white.
“Nothing I do here is legal. But I can promise you this—you’ll stay pure… you have to stay pure.”
“Pure?”
“Pleasure is something entirely different.”
“What do I call you?” I tried changing the subject.
“Whatever you wish.”
“I need a name.” I was all dried up on tears, the fear had already started to dissipate along with the realization that I would walk out of there alive.
“Nik.” He whispered. “Call me Nik.”
I let out a gasp, surging off the bed, my head nearly colliding with Nikolai’s. “It was you!”
His body went rigid over me. “Excuse me?”
“You… you, you…” I choked out the words. “I saw you, or…” I felt the memory slipping again. “I mean, the man, he had dark eyes.”
“What did he do?” Nik asked calmly. “Did he hurt you?”
“Yes… at first, and then…” Heat filled me to the core, so much heat that if he touched me I was certain I would shatter into a million pieces and never be whole again. “He put me back together again.”
“In what way?” Nikolai braced me with his hands as he straddled his body across mine, his lips brushed light kisses across my forehead.
“He made…” Everything was blank. “He made me forget the bad…”
“And?”
I squeezed my eyes shut. “He replaced it with good.”
“I can do better.” Nikolai vowed in a low voice. “Let me show you?”
I nodded, wanting the memory to go away, irritated that every time Nikolai touched me, more memories came only to disappear like I was on some sort of high, but I’d watched him pour my wine.
Each time I blinked I felt more clarity.
Until Nikolai’s mouth closed over mine and every shred of logic left me. I had him…. I tasted him…. I wanted him. That’s why I was laying in his arms, because in a world full of terror and uncertainty there was one thing I was certain of.
Nikolai would keep me safe.
He would.
And he would give me pleasure.
How did I know that?
My body responded of its own will as Nikolai deepened the kiss then slid his hand up my body, his fingers finding my core.
He played me like I was an instrument, a melodic harp, each finger plucking a different string, each string hitting a note that took me higher and higher into oblivion… only to stop and bring me back down.
“Come on, Maya, let go for me.”
Letting go meant… something big.
Something that would mean more than what I wanted it to. But what?
“Let go.” He whispered, his kiss deepening as I rode his hand, and then I felt heat, so much heat wash over me as my center of gravity fell away.
My body fell back.
Slowly, like layers of secrets were just peeled back before my very eyes, Nikolai made a familiar gesture with his head, tilting it to the side, and blowing me a kiss right before whispering. “And now you sleep….” There were words after that, but my ears closed, along with my eyes, as my head touched something soft.
And my world went black.
The most dangerous sicknesses are those that make us believe we are well. —Russian Proverb
MY HANDS WOULDN’T STOP SHAKING. Two hours had passed, and my body was still conniving against me along with my brain, telling me that all I needed to do was wake her up and confess.
It sounded easy.
It should be easy.
All I needed to do was open my mouth and say the words, the words that I knew would destroy whatever friendship or relationship we’d had with one another, that the man who she dreamed of was both her hero and her villain, one in the same. Jekyll was Hyde and vice versa.
I didn’t need to get into her psyche to know what would happen if I suddenly put on one of the white masks in her room. Strategically, I’d placed them there to see if they triggered anything. But as far as I knew, to her, they were simple props, costumes.
They had nothing to do with the most important twenty four hours of both our lives, and if I had it my way, they never would.
I checked my Rolex. We would be making our descent into Chicago soon. I needed to wake her up and break the news.
I sipped my wine and waited a few more minutes, not yet ready to break the spell, knowing that the minute she opened her eyes she’d remember nothing but drinking wine and then falling asleep.
It was always possible she’d remember fragments, but I could explain those away with daydreams, nightmares, take your pick.
She wouldn’t remember me giving her pleasure.
And that made me borderline hostile, just thinking about the fact that she wouldn’t be consciously aware that it was my kiss that ma
de her both remember and wish she could forget, my lips that brought forth blessings, that reminded us both of the curse.
The plane took a dip. With slow movements, I rose from the chair, setting my glass on a nearby table as I made my way to the back of the plane and opened the door to the bedroom.
She was just as I left her.
Shirt off.
Arm tucked beneath her head as a cascade of dark hair fell across her face, kissing her lips and brushing across her chin.
Damn it.
I hesitated, I didn’t want to break the moment of bliss where I could stare at her and imagine that she’d fallen asleep because of our lovemaking, not because I’d forced it upon her.
After I’d drugged her.
I bent down and pressed a kiss across her temple and whispered into her ear. “Wake up sleeping beauty.” I snapped my fingers twice and then took a step back as she stirred.
With a moan, Maya blinked open her eyes and frowned in my direction. “Where am I?”
“Thirty five thousand feet in the air, give or take a few hundred feet.” I answered in a dry tone. “Maybe take it easy on the wine next time?”
Maya jerked to a sitting position on the bed then looked down and quickly covered herself with the spare blanket. “Did I get drunk?”
“No.” I offered a polite smile. “Do you remember…anything?”
“Oh, no!” Maya covered her face with her hands. “Did I… attack you?”
“Define attack.” I said with a soft laugh.
“No!” Maya groaned into the blanket then pressed her face into it, her voice muffled. “Tell me I didn’t kiss you or just… toss my body in your general direction and ask you to catch me.”
I couldn’t keep my smile from widening as I sat next to her on the bed and let out a light laugh. “Nothing as horrible as that, though next time you want sex it would probably be best to ask for it sober, and not puke after making an offer.”
Maya went white as a sheet.
“I’m kidding.” I chuckled, “You drank two large glasses of wine, said you felt sleepy, and I walked you to the back bedroom where you fell into a… dreamless sleep.”
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