by Lana Sky
It’s cold. A hiss escapes my mouth, and he tugs me closer in response, dominating the space between my legs. Leeching off his heat, I watch him silently explore the surface beneath me. For my benefit, I realize—it’s a silent tour of sorts.
Beneath my position, a small ledge extends from the side of the table. I follow the line of his gaze as he runs his hands over the objects strategically placed there, all within reach. One article is a pool of thin, black fabric.
A blindfold? Alarming enough—but the other items are seared onto my psyche even if I don’t dwell on their purpose for now.
An unlit candle.
A pair of metal handcuffs, lined with black leather.
And lastly, a knife, sharpened and ready. Maxim grasps the weapon first, testing the weight against his palm.
“Do you know when I first knew it?” he wonders against my scalp. “That you were mine? Do you?” His finger returns to my jaw, urging me closer with a beckoning caress. “It was that first night you climaxed. Do you remember?”
I do, and my throat goes dry at the memory.
“It’s not the fact that you got off that made me consider snapping your fucking neck right then and there.” His thumb teases the throat in question, tracing the hollow of it as I suck in air, too enthralled by his words to release it. “I could feel it…your greedy cunt gripping me tight. For the first time, fucking wasn’t satisfying an urge, no more intimate than pissing or breathing. Your body wanted more than a fuck, wringing every ounce it could from me.”
The awe in his tone resonates down to my core. Deep inside, muscles clench in response, my brain buzzing.
“You don’t understand it.” He looks down at his hands and curls them into fists. “What it feels like to go your entire life satisfying those primal fucking urges out of necessity and nothing more. Before you, I rated the quality of sex based on how efficiently I could get it over with. How much blood I could draw and gasps I could wring from the whore beneath me just to know…I was still there. Still alive. Still connected to my body. Pleasure didn’t matter. Lust was a mere byproduct of biology. I was always in control. But that night with you…” His lips purse as he lowers his hand to his glistening cock. “You forced me to feel it, didn’t you?”
His eyes cut up to mine accusingly.
“You made me see you. Even now, at the edge, when I can feel myself so fucking close to slipping. When all I should crave is to go numb. To rage, and maim, and kill. You…” He laughs in disbelief, shaking his head. The manic gleam in his eye reassures me despite how my heart seizes up. The terror is still there, building in my blood, but that one, searing expression keeps me from succumbing to it.
Because it means he’s still here in this moment. Still Maxim.
And he reaches for me like a lifeline, his nails biting into my skin, sealing in his possession.
“I still feel you,” he admits. “Like no one else. So hear me now—”A searing pain in my ear is my only warning as he bites down over the sensitive lobe. “Mine,” he rasps. “You were made for me. And I will ensure the world knows it. No matter the fucking cost.”
Chapter Three
My memory goes hazy after that, devolving into snippets. More sex. Restless sleeping. Waking. More sleeping. When I fully regain my senses, I’m lying on a substance so soft that I swear I’m floating. Falling. My fingers fan out, scrambling for purchase against something solid. And I find it.
Warm, flexing, heavy…
Confused, I open my eyes, enthralled by the vision before me. Maxim Koslov, in stark naked glory, save the black binder around his waist. Golden hair fans over his forehead, obscuring his eyes. But they’re closed and his chest rises and falls in a steady rhythm. He’s asleep. And that fact alone transforms him into another fucking person.
My breath catches as I find myself inching closer, riveted by his face when devoid of a glare or scowl. Someone like him can never be at peace—not fully. But this may be the closest I’ve seen him come to it.
And the sight leaves me stunned. My fingers fan out without my brain telling them to, smoothing over his cheek. I barely touch him before the moment shatters. He springs into awareness, grabbing my wrist, but when his eyes finally open, his fingers relax, releasing me.
We’re on the bed, I realize.
Our bed. Sweat and musk flood the air—me and him combined into one indiscernible aroma. Gone is the distinct, invisible barrier that always divided his old suite, separating him from me.
This place is different.
And he’s still here, lingering beside me in a way he rarely has. Nostrils flared, he inhales my scent as his other hand grazes my waist, dragging me closer to him. Like a dog on a leash. I arch into the touch, savoring the satisfied grunt resonating in his chest.
“So much like a kitten,” he murmurs thickly. “My kotyonok. Snuggling close to me when she should turn tail and run. Now more than ever.”
For once, he doesn’t sound angry, and he doesn’t roll me beneath him in a sexual frenzy either. This is somehow more unsettling. Him lying here with me. Breathing me in. Feeling me. Torturing me.
“I scared you tonight,” he says, his cold eyes blinking once. “I saw how you looked at me. Like I lost my goddamn mind. But, you were not the catalyst for this… I used to dream of killing him.” I marvel at the raspy cadence of his voice, devoid of hostility. I think he’s half-asleep still, but for whatever reason, he feels compelled to share. Something. Anything.
So I hoard every scrap he’s willing to give.
“I planned it down to the last fucking detail,” he continues, absently stroking the side of my hip. “How I would make him suffer. Make him scream. For over twenty years, I’ve dreamt about it. But there are rules when it comes to revenge. I alone was never worth the risk…”
He settles the palm of his free hand against my cheek. Though he may have cleaned them of blood, violence resonates in his fingertips, impossible to erase. I can feel the power weighing down every inch of flesh and nail and bone. It’s intoxicating in its potency.
But intimacy shouldn’t feel like this—like a drug—I know that. Going off depictions in movies, I should crave heartfelt embraces and passionate cuddling.
I should crave normal, wholesome affection.
Not the caress a murderer can impart just as easily as ruthless brutality. He frowns, seemingly just as confused as I am by my reaction. My chin tilts, seeking out the contact, extending it.
“So greedy,” he admonishes. “You take only what you can in the moment. Maybe it’s for the best,” he adds. “Dwelling on the past is for the weak. Don’t make the mistake of assuming that’s why I did it. I didn’t kill him because of what he’s done—but because of what he was. A wolf too much of a fucking coward to hunt in the light, so he thrived in the shadow, picking off weak prey. You appealed to him. He hurt you, and yet you look at me with pity.”
His voice catches on a dangerous, unstable note I know too well.
“I don’t crave your pity.” I flinch as his fingers brush over my cheekbones, but I don’t pull away. Nails drawn, he probes me mercilessly. Whatever he seeks must lurk in the corner of my mouth. He slides his thumb along the seam, blinks…and he’s back again.
“And yet you offer it, anyway.” His nostrils flare, his voice hollow. “It’s the one thing you give me freely, other than submission. Your pity.” I can’t tell if that angers him or not.
In the end, he merely sighs and eases the hair from my face with the tip of his finger.
“That motherfucker didn’t make me. I made him. I ended him. He didn’t fucking win. They won’t win. And whether I seek out Dima or not, nothing changes.”
“Dima?” I risk asking. He’s mentioned that name before to Milton. “Who is—”
“No one,” he snaps, but the viciousness in his voice warns of the opposite. “The past cannot be undone. So there is no point in regret. I never owed him a damn thing. I still don’t.”
My lips twitch. I need to say somet
hing else. Comfort him, I think.
Before I can get a word out, he rolls onto his side with his back to me. I barely mourn the loss of his touch when he hooks his arm around my waist, dragging me to him.
Tethering me to him.
“I chose you over him. Over them.” I can feel the vibrations rumbling through his back with every grated word. It’s more than a boast. More than a promise. It’s a warning. “Don’t forget that. Don’t ever forget that. I chose you. I will fight for you.”
Saying it out loud must comfort him in ways that even bashing Sevastyn’s skull in didn’t—because within minutes…I know he’s asleep.
I wake up again to golden daylight flooding in through the window, but I don’t have the strength to even move, let alone get up. I’m so fucking tired. My muscles ache, my mind exhausted. For a second, I think I’m still dreaming, imagining the snippets of conversation drifting on the edges of my consciousness.
“…A message came this morning,” a man confesses, his tone cordial. Lucius? “You won’t like it. Should I convey it regardless?”
Someone grunts in response. That guttural baritone needs no introduction.
“Anatoli has demanded your presence,” Lucius continues. “Far be it for me to make a suggestion, sir. But if you were planning to declare your independence from him, now might be your chance. My contacts have already picked up on chatter within the network, speculating on Sevastyn’s sudden absence over the past twenty-four hours…”
If Maxim replies at all, I don’t hear him, imagined or otherwise. It could be because my brain shuts down, cringing from any mention of that name. Anatoli. If I’m still dreaming, the image creeping into my mind would surely reinforce this moment being a nightmare—a man with cold, lifeless eyes so similar to Maxim’s it’s chilling. Like he’s doomed to one day reach the same level of callous, inhumanity.
I squeeze my eyes shut, blocking out the memories. Rolling over, I press my face against a mound of silken sheets. Just as I start to drift off again, a familiar command cuts through the exhaustion like a knife. “Come.”
Still half-asleep, I scramble from the sheets and find a black robe draped over the end of the bed. It’s silk, tailored to my size. Made for me.
Cautiously, I enter the hall wearing it and find Maxim in an enormous dining room adjacent to an open floor plan kitchen. A row of windows displays the city of Fair Haven from its very heart. From the bay to the glittering center, all the way to a glimpse of the slums on the very outskirts.
Attacking his uncle may have been the opening salvo of a so-called war, but Maxim certainly isn’t in hiding. This bold, new residence makes one fact painfully clear—he’s ready for a fight.
And this view serves as the perfect backdrop for the breakfast of a man hell-bent on domination. What might fuel such an enigmatic figure? Two plates before him contain the answer—poached eggs over a rare steak sliced to perfection.
“Sit.” He nods to the chair beside him. When I comply, he picks up a fork from the table, twisting it between his fingers. He’s been up for a while, already fully dressed in a black suit, his hair damp and freshly washed. The sight of him makes me keenly aware of the grime still clinging to me. Namely, the rust-colored gunk caked beneath my fingernails.
I try scratching it away, but the stain remains no matter how fiercely I dig. It hurts, but I can’t stop scraping. Probing. Bleeding.
“I have business to attend to,” Maxim informs me, and I look up, forcing my hands flat against the table. “Meetings. I’ll be gone until tonight.”
I nod absently, still processing the past twenty-four hours. My brain struggles to digest the tonal whiplash. Murder one moment. Breakfast the next.
And brutal sex replaced by casual conversation.
“Lucius will accompany you today,” he continues. “But you will be on your own for most of it.”
That sounds like more than an afternoon spent here waiting for him. I brush my tongue along my lower lip before replying. “For what?”
Rather than answer me immediately, he drags my plate toward him and cuts the meat into even smaller pieces. Then he nudges it in my direction with a grunted command, “Eat.”
As I shovel a piece of steak into my mouth, I catch him watching every fucking move I make, missing nothing.
“Swallow,” he prompts, once I’ve taken a few mechanical chews. Satisfied, he adds while my mouth is full, “I’m sending you for a dress.”
A dress. Maybe his penthouse and our relationship isn’t the only thing that has changed after last night? He thinks I need a new wardrobe as well. I’m partially through chewing another slice of meat when I finally process the deliberate way he pronounced that word, however. Dress.
A dress.
The dress.
I swallow too quickly and wind up choking. Eyes streaming, I gulp at a glass of water shoved in my direction. Once I stop sputtering, the only thing I can think to say is, “But I haven’t even told my family.”
About the true nature of my relationship with him.
About why our lives have changed so drastically.
About…
“Did you change your mind?” he wonders, his tone eerily level. “About marrying me.”
I flinch and set my fork aside. Even thinking in those foreign terms heats my skin. It sounds unnatural. Me married to Maxim. Him, waiting for me at the end of an aisle. Signing up for forever at his whim.
It sounds fucking insane.
“If your siblings are your main concern, we can arrange for you to tell them before then,” he suggests while stabbing at his own piece of meat.
I feel my brows furrow. “Before what?”
“The ceremony.” He pauses to chew a bite of steak. As he swallows, he dabs at the corner of his mouth with a white cloth. Then he continues, “I’ve arranged for it to take place by the end of the month.”
“So soon?” I sound more panicked than surprised. So soon. A wedding.
“The sooner, the better,” he insists while slicing off another piece of his steak. He makes it sound so simple. Like a walk in the park. A necessary chore. Business—but the more he broaches the topic, the harder it is for my brain to comprehend. “It is not enough for me to merely claim that you are mine,” he says. “I must prove it. Publicly, in terms that men like my grandfather will understand. In my family, your worth only extends to the power of the name attached to it. If you are to be protected from now on, you must take mine. Eat.”
I force down another bite while observing him. It’s going to storm today—literally and figuratively. Already, dark clouds shroud the sun, choking out the daylight. A cold, overcast gray replaces it, reflecting off the angular features that make his face so expressive and so beautiful.
Even while he’s brooding.
Aware of me watching, he shifts, angling himself toward me. “A month might seem ‘soon’ from your position, but trust me, it’s a gift. Even a week’s delay is wasted time.” He takes a sip from his own glass of water as his eyes flicker over mine suddenly guarded. “The sooner you become a Koslov in name, the better.”
Though, in a sense, I already have his name. Absently, I trail my fingers along my bare inner thigh, tracing a series of healing welts. Lines. When viewed at once, they proclaim ownership. His. “Why so fast?”
I’m not brave enough to mention the conversation I may or may not have imagined. Could his accelerated timeline have something to do with his grandfather’s demand?
“Why?” He cocks his head and observes me from the newer angle. “Consider it like another transaction. I give you security. In return, I know you are protected.”
“But why rush?” I say, probing him as much as I dare. “We barely even know each other.”
Which is a goddamn lie. In some ways, he knows me better than I know myself. And as for him…
I know that he’s someone who would never offer a “transaction” like this to any other woman.
“Your feelings or mine have nothing to do wi
th it,” he says, scoffing at the prospect. “This would be a transaction. Nothing less, nothing more.”
“Okay, but…” I shake my head. “What about my family?”
“It’s simple. They become my family.”
“And the house? Will we stay there—”
“Nothing else will change,” he snaps, shoving his plate aside. “Think of it as merely an extension of our previous arrangement.”
“Through marriage…” My head is spinning. I lean over the table and cradle my temple against my palm. “A wedding,” I repeat, tasting how the word sounds out loud. Terrifying, that’s how. “Are you just going to take me to the courthouse or something?”
“I don’t think you understand the situation.” His tone softens a fraction, sounding damn near gentle. “Killing Sevastyn didn’t end this. It started it. If I don’t make my intentions known now, they won’t just kill you. They’ll take pleasure in using you against me any way they can. They’ll sell you. Beat you. Destroy you.” He glowers into the distance, seeing his hypothetical threats unfold. “So, trust me when I say that a month isn’t soon enough. Regardless, you still have time to tell your family.”
“And then what?” There are ways to sugarcoat it—but I doubt Daisy and Mikie will buy that I would meet a man and marry him in less than a year. They shouldn’t—even if said fiancé purchased a new house and enrolled them in schools, we could have only dreamed of them attending a few months ago.
Melanie did shit like that. Not me.
“Then…” Pulling his plate back, he glowers at the meat before slicing through it. “Then you’ll be protected. Nothing else will change. And Sevastyn can rot in the ground like the rat he is while Anatoli twiddles his thumbs in the front fucking row before the altar.”
I flinch at the imagery. I don’t think he even realizes the irony of it—in one breath, he makes being a Koslov sound synonymous with envious security. But in the next, he refers to his own family members in terms most people would reserve for mortal enemies. Melanie had a habit of hitching up with men she barely knew—but here’s the funny part. I know even less about Maxim or his past.