The Darkest Temptation

by Danielle Lori

  His eyes flashed. “Watch it.”

  My anger drowned beneath the simple warning, and I glanced out the window. “How long are you going to keep me here?”

  “However long I want to.”

  “I want out of this room.”

  “You’re not in Kansas anymore, Dorothy. You don’t get whatever you want.”

  I would lose my mind if I was trapped between these four walls any longer. My lungs grew tighter each second, and soon, I wouldn’t be able to breathe. As distress stretched inside, I forced two words past my lips.

  “I’ll behave.”

  He watched me for a long second, something unreadable passing through his eyes. “Prove it.”

  I didn’t even want to consider how he wanted me to do that. The options were vast and all degrading. Holding his gaze, I waited—just waited for him to tell me what he wanted. Probably to get on my knees and blow him.

  “Beg for it.”

  Revulsion spread through me like acid. I’d rather blow him; I could wash that humiliation out of my mouth. But begging? It was a vulnerability I wouldn’t and couldn’t give. Words were a straight shot to the soul. I may not be free, but my soul was still mine.

  I despised him for making me do this, for dragging me down to this level. With that fire, something hot, foreign, and unrelenting rose to the surface.

  Our gazes held in thick tension, his unfeeling, mine fighting to hide the violence within. I stepped off the window seat, one long leg at a time, and then I lowered to my knees. When I slowly crawled toward him, Ronan’s eyes narrowed in heat and suspicion. So jaded. So astute.

  “Is this what you want?” My voice sounded different, dipped in lingerie and seduction.

  His penetrating stare followed my every movement, the low words a rumble of pleasure. “It’s a start.”

  The sounds of my knees and hands on the floor, the steady beat of my heart, and the sweet thrash of our vengeance filled the room. I crawled between his spread legs and ran my face against his pants like a humble pet. He was hard. The sadist was getting off on this.

  His inked fingers rested on his knee, and I caressed them with my cheek. He opened his hand and practically rumbled with satisfaction when I stroked the side of my face against his palm.

  “Please,” I begged, sliding my hand over his erection and up his chest, my next words harsh, “go fuck yourself.”

  I shoved him as hard as I could.

  The chair tipped backward to the floor, taking its master with it. Wood splintered beneath his weight, and his growl vibrated through the room. Heart twisting in my throat, I was on my feet, but he spun out of the fall to grab my ankle and pull me down. I hit the floor so hard, all the breath whooshed out of me.

  “Kotyonok.” It was a chuckle bit behind clenched teeth. “You’ve fucked up.”

  He dragged me backward, and I clawed at the Persian rug to find purchase. My shirt slid to my waist, baring naked skin. I knew I couldn’t let him get me underneath him, or this fight would be over. Releasing my grip on the rug to feign surrender, I gasped, “I’m sorry!”

  “No, you’re not,” he growled. “You just know you’ve lost.”

  He didn’t expect a good fight from me. I was a girl going up against a battle-hardened man. But now I didn’t have a concussion. Now I had hatred burning a hole through my stomach. I couldn’t control these pent-up feelings, and when I had the right angle, they lashed out.

  “You’re right,” I admitted. “I’m not even a little sorry.”

  Throwing my elbow back, I hit something hard. Pain radiated through my arm. He hissed, but his grip on my ankle only tightened. The bastard must be made of fire and brimstone.

  Suddenly, he released me. I didn’t stop to wonder why he was letting me go; I took the opportunity to crawl to the door and scramble to my feet.

  When I collided with a man in the hall, his rifle dropped to the floor.

  “Chto za khren’,” the guard cursed, grabbing ahold of me.

  A hot rush of adrenaline took over, reducing me to flesh and bone and the fight for survival. I was almost as tall as him, so I used my height to headbutt him in the face. Vision dimming, an ache shot through my skull at the sickening crunch of his nose. Before he could retaliate, I shoved my knee into his groin. The guard dropped to the floor with a groan.

  It happened within a few seconds. Just a moment in time tipped my morals upside down like the sinking Titanic.

  Gripping a fistful of my long hair, the guard jerked me flat on my back to the solid hardwood. The action stunned me for a vulnerable moment.

  “Tupaya blyad’,” he gritted. Stupid whore.

  When my fingers brushed cold metal, I gripped tight. He straddled my hips, and as he tried to grab the gun from my clammy hands, my fingers slipped. Pop, pop, pop cut through the air. The pops vibrated through my hands and my finger on the trigger. My ears rang. Static pierced the hall and my skin.

  His limp and heavy body fell on top of mine, pushing the air from my lungs, and panic turned to hysteria. I was drowning in a mass of motionless limbs, lifeless eyes, and sticky red. A scream tore up my throat, and I shoved him off of me. Blood spread across the floor. I slipped in it while scrambling backward.

  Panting, my eyes lifted up, and up.

  Ronan stood in the hall, his gaze on the guard’s body while he muttered a toneless, “Well, fuck.”

  Warm blood soaked my T-shirt and dripped down my arms and legs. Somehow, I was dazed at the sight: the look in a villain’s eyes when he realized he’d taken a fatal blow. I was the villain now. The terror of what I’d done and the last flare of adrenaline pushed me to my feet.

  Ronan’s stare lifted to mine, a warning within. But I was already running down the stairs. Bracing a hand on the wall, I caught myself from slipping in blood. My eyes set on an exit, and when I reached the foyer, I shoved the front doors open and ran outside barefoot, onto the icy circular drive.

  I stopped in my tracks, heavy breaths freezing in the air.

  Bright lights illuminated the yard guarded by men in every direction, assault rifles held in their grasps. German shepherds prowled through the snow on leashes. My heartbeat drummed in my ears, penetrated by the yips and barks of dogs that jumped in a chain-link enclosure attached to an outbuilding, disturbed by my sudden appearance. If I tried to run, they’d rip me to pieces.

  The first tear fell, and hopelessness pulled on my body so heavily, I dropped to my knees. There was no escaping this place. No escaping him, who pushed my morals to the wayside and turned me into someone I didn’t recognize. The truth was, I didn’t know who I was. I’d never really known.

  As the wind whipped at my curls, tears ran down my cheeks, and the cold drew its icy fingers over my skin, I felt closer to that girl with dirt on her face and Edgar Allen Poe in her hand than I had in a long time. And that terrified me. Like a single snowflake drifting to Miami’s hot pavement, if I escaped this alive and returned home, I wouldn’t belong.

  I remained still when Ronan’s presence touched my back, ready for the torture to begin. He lowered to his haunches in front of me and brushed the tears from my cheek. His words held steady against the breeze that tousled my hair.

  “Where is your God now, kotyonok?”

  Goose bumps rose to my skin, but they weren’t from the cold. The shiver was out of fear the devil had a soft side. Nothing was more frightening than a whisper beckoning me to step into the dark.

  Then he lifted my deadweight and carried me back to hell.

  hagridden

  (n.) troubled or tormented, as by a witch

  If someone asked how I envisioned my five-year life plan, it wouldn’t have included carrying a bloody American back to a guest room where I was keeping her hostage. I had a specific area for hostages in the basement. I also didn’t pick up a woman unless my dick was wet, and the angle was wrong.

  Mila remained silent as I carried her up the stairs. Her weight felt solid in my arms. She was shaped like the kind of woman I
preferred—the kind who could take a hard fuck without the worry she might break.

  Just the feel of her body against mine sent a rush of blood to my groin. Meanwhile, the object of my hard-on reeked of despair.

  As she should.

  She actually elbowed me in the face. I didn’t want to kill the girl—necrophilia wasn’t my kink—so, after she split my lip and self-control, I released her with the belief Adrik holding an AK-47 in the hall would stop her in her tracks. I didn’t account for her ability to lay him out and take his fucking gun.

  Oddly enough, when I heard her cry of pain, a hot and unpleasant sensation expanded in my chest. I could only relate the feeling to the anticipation of receiving a package in the mail, only for the delivery man to shake it like a Christmas present and break it. Adrik had fucked with my package.

  Mila may have been raised as a soft-hearted American, but it was now clear she could be a Mikhailov when she needed to be. The fact shouldn’t turn me on, though after she’d gotten one over on me and I watched her unload three bullets into Adrik, all I could think about was fucking her raw in his blood. The urge was a little twisted, even for me.

  Annoyed with this girl and the constant hard-on she aroused, I dropped her to the floor in her room.

  She gasped, tossed the hair from her face, and shot me a look of resentment. I suppressed a smile and moved to the dresser to grab the discarded ropes from the top. Mila got to her feet, and, warily, piercing blue eyes met mine.

  Fuck, she was stunning—even while she emulated Stephen King’s Carrie with a singular obsession for Elvis.

  She was drenched in blood and hadn’t fainted. Maybe I’d broken my pet’s phobia. I walked toward her, evading the broken chair on the floor, with the ropes in my hand.

  She backed up and shook her head. “No.”

  There she went with that word again.

  My eyes narrowed. “We’ve had this talk.”

  Her almond eyes softened with something almost pleading, and the sight hit me in the chest and ached in my cock both at once. The unsettling sensation brought anger to the forefront. She drew my blood when I was focused on her naked ass. Foolish error on my part. And now, with a single look, she was making me question my ill intentions.

  When she only stood there, I warned, “You don’t want to fight me right now.”

  I’d do something I’d regret, like hurt her or fuck her. I realized I didn’t like the former, and I didn’t want to force the latter.

  After a momentary stare down, she took my threat seriously and moved to the bed to lie on her back. As she dutifully raised her hands above her head, her shirt rode up her thighs. Forcing my gaze from the sight of the shadowed apex between her legs, I started to tie her wrists to the headboard.

  She stared at the ceiling and didn’t say a word. So blue and clear, her eyes were practically transparent, and right now they were drifting to that absent place I hated.

  While I was held up in Moscow for the past two days dealing with the unsavory business aspects of being “D’yavol,” wild blonde hair and a soft American accent drifted through my mind far too often for comfort—even between Yulia’s hourly updates on Mila’s activities. Just for invading my thoughts, I should leave her to stew in her misery alone. But I needed something from her. Something to hold me over. Something to tell me she thought about me inside her as much as I did.

  With her wrists secured, I sat on the side of the bed and was unable to stop myself from trailing a hand up her bare thigh. She wasn’t given a razor on the off chance she might slit her wrists, but now I had the feeling she wouldn’t take the easy way out.

  There was something novel and innocently sexy about running my hand over smooth skin and a light dusting of blonde hair. I hadn’t been with an unwaxed woman since I was a teenager, and those were usually clothed fucks against an alley wall.

  “You need to shave, kotyonok.”

  “You need to reach into your darkened soul and find your conscience.”

  I chuckled and slid my palm up, bypassing the place I wanted inside the most, and beneath her shirt, where I caressed the flare of her hip with a thumb. “I’m not the one who just killed a man, am I?”

  I almost regretted saying it when a single tear slipped down her cheek. She probably wanted to attend Adrik’s funeral and apologize to every member of his worthless family. In actuality, I didn’t know if they were worthless, but most family was.

  “Stop crying.”

  “I’m not crying,” she insisted as another tear escaped.

  Fuck. This was killing the mood.

  “It was self-defense,” I said, not giving a shit she’d killed Adrik. I didn’t need men on my side who got bested by soft-hearted women. “Say it.”

  “But—”

  “Say it.”

  “It was self-defense,” she parried emotionlessly.

  I didn’t know why I was offering out a tiny olive branch. The unsettling tears, maybe, but it was more so the fact it’d been a long time—if ever—since I met a woman with feelings. Mila was uncharted waters to me, filled to the brim with a selflessness I didn’t understand. And like a cat with a mouse, I wanted to play with her for a while.

  I gripped the indent of her bare waist, which was so small I could probably touch fingers if I wrapped my hands around it. A waist wasn’t exactly the first thing I noticed about a woman, but ever since I’d stripped Mila naked in her hotel room, I wanted to hold her there while she rode me—a position I normally couldn’t stomach. I attributed the weird desire to the fact this was the longest I’d ever had to wait to fuck a woman I wanted before, and the smallest things about this one made me feel like I was just released from prison after abstaining from sex for four years again.

  I rested my other hand next to her head and pulled a blonde curl between my fingers. “I’ll put a cross in the hall like you Americans do at car crash sites. We can even spread his ashes together if it’ll make you feel better.”

  A disgusted gaze met mine, and it lifted a soft laugh from me.

  “Shouldn’t you be out stealing virgins and terrorizing Moscow?” she asked.

  “Unless I run into your papa tonight, the city’s safe from me.” While that may be a lie, I was an optimist when it came to things like business and murder.

  She swallowed and pulled her gaze back to the ceiling. “How magnanimous of you.”

  “When you say big words, it makes it harder to do the right thing here,” I drawled before nipping her jawline.

  She released a shaky breath. “You’re beyond help, you know that?”

  “And here I thought all I needed was an intervention.” I swept my thumb beneath the curve of her breast, back and forth, the lightest of caresses. Her breasts lifted with every breath, her nipples visible beneath her shirt, and it reminded me of how sensitive and sweet they were.

  Sliding my lips to the shell of her ear, I said, “I bet I could make you come just from sucking your tits, kotyonok.”

  The shiver that rolled through her was the only tell she hadn’t shut me out yet, so I pushed a little further. Palming the weight of her bare breast, I squeezed the soft flesh and ran my thumb around her nipple, then sucked the pulse point on her neck, pulling the skin between my teeth to leave another mark behind. Her chest rose and fell quicker, but she refused to acknowledge my hands on her.

  I didn’t know why this girl smelled so good even covered in blood, but the feel of her breast in my hand and her soft scent was beginning to dim my vision. The relentless ache in my groin swelled, while Mila acted as bored as a baptist sitting in a church pew.

  Her apathy was starting to irritate me, so I moved lower and bit down hard. She hissed in pain, but when I soothed the bite with my tongue, the ropes pulled taut, her head lolled to the side, and the subtle arch of her body told me she wasn’t so fucking indifferent anymore.

  I pulled back to see my handiwork—the dark hickeys I left behind. While I didn’t think I’d ever given one before Mila, something primal ins
ide of me enjoyed marking her up like my own little checkerboard.

  “I think red is your color,” I told her, this girl in my guest bed adorned in blood and hickeys.

  “You would,” she countered, but her words were husky, lacking heat.

  When I finally ran my thumb across her nipple and pinched it, her ragged exhale came between wet, parted lips, though she still tried her best to ignore me.

  “You call me sick,” I drawled, “but I think you might be a little twisted too.”

  “I’m nothing like you.”

  I raised a brow. “Sure about that?”

  “That I’m not a psychopath? Yes.”

  “I prefer ‘sociopath.’ More socially acceptable.”

  “Because this scene screams ‘socially acceptable.’”

  This girl had the odd ability to amuse me even while I was trying to be serious about breaking her down as my temporary, mindless sex slave. And I didn’t like when people threw a wrench into my plans.

  I slid my hand down her stomach, between her legs, and pressed my thumb against her clit, applying the slightest amount of pressure. She closed her eyes tight, trying to fight the sensation, but when I gave her a little friction, she pulled her bottom lip between straight white teeth and faintly rolled her hips.

  The sight flooded thick heat through me that curled down my spine and settled heavily in my cock. She was hot and wet, and, from what I’d learned, tighter than a fist. I wanted to give her what she needed; to slide two fingers home just to watch her eyes roll back. The idea she would let me at this point singed every ounce of willpower inside until my blood began to pound in my ears.

  I may not give oral or let a woman take control, but I was hardly a selfish lover. Still, I’d never been so interested in making a woman come before. I couldn’t even say three women at once got me harder than this single girl. The fact she was Alexei’s daughter was just the icing on that nauseating cake.

  She had to be a professional at this innocent act; at drawing men in. Just like her mother was before Alexei showed up to put a bullet between their eyes.