Chapter Eighteen
Start
These violent delights have violent ends
-Shakespeare
His gaze locks on mine. In the cluster of lamplights by the stairs, his eyes glow like a wolf’s. He doesn’t move or say anything. Just looks at me. I feel it then. How completely isolated he is. Like those strange twisted, gnarled trees that grow on barren wastelands. They get their nourishment from deep within the earth so they have no need for anyone or anything.
Suddenly, I feel unsteady on my feet.
I grip the banister and carefully, continue on my journey down.
As I reach the third step from the bottom I come level with him. Something flickers in his hooded eyes. He has secrets. Rooms of them. Rooms I can never enter.
He reaches out a hand and touches the skin of my stomach. Desire snakes down my spine, the hair on my skin stands, and my whole body comes alive. I have to fight not to reveal how affected I am by that simple touch. I inhale deeper, and without meaning to I breathe him in, the scent of his cologne, the warmth of his skin. I already know what he will taste like on my tongue.
“I had a dream last night,” he murmurs. “You were riding me. Up and down my cock. Your hair loose and bouncing.”
My eyes widen with shock.
“And when you came you screamed my name.”
“I don’t think it’s your name I’ll be screaming,” I say sarcastically, but my body responds differently. It aches for him.
He smiles slowly. So slowly, it’s like watching ice melt. “Careful with your claws little pussycat. That sounded like a challenge. Was it?”
“Take it how you want,” I reply defiantly.
His eyes flash as he wraps his hand around my waist. “Hmmm … I’ve always liked a feisty lay, but let’s eat first.”
“I told you I’m not hungry.”
“Nevertheless, I’ve ordered food for you. I assumed you hadn’t eaten all day.”
“Well, I’m not hungry,” I repeat in a bored voice, even though I am surprised by how perceptive he is.
“We’ll see,” he says mildly, and lets his hand slip to the small of my back. He is barely touching me, but I can feel the warmth from his hand as he leads me to a vast, red room.
At one corner of the long dining table, two places have been set. Light from a candelabra makes a circle of soft glow. It looks romantic.
A man, he looks like he might be Greek, or Spanish, or even Middle-eastern, steps forward and pulls out a chair for me. I thank him and sink into it. He nods and fills my glass with champagne before quietly withdrawing from the room.
I turn towards Nikolai and find his eyes on me. The intensity of his gaze unnerves me. “Don’t you get lonely living in this massive place by yourself?”
“I don’t actually live here. Just some weekends.”
“What a waste of money,” I say scornfully.
“Would you rather I gambled it away?” he mocks arrogantly.
That veiled criticism of Nigel immediately gets my back up. I’m loyal to a fault. How dare he criticize my husband. If he carries on in this vein I’ll end up hating him. “Addiction is a disease, Mr. Smirnov. Like cancer. Would you blame a person because they had cancer?”
His expression doesn’t change. “Do you plan on calling me Mr. Smirnov when my cock is in your cunt?”
I glare at him furiously. “I find that term incredibly vulgar and distasteful.”
His eyes fill with amusement. “Which one? Cock or cunt?”
“The latter,” I say between clenched teeth.
He lifts his glass and looks at me curiously. “What term would you prefer?”
I drop my eyes. “Vagina.”
He laughs.
I lift my head and stare at him. Suddenly he seems younger, carefree and different.
“A vagina is some cold intellectual’s attempt to turn an incredibly mysterious and beautiful body part into just another organ. Like a kidney or a liver. A vagina, little butterfly, is not the proper receptacle for a cock. A vagina is dry. You can’t spread it open and suck it. Or finger it as it drips for you. A vagina is what you find in a biology textbook.”
He leans forward and I stare at him, mesmerized.
“Now, a cunt. That is a whole different ballgame. It is sweet and pretty and greedy. Very, very greedy. So if you are calling your cunt a vagina, it means you’ve never been fucked blind by a man.”
I bristle with anger. “I have been fucked blind by a man, thank you very much.”
“We’ll soon find out, won’t we?’
He takes a sip. “To your education.”
I refuse to join in the toast.
There is slight noise in the corridor, and the door opens. The man from earlier comes in with two dishes. He puts a deep dish of soup in front of me.
“Leek and potato soup with crème fraîche,” he murmurs politely.
I raise my eyes to Nikolai Smirnov. He is watching me. His eyes veiled. It cannot be a coincidence.
I slide my gaze over to the server. “I’m not hungry. I don’t want it.”
He has kept his face totally expressionless until now, but at my refusal an expression of surprise shows in his eyes. He veils it quickly, and reaches out to remove the plate.
“Leave it, Gregorios.” The sound is like a whiplash in the vast room.
Gregorios freezes, then straightens, nods respectfully, and leaves the room without ever making eye contact with me again.
I wait until the man has gone before I say, “It’s not a coincidence that you are serving my favorite soup, is it?”
“Of course not,” he agrees blandly.
“How did you know?”
“My head of security.”
Gregorios enters with a bread basket. He holds it out to me to make my selection, and I shake my head.
“Put a mixed seed roll on her plate,” Nikolai says.
The man obeys and I clench my hands under the table. He goes over to Nikolai, serves him a bread roll, and leaves. Nikolai breaks his roll and the smell of freshly baked bread wafts over to me. My mouth starts watering. Nikolai butters his roll. I drag my gaze from the bread to his face.
“Did you have me investigated?”
“Naturally. You didn’t imagine I would bring anyone into my life without knowing anything at all about them?”
I lean back against the chair, angry. “What else do you know about me?”
He bites into his roll. He has strong straight teeth. “I know you’re on the pill.”
My jaw drops. “How did you know that?”
He chews. “What would you rather believe? That my security guard saw the contraceptives in your purse, or someone went through your garbage for the last few weeks.”
I stare at him in astonishment. “What? You paid someone to go through my trash?”
He picks up his spoon. “Why are you so surprised? Teams of people working for the Eastern European Mafia regularly go through the rubbish of Londoners. That is also why you shouldn’t tear your bank statements into four pieces and leave them out for the trash man to take away.”
I gasp with shock. He knew how much money I had in my account! My eyes narrow. “Your security man didn’t find out about my favorite soup by snooping about in my black bin bags, did he?”
“No. You must have mentioned it in your emails, or your phone calls.”
I stare at him in disbelief. “Someone has been listening to my calls and reading my private emails?”
He stops eating and laughs. He actually laughs. “You’ve obviously not taken Snowden’s revelations very seriously. Someone is always watching and listening, Star. This time it happened to be one of my men.”
“Watching?”
“I’m afraid my head of security tends to take his job very seriously.”
“Stop pretending to be uninvolved in this disgusting invasion of my privacy. He does that because you expect him to,” I shout angrily. I am so angry I feel like picking up the fancy deep dis
h of soup in front of me and pouring the contents over his smirking, self-satisfied, arrogant head. How dare he snoop about in my personal communications. The debt wasn’t even mine to begin with. My breath comes fast.
“Do you have cameras in my home?” I demand.
“No.”
“I should report you to the police.”
He smiles. “And say what?”
“Tell them what you’ve done. It’s illegal.”
He picks up his glass of champagne. “Your husband gave me permission.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“Are you calling me a liar?”
Chapter Nineteen
Star
His voice is polite and his eyes glitter, but I don’t care. “Yes, I am,” I reply. “I know Nigel wouldn’t have given you permission to pry in my affairs.”
He takes a sip of his champagne, returns the glass back to the snowy tablecloth, and raises his eyes to meet mine. “When one decides to play little housewife and bury her head in the sand, it is always a good idea not to throw around accusations like that. Your husband signed a contract where it clearly states that anyone taking a debt from us will be closely monitored. And that includes their family members and friends.”
I collapse back against the chair and stare at my lap. My palms feel clammy. First Rosa and now him. Both have made me realize how naïve and stupid I have been. I trusted Nigel implicitly. He said he would always put my safety first, and I believed him.
“The soup is good. You should try it.”
I look up. I wish I could do something outrageous to wipe that smug look off his face, but I dare not. I don’t know how he would react. He is not Nigel. I’ve never known any man like him. He is like a cheetah, wild and full of coiled power and strength. “I’m not going to eat your damn soup,” I declare angrily. I lift my glass to my lips and sip at the champagne. It is cold and delicious.
He puts his spoon down and wipes his mouth on his napkin, and Gregorios comes into the room. Is he somewhere where he can see what his master is doing? Silently, he clears away my untouched dish. He leaves and the silence in the room stretches. I stare resolutely out of one of the windows at the darkness falling over the grounds. This will be my only form of defiance. I won’t even look at him. I’ll behave as if he is not even in the room. Gregorios comes in and refills his glass.
My stomach rumbles. I am actually hungry. My eyes stray to the bread roll on the plate to my left.
Gregorios goes out and returns with the next course.
“Pomegranate molasses glazed lamb with crispy potato bites,” he says as he puts the large white plate in front of me. The lamb is pink, the edges are brown, and it looks like a piece of art.
The smell makes my stomach growl. With a determined tilt to my chin, I brave a glance at Nikolai. He catches my gaze. There is amusement dancing in his eyes. That makes me even more furious and I pick up my glass and drain it. Bad mistake. The alcohol goes straight to my head. Gregorios refills my glass.
“Is that man watching us from another room?” I ask when Gregorios leaves the room.
“No, why do you ask?”
“He seemed to know exactly when you finished your soup.”
He smiles. “Gregorios knows exactly how long it takes me to finish any meal. It’s why I pay him so well.”
There is nothing to say to that so I take another sip of champagne. My head has started to feel a bit funny. In my peripheral vision, I see him pick up his knife and fork. Lamb is my favorite, and the aroma is making me feel ill with hunger, but I refuse to lose this battle of wills. I pretend to look out of the window, while I am actually looking at him cutting into his meat. It must be very tender because he appears to exert no pressure at all. He puts it into his mouth. I imagine it melting on his tongue.
“It’s very good. You should try it,” he says, and I know he is laughing at me.
“I’m not hungry,” I insist coldly.
“Shame your stomach doesn’t agree with you. It keeps rumbling.”
I flush to the roots of my hair. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“When you faint later, I’d rather it wasn’t through hunger.”
My head whirls around. “Faint?”
He grins. “From pleasure.”
My mouth drops open.
He cuts a piece of meat and brings the fork to my lips. Saliva starts collecting in my mouth. I want to resist. I order myself to resist. I stare at him. His eyes are silver. I see the black flecks in them. The pupils are big. It’s not my fault that I am finding him so difficult to resist. The champagne. I am so drunk my head swoons.
“You can’t win this battle. Evolution has hardwired humans to consume almost anything when they are hungry. You might as well eat,” he says softly.
The smell torments me. More water fills my mouth. I swallow it. Damn him. My stomach growls loudly, but I won’t let him win. He rests the food on my bottom lip. I let my mouth part and the meat enters my mouth. What was I to do? The meet was already at my lips. Some of its juices had already hit my tongue.
He smiles. “That was not so hard, was it? I only made you do what you were desperate to do, anyway.”
I chew slowly. The meat is tender and juicy. It could even be the most delicious thing I have ever eaten. My hands reach out for the knife and fork. Damn this man. I start to eat. I eat quickly. I’m starving. I butter the bread roll and bite into it. The whole time I never look at him. Never utter a word. When I finish the meal, I lay my knife and fork down.
When Nikolai finishes his food, Gregorios returns. I thank him as he clears away my plate. He nods solemnly. Nothing in his expression betrays the fact that I have cleaned my plate.
“Was your room to your satisfaction?” Nikolai asks.
“Yes, it was fine.”
“Good. Did you like Celine?”
I frown. “What difference does it make whether I like her or not?’
“If you didn’t she will be replaced.”
“I liked her,” I whisper immediately, shocked by his coldness. Poor, eager to please Celine. All I have to do is say I didn’t like her and she will lose her job for no other reason than a whim. I hope he carries on behaving this way. Then I can be certain that I will detest him by the time I leave.
Dessert is coconut chiffon cake layered with strawberry jam and served with pina colada ice cream. Well, his head of security certainly did a good job. I love coconut, strawberry jam, and pina colada. So, yay to that intrusive bastard. I lift my spoon to my lips and slip it in. Whoa … dessert in the Smirnov household is indescribably delicious. Almost divine.
“Will I be staying here for the whole month?”
“No, you will only be here when I am. Wherever I go I will take you with me.”
I stop eating. “I can’t leave the country. I have to go and see my dad every day. He is in hospital.”
“I know. You normally go before lunch. Ivan will take you.”
“I can take a taxi.”
His jaw tightens. “I must have neglected to inform you that during your stay with me you will be chauffeur-driven everywhere. It is for your own safety.”
As soon as I spoon the last mouthful, Nikolai stands. “Come, we will have coffee and brandy in the South Room. It has a lovely view.” In spite of all the food I have consumed I still feel a bit tipsy and I stumble as I stand. His hand shoots out instinctively and grabs my arm.
My eyes fly to his face, but it is as unreadable as ever. For a second, I feel that strange magnetic pull of his eyes. Then he takes his hand away. My arm tingles and I rub the place where his skin touched mine.
He leads me to an elegant salon.
There are dusky pink couches and armchairs. I perch at the end of a couch, and Gregorios brings in the coffee on a large tray. He hands me a cup of coffee, just the way I like it. It’s unnerving when perfect strangers know so much about you.
Using a silver pair of tongs, he drops two cubes of sugar into my cup. Just
the way I like it. Then he serves Nikolai and slips away unobtrusively.
“Are you always so thorough with finding out the background of the people you are coming into contact with?”
“No.”
My forehead furrows. “Yet it appears you have been extremely thorough in finding out my likes and dislikes.”
“I wasn’t planning on sleeping with them. Anyway, it is the way I am. Obsessive. When I want something, whether it is a house, a painting, a business deal or a woman, I never stop until I have it or her in my possession.”
I take a sip of my coffee. “Do you often take a man’s wife in exchange for his debt?”
He downs his coffee in one gulp. “Never.”
“Then why me?”
“Because I wanted you.”
“What if I didn’t want you?”
“Don’t you?”
“I love my husband.”
He stands up and walks over to a set of tall doors and stares at the rolling countryside outside. “Have I once asked for your love?”
I say nothing and he turns around to look at me. “Have I?”
I bite my bottom lip. “No.”
“Good. Now that we have cleared up that little misunderstanding, have you finished your coffee?”
“No.”
“Finish your coffee.”
I take another sip and, leaning forward, put it on the beautiful walnut coffee table. His tone makes me nervous.
Chapter Twenty
Nikolai
The sweetest honey is loathsome in his own deliciousness.
-Shakespeare
Outside it is getting dark. The daylight loving animals are settling down for the night. Like a nocturnal animal, my mind fills with anticipation.
It’s time to hunt.
My back is to her, but I feel her gaze. She averts her eyes as I turn around. I walk slowly but purposefully in her direction. On my journey, I stop to flick some table lamps. Yellow light fills the room. My brain notes how nervously she shuffles in her seat.
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