The Darkest Temptation

by Danielle Lori

  “Izvinite pozhaluysta,” she blurted. I’m sorry.

  My grip on her wrist lifted the hem of her white dress sleeve an inch, revealing a purple bruise and the source of her discomfort. I released her, and she began to sop up spilled vodka while mumbling frantic apologies.

  The girl—whose name I should know but didn’t—put a hand to her forehead and swayed, clearly growing dizzy. I knew the culprit was her papa’s short fuse—he was a reliable enforcer of mine. I didn’t usually interfere in my men’s family drama, but I gave a silent command to Viktor to speak with him. Good servants were hard to find, and I didn’t appreciate mine being abused so they couldn’t even do their job properly.

  “Go,” I told the girl. “You’re no longer required tonight.”

  She fled the room without a word.

  Alexander’s eyes flared with disgust, probably believing I beat my servants on the regular. I merely raised a brow, amused at the show of bravery. His companion was sweating bullets and was moments away from pleading for his life.

  Finally, Mila appeared in the doorway.

  I pulled the cigar from my mouth, narrowed eyes sliding down her body and the stupid fucking T-shirt Gianna gave her that barely covered her ass. Elvis’s smirking face front and center was the only amused one in the room.

  Anger flushed hot and heady through me, though something else intertwined—something darkly satisfied. It might be the confirmation she clearly had some fight left in her, but it was more likely the fact I was going to spank her ass for this later.

  “Come here, kotyonok.”

  She hesitated for a beat before complying, avoiding my gaze the entire way. I’d saved a chair for her beside me, but since she disobeyed my order to dress and wouldn’t even give me her eyes in the process, I pulled her tense body into my lap when she reached me.

  Mila’s rigid posture told me she couldn’t be more uncomfortable with this seating arrangement, but she didn’t voice her complaint. Ignoring the bound and bruised men with a nonchalance the race of her heart belied, Mila decided she was hungry for dessert.

  “Is that medovi—?” The rest of the word came out on a breathy yelp when I cupped a possessive palm over her pussy beneath the table.

  She was either the best fucking tease on the planet, or Gianna was stingy with her underwear. Hot, bare cunt pressed against my palm, and the semi I was sporting since Mila’s ass settled on my lap hardened to stone.

  “What are you wearing?” I asked darkly in her ear.

  She panted, futilely tugging at my hand between her thighs, but she still managed to mock me with the obvious. “A T-shirt?”

  I couldn’t decide if her sarcasm angered me or turned me on even more. “Why aren’t you wearing what I sent up for you?”

  “I don’t wear silk,” she countered with heat.

  I should have known she’d have a problem with the abuse of poor silkworms.

  I was a second away from dragging her upstairs and forcing her into that dress, but her response changed things. She had a soft heart. I didn’t want to destroy it. I wanted it in the palm of my hand.

  And right now my hand was occupied.

  I gave her a warning squeeze. She sucked in a breath, arching her back in an effort to escape my hold, but when she realized she was getting nowhere by struggling, she stilled and dug her blunt nails into my hand.

  The smallest amount of disquiet flickered through Albert’s eyes. Mine told him to take his concern and go fuck himself with it. He pulled his gaze back to Alexander, whose expression seethed.

  As the hostility in the room grew too abrasive to ignore, Mila finally took in our guests. She seemed to focus on the one with a pretty face.

  “Don’t get too excited, kotyonok,” I drawled. “He’s your cousin.”

  Her lips parted, the grip on my hand eased, and she took in Alexander and the scene more thoroughly now—from his bound wrists, to the man beside him, to the revolver that sat on the table.

  I caressed her soft thigh with my thumb. “No better time for a family reunion, don’t you think?”

  She swallowed, and, in unveiled aversion toward my dinner party, she said, “A funeral would be a better time than this.”

  A smile touched my lips. “As you can see, we’re still working on my pet’s manners.”

  Mila either didn’t like the degrading nickname or her manners being criticized because her nails pressed into my hand, leaving little crescent moons behind, if not blood. Her hair was in my face, curly, untamed, and exuding a faint summery scent. While I would usually be annoyed with a resentful woman on my lap who smelled like innocence and sunshine, I wasn’t there yet.

  “Do you remember what I said to your papa?” I asked her.

  She shook her head, her eyes on Alexander. I couldn’t say I’d ever had my hand between a woman’s thighs while she stared at another man with devotion. The fact he was her cousin didn’t quell the frustration that flared to life.

  Pressing my thumb against her clit, I rubbed it in a slow circle. She tried to ignore me as goose bumps rose to her bare skin. The subtle reaction, the feel of how soft and wet she was . . . fuck me. When I continued the motion, her breath slowed to little puffs of air, and a pink flush rose up her neck. She turned her face into my neck and whispered, “Please don’t.”

  The soft words ghosted down my spine, melting the irritation to a liquid heat that coiled in my groin, but with her attention back on me, I pulled my hand away. Maybe because she forced “please” past those lips. Or maybe because I knew I could get her off in a room full of men and something in me didn’t like the idea.

  “I told your papa if I found him in Moscow before I invited him, we’d need a lot of FedEx boxes to ship you home.” I ran a thumb across her jawline. “Ty pomnish eto?” Do you remember that?

  Her eyes finally met mine, iridescently blue and wary, and she shook her head like it had slipped her mind. I wanted to smile because, fuck, she was kind of adorable. But the awkward fact I thought that about anyone other than my niece quelled the impulse.

  “Considering it wasn’t your papa I found but two of his men, we need to discuss a different course of action.” I reached into my suit pocket and set a single golden bullet on the table. “Since you’re so fond of games, shall we play one the Russian way?”

  She stared at the bullet for a long second before Alexander interrupted the thick silence.

  “She has nothing to do with this,” he snarled.

  Viktor got to his feet to cut out Alexander’s tongue for speaking, but I stilled him with a hand, and he sat back down.

  It was when I met Albert’s severe gaze, I recognized everyone in the room believed Mila would be on the other end of the barrel with a chance of one out of six. Dry amusement filled me at the ridiculous realization.

  I wasn’t going to shoot Mila.

  I hadn’t even fucked her yet.

  Albert seemed mollified by whatever he saw in my expression, but I was no longer amused. My gaze hardened, telling him I would do whatever I wished with Mila, and he wouldn’t intervene. As he held my stare, a dark, ruthless heat emerged at the idea he might actually be challenging me. I didn’t want to fight Albert, and it wasn’t because I thought he would win. He wouldn’t. In fact, beating him half to death in prison after he insulted my brother even though he had three inches and thirty pounds on me was one of the reasons I gained his loyalty. He was also . . . a friend. The word sounded a little melodramatic and sour, but it was the closest thing I had to describe the relationship.

  When he pulled his gaze away and relented, a flare of resentment for Mila surged. She was fucking not only with my head but my men’s, so I kept up the façade she might not see tomorrow just to watch her reaction.

  “Will you do the honors, kotyonok?”

  “Wait,” Alexander growled. “We deserve the punishment, not her.”

  “Shut up,” his friend hissed and, if I wasn’t mistaken, he kicked Alexander under the table.

  Mila
interrupted their quarrel. She grabbed the revolver and slipped the bullet into one of the cylinders, then stared at the gun in her hand like she was thinking about turning it on me. With a chuckle, I took it from her before she could follow through with that.

  When I pointed the revolver at Alexander, two surprising things happened. Alexei’s nephew looked relieved, and Mila—well, she finally acted like she gave a shit about our little game.

  “No!” She struggled to escape my lap, but I held her still, if only to keep her from flashing everyone in the room something that belonged to me. “I thought . . .”

  I raised a brow. “You thought what?” She wouldn’t beg for her own life, but she would for two men she didn’t know. The stupid, selfless act was the most irritating thing I’d ever experienced.

  “I thought you—”

  “Hvatit.” Enough. I was unable to listen to another word from her mouth right now. Gripping her chin, I pulled her eyes to mine. “You and I, kotyonok . . .” I stroked a thumb across her cheek, my voice softening. “We’re far from finished.”

  She didn’t look convinced, so I pulled her face closer and sealed the promise with a short kiss. She was as tense as a statue, but her lips were soft, pliable, warm, and somehow, she still tasted like strawberries.

  The fleeting press of her mouth on mine swelled the ache in my cock to a raw throb, and an ounce of irony arose. I needed to get laid if a quick kiss got a stronger reaction from me than a woman’s tongue on my cock.

  I pulled the trigger.

  Click.

  Before Mila could finish a relieved breath, she jumped when I fired at the next man. The bang ricocheted off the walls. Smoke rose from the barrel, and his lifeless body slumped to the table. Mila trembled against me, a hand over her mouth.

  “Guess we get that funeral after all,” I said drily.

  Blood spread across the table, and my gaze narrowed as it reached my plate of dessert.

  “I’m going to . . .” Mila trailed off, her head lolled, and then she went limp in my arms, a comatose tangle of blonde hair and legs.

  “What the fuck’s wrong with her?” Alexander demanded. His wary gaze took Mila in, and he didn’t even glance at the dead man beside him.

  After adjusting Mila’s weight so her head rested on my shoulder, I picked up my cigar and puffed on it while viewing her unconscious form with feigned narrow-eyed concern. “Not sure. Do you think she needs to eat?” I blew out a breath of smoke and met Alexander’s gaze, mine sparking. “I thought Mikhailov women only needed to be fucked to survive.” For some reason, I didn’t want to tell him about her phobia. Those little details were mine.

  “You son of a bitch,” he seethed. “She’s not her mother—”

  “Save it,” I said, bored. “I’ve heard it before.”

  “Let her go. You can take me instead.”

  “Tempting, but you’re not my type.” I sent a look to Viktor to get him out of here. “Strip him,” I ordered. “He can crawl back to Alexei like a wounded dog.” Meeting Alexander’s eyes as Viktor hauled him to his feet, I said, “Make sure you tell Alexei how well his daughter fares.”

  He glared. “Fuck you.”

  Viktor punched him in the stomach before slamming his pretty face into the table. I sighed when blood splattered onto my piece of cake.

  “Watch out for the wolves,” I added while he was being dragged out. “Although, I hope they have better taste.”

  “Go to hell, D’yavol—”

  Viktor yanked him out the door.

  Sitting back in my chair, I held an annoying look with Albert before he got to his feet and left the room. I was blowing out a smoke ring, feeling oddly content, when Mila roused. I bit my cigar between my teeth and pulled the bloody cake to her.

  “Medovik, kotyonok?”

  Her expression paled, and as a soft chuckle left me, she scrambled off my lap and puked into a potted plant.

  cacoëthes

  (n.) an urge to do something inadvisable

  Head resting against the window, I stared past the spiderwebs of frost on the glass. Moonlight cast a blanket of silver over the snow, and the frozen wasteland glittered like diamonds.

  From my vantage point, it felt like I was a princess locked in a tower. Held captive by a monster who shot men in the head at a dining table set with crystal glasses and cake.

  After I vomited the contents of my stomach into one of Ronan’s potted plants and wiped my mouth with the back of a hand, for whatever demented reason, he let me walk back to my cage and shut the door. In the midst of bloodshed, it felt like the safest thing to do. But as two more days passed in this room, not even the memory of a man with a bullet hole in his forehead quelled the desire for air. The seclusion began to burn, to bubble, to encase my body and squeeze.

  I’d started making tallies on the bathroom mirror with an old tube of lipstick I found, which probably belonged to Ronan’s last “pet,” and I was now at seven days.

  A full week in hell.

  The door opened, and a chill coasted through me as Ronan’s shadow spread wings across the floor. He pulled a wooden chair toward the middle of the room, took a seat, and rested his elbows on his knees.

  My gaze flicked to the open door behind him. I wondered if that guard was still stationed in the hall. At this point, I’d rather be shot than stuck in the same room as this man.

  “Are you superstitious now, kotyonok?”

  D’yavol in the flesh stared back at me. I didn’t know he would embody a man dressed in black designer suits, tattoos, and a charming façade. I’d never be so naïve again.

  I gazed out the window and said, “Yes. If there’s a devil, there has to be a God.”

  “You think someone’s going to save you?”

  My throat tightened at the idea at least one had already died trying. Ivan suddenly came to mind. I missed him. I missed his safe, comforting touch. I even missed the lack of spark. Now I knew the kind of chemistry between me and Ronan could only be witchcraft.

  “You’ve received a lot of calls on your little burner phone since you arrived in Moscow.” His pause was oppressive, so stagnant and heavy, I couldn’t help but give him my full attention. “Some from your papa, but most from another number.”

  I tensed at the subtle threat toward Ivan.

  “No one can save you from me.” His eyes shone indifference laced with a dark edge. “Not even God.” The words condensed the air, grasping each heartbeat with an accented threat.

  His gaze slid down my body, from my loose blonde curls, to my T-shirt, to my bare legs. The mere touch of his stare scorched hot and cold, and the memory of his hand between my legs came to life.

  I’d like to believe a calloused thumb would draw a reaction from any woman’s body regardless of the circumstances. Although, my skin stretched taut as his words returned about my mother being sadistic and the fact Ronan could have brought me to release even in that twisted situation. He could have humiliated me in front of those men, in front of a cousin I never even knew existed, but he didn’t. I wasn’t sure I wanted to know the reason why.

  With the heavy sensation of his perusal flaring an uneasy heat in my veins, I managed to say, “Goodness always prevails in the end.”

  Apparently, he found the idea amusing. He leaned back in his chair and watched me through eyes so dark and lazy they must have been formed by smoke pouring from a cauldron.

  “What did you do to my cousin?” I asked.

  “I let him crawl back to your papa.”

  My expression was disbelieving. “Why?”

  “Luck,” he said simply.

  “You do all your business deals based on luck?”

  “Some.” He glanced at the room, relishing in the sight of his fortress of evil. “A little bit of luck got me here, you know.”

  “I think the word you’re looking for is ‘narcissism.’”

  A hint of humor sparkled in his eyes. “That too.”

  I refused to say the word “luck” again
because if anyone deserved to have a piano fall on their head while they walked down Wall Street, it was this man. So, I improvised with sarcasm.

  “I guess you got really narcissistic when I stumbled into your lair, didn’t you?”

  “Mmm,” he mumbled roughly, his stare holding mine. “I guess I did.”

  One single confused blink from Ronan would put the world to rights again. It would reassure me we were operating on two different wavelengths: good and evil. But of course the bastard understood me.

  His gaze settled on the small crack in the window, the one I created by throwing the chair he sat on at the glass yesterday in a desperate attempt for oxygen. Yulia had set my dinner tray down and fled the room with a tattling look in her eye.

  “I hear you don’t like your room.”

  “The accommodations could be better.”

  He smiled. “I’m sure you’ll find them preferable in my room.”

  I hated his smile. Sparkling white teeth and a dignified lift of his lips. He had the smile of a handsome gentleman, and what a lie it was. Though what I hated the most was how his smile made me recall how I fell into his hands in the first place, and how he tricked my body to his side.

  I swallowed. “My room’s fine.”

  He chuckled at my half-assed capitulation. “Let’s not forget you had a big thing for me.”

  “Let’s.”

  “Your crush was cute.”

  Irritation ran down my back. “As you said before, it could have been anyone else.” I lifted an indifferent shoulder and repeated his words. “Albert maybe.”

  Eyes glinting with ice, his presence pulled at the seams of his black dress shirt. He was either possessive of his pets, or he’d just taken a hit to his overinflated ego.

  “But as a rule,” I said coolly, “I tend to stay away from men who cut off people’s fingers.”

  “Yet you’re still loyal to your papa,” he drawled.

  He found a sore spot. I’d forged walls of denial, and I wouldn’t let him tear them down.

  “Don’t you have something better to do?” I snapped. Like Nadia?