A rough palm slid beneath my dress, over the curve of my hip, to my ass. When he found me only wearing a thong, he made a low sound in his throat and squeezed a bare cheek. I panted as his approval skated between my legs and expanded. His hand traveled to my lower back. The action pulled my dress farther up my thighs, leaving only a thin barrier of fabric between my core and the heat of his erection.
I kept my head angled away from his in a pathetic attempt for distance, but the desire to rock against him pulled at every ounce of restraint inside. Sanity told me, if I went there with him, it would be with the full force of a tsunami, and no amount of swimming would keep me afloat.
His lips skimmed down my neck, igniting a line of fire in their wake. “How long are we going to play this game?” The words were engulfed by a wave of static and constraint so thick, a single wrong move would set everything in this room ablaze.
I couldn’t think. I could hardly breathe. The need to let go tugged at my body, drawing me in with deviant words that said drowning was the best way to go.
When he nipped my neck, expecting a response, the wet heat of his mouth sent a cascade of pleasure down my spine. I tightened my grip on the dresser and fought the moan rising in my throat.
An image flashed in my mind, of Ronan standing on the edge of a dark pool just watching me sink to the bottom of it, my curly hair floating and aglow. The visual evoked the last bit of resistance within.
I turned my head to meet his gaze. “As long as you plan on killing my papa.”
He held my stare for so long, something in me thought maybe, just maybe, I had something he wanted enough to forget his revenge. Then he stepped away from me, his shoulders tight.
I exhaled, an uneasy shake flaring in my veins.
“Get out.” He turned from me and continued unbuttoning his cuffs like I was an unwanted distraction. “And, kotyonok.” A narrowed gaze met mine. “If I find you in my room again, I’ll take it as an invitation.”
I held his dark gaze for a moment. And then I disappeared from his room, vowing to never set foot in it again.
fasta
(n.) unwavering in devotion to friend or vow or cause
The next morning, our breakfast “dates” continued. However, the atmosphere couldn’t be tenser if a ticking time bomb sat beside the teapot. I just didn’t know the silence was about to detonate in a way that would make an actual explosive a better alternative.
An edginess flared at the memory of last night. The pressure of Ronan’s body against mine awoke a heat wave beneath my skin that was so hot, I tossed and turned all night in emptiness and confusion. Even now, a restless ache persisted between my legs.
I curled my toes against the marble, knowing I should be ashamed of the feeling—especially since Ronan seemed to have forgotten last night entirely by his apathetic demeanor—but I refused to send myself on another guilt trip.
Instead of the silent maid, another woman served our food, and she was not the docile, invisible type. She could be Kylie Jenner’s blonde twin. I wouldn’t be surprised if the servant’s eyelashes were thickly mascaraed by the celebrity’s makeup line.
Slowly, she set dishes on the table, the clink of each one followed by a glance in Ronan’s direction. He wasn’t doing anything besides scrolling through his phone and running a thoughtful thumb across the scar on his lip.
A few of the maid’s dress buttons were undone, giving a generous glance down her bodice whenever she bent over. And she bent over a lot. I wanted to tell her to have a little self-respect, but I wasn’t sure it would resonate coming from a girl who would have probably had unprotected sex with Ronan on the first date if he’d asked.
I thought he was so busy reporting posts on Instagram he didn’t notice her painfully obvious interest—that is, until his eyes lifted from his phone, caught mine, and flickered with devious amusement.
Ugh.
“Mogu ya predlozhit’ vam chto-nibud’ yeshche?” the maid asked Ronan in a sultry voice. I didn’t need to know Russian to understand she’d just questioned if she could “tempt” him with anything else.
I hated blondes.
With Ronan’s eyes on mine, it couldn’t be clearer he was enjoying every second of this before saying, “Nyet.”
The maid followed his stare to me and finally recognized someone other than Ronan was in the room. She reduced me down to one fell swoop of her eyes. Evidently, my unmanageable hair and floral embroidered shorts romper didn’t exactly scream competition. I bristled at her perusal, but she was already carrying her tray out of the room, casting Ronan a longing glance on the way.
I usually had high respect for blue-collar workers, but that one . . . What a peasant.
“What happened to the other girl?” I asked.
Ronan gave me a look that said it was none of my business. At the thought the quiet servant could have had something to do with poisoning me, my stomach tightened. Ronan killing murderous mobsters was one thing; a meek servant girl, another.
“You didn’t . . . do anything to her, did you?”
His eyes narrowed. “Nyet.”
I guessed that word was all he was going to say this morning. He was becoming worse company than Khaos. The German shepherd growled at me every time I spoke to him and avoided my presence like I was the one who had fleas. I should stop disrupting the animal’s peace, but something behind his tough demeanor felt so lonely it pulled at my own outcast heartstrings. I refused to give up on him.
Even though Albert told me the kitchen was monitored closely now and that my food wouldn’t be salted with poison again, I was still hesitant to eat anything and had survived on Yulia’s crumbs for the past two days. The hesitance was due to the fact Ronan didn’t say a word to reassure me. Considering all his demands I should eat since we met, his silence now made me feel like he didn’t care. Maybe I was being dramatic, but since I’d already started down the path, I was going to own it until the end.
I put on a show of meticulously smearing a piece of toast with the vegan butter Polina made for me, though I couldn’t help but believe Ronan noticed the only thing I was truly ingesting was water. He had nothing to say about it.
As he sipped his tea, the silence sent an uneasy energy through me. I wanted him to say something, anything, to disperse the tension in the room—another “nyet,” a demeaning “pet,” or even a crass comment.
I was taking a drink of water when the front door slammed shut. A familiar masculine voice reached me. It took a few seconds to recognize it, and when I did, the crystal glass slipped from my fingers, hit the edge of the table, and the faraway sounds of tink, tink, tink fell to the floor.
Heart in my throat, I shot to my feet.
“Sit down.”
I barely heard Ronan’s command over the rush of blood in my ears. My mind told me to listen, but my body wouldn’t cooperate. All I could do was stare at Ivan as he stepped into the dining room—at the blood on his ripped dress shirt, at his bruised face, and at his hands tied behind his back. The sight of him was so welcome tears burned the backs of my eyes, but the reality of his presence twisted a knife in my gut.
Albert and Viktor stood on either side of Ivan, each restraining him by an arm. The three of them looked awful: cut lips, bruised eyes, and bloody clothes. Albert bled profusely from his side, which soaked his white button-up.
Ivan’s cool gaze found me and softened with relief before it slid down my body to inspect for injuries, but the only wounded ones were the men in the doorway. My empty stomach roiled at the thought Ivan was trying to rescue me from D’yavol’s hands while I was embracing the heat those same hands left behind.
“Ty v poryadke?” Ivan asked me. Are you okay?
Throat too tight to speak, I nodded.
“Mila,” Ronan said in an ominous tone. “Sit down.”
The volatile warning stroked my skin, but I couldn’t move or force my gaze from Ivan’s. Self-loathing and panic bit at my veins, overwhelming me, though when Ivan gave me a look
that told me to listen, numbly, I sat. Complying then only intensified the strain in the air. Each second was pulled taut and stretched to impossible limits.
“Pochemu ty zdes?” Ronan growled at Albert.
By their curt words and severe body language, I recognized Ivan wasn’t supposed to be here, in the same home as me, as well as the fact Ronan knew Ivan had been found while he sat beside me and sipped his tea indifferently through breakfast. He wasn’t planning to share the knowledge with me.
Apparently, Ivan had other ideas.
I almost wished for ignorant bliss. If something happened to Ivan; if my selfish act of coming to Moscow got him killed . . . My stomach threatened to expel the small contents inside.
Ivan’s stare conveyed he wasn’t convinced I was unharmed, and he was now probing for mental wounds instead of physical ones.
I’m okay, my gaze promised. But what about you?
Seeing the tears running down my cheeks, his split lip lifted in an unconcerned smile. The sight didn’t alleviate the tight sensation in my lungs. After a strained beat, I realized the men had stopped talking and were now watching our silent conversation.
“Ubiraysya otsyuda,” Ronan snapped impatiently. Get out. “Take him downstairs for now.”
Downstairs? Was there really a dungeon in the house? My heart twisted.
Ivan shrugged the hands from his arms and headed down the hall. As cold and still as a block of ice, I watched him until he disappeared around the corner with Albert and Viktor following.
“How does he know where to go?” I wasn’t aware the emotionless words had escaped until Ronan answered.
“He doesn’t.”
Clearly, he did, but my curiosity dissolved beneath the heavy pressure on my chest. As Ronan stood and nonchalantly slipped his phone into his pocket, my entire being whirled with an idea of how to talk him out of whatever he planned for Ivan.
“I’ll beg you,” I blurted.
He glanced up, the look darkly amused but conflicted by a hint of something cold and terrifying that leaked into his eyes. “I’m not sure it would feel very sincere.”
I wanted to scream at him that this wasn’t a game, but he was already out the door. He was going to go about his day as usual and desert me to slowly die inside.
On my feet, I reached him in the hall and stepped in front of him so he had to give me his full attention.
He stilled, a muscle tightening in his jaw. I understood then, the ticking time bomb wasn’t an elusive, mystical warning. It was him, as tangible as his eyes, posture, and presence. The darkness inside was close to devastating this home to stone and ash, and it would take me with it. I didn’t care. I didn’t care about humiliating myself. Pride no longer mattered—not with Ivan’s life in jeopardy.
I dropped to my knees in front of him, my blood going colder than the hard marble. “I’m sincerely begging you,” I said, a tear leaking down my cheek. “If you let Ivan go, I swear, you can have anything you want from me.”
Ronan had me where he wanted me—a worthless commoner at a king’s feet—but there wasn’t an ounce of pleasure in his stare.
“I can already have anything I want from you.”
“There’s a lot you couldn’t have.”
He held my gaze to the sound of my desperation consuming the hall. “You’re not really known for telling the truth, are you, malen’kaya lgunishka?”
Frustration pushed at me. If I couldn’t convince him with words, then I would try with actions. I reached for his belt buckle, and as I worked to undo it, I realized my hands were shaking.
I didn’t have the faintest idea how to give oral well, but I needed to figure it out because I knew Ronan wouldn’t guide me. He didn’t believe I was innocent in regard to sex. My stomach was so unsettled, I was afraid if he gagged me, I’d throw up. I was going to ruin this. At the thought of losing Ivan on top of my papa, a quiet sob rose up my throat.
Ronan grabbed my wrist to stop me. “As much as this is turning me on, I’m going to pass.”
He wasn’t turned on. He was angry—deadly even, given the ice-cold, heartless look in his eyes. With a low, furious sound, he tugged me roughly out of his way and headed down the hall.
All I knew at that moment was, I couldn’t live with Ivan’s death on my conscience.
“If you kill Ivan, you might as well kill me.”
Ronan paused, but after a few seconds passed, he walked away, leaving me on the floor as desolate as always.
súton
(n.) the end of something
The home sat as still as a grave while I stood beneath the staircase and stared at the elaborate woodwork that hid a door from sight—the one Albert and Viktor just vacated before leaving the house. I expected the entrance to be locked or require a special passcode like it would in any decent spy movie, but it opened right up to reveal cement stairs leading down to hell.
Nerves shook in my hands as I hesitated at the threshold and listened for the tortured screams of damned souls, only to be welcomed by silence and a cold draft. A sane person wouldn’t go down there, but it seemed I was losing my grasp on rationality with the rest of the house.
Closing the door behind me, I rubbed a hand over the goose bumps on my arm and headed down the stairs. When I reached the bottom, I pretended the room was any other unfinished basement with mortared stone walls and a dampness thickening the air, but the fallacy grew harder to accept each time I viewed a bloodstain on the floor as well as the barred cells lining the far wall.
I should have found it a reprieve the cells sat empty sans one and that I wasn’t soundly sleeping upstairs while people rotted below, but there was nothing relieving about seeing Ivan leaning against iron bars and giving me the look he always did when I did something he disapproved of.
“You should not be down here,” he censured.
It was bizarre seeing him existing in this dungeon so indifferently—this man I’d known for years, who was insanely picky about his Americanos and had an allergy to cheap cologne and traffic.
“Nobody told me I couldn’t be,” I returned, hiding my uncertainty of how Ronan would feel about it if he found out. Not for my own sake, but Ivan’s.
“I am telling you now. Go back upstairs.”
On my way to his cell, I ignored him and gingerly stepped around a bloody plastic tarp on the floor.
“Mila.” It was a frustrated growl. “There is blood everywhere. I do not want you to pass out and hit your head on the cement floor.”
As I reached him, a small smile appeared at the memories of him pushing my head between my knees after many altercations with O-negative while he murmured accented, encouraging words—especially one cheerleading pyramid fail where Ivan jumped over a fence to reach me, which aroused the entire team’s envy. I’d always taken his presence for granted. I refused to do the same with his life.
Reaching through the bars, I wiped some fresh blood from his busted lip. His hand lashed out and gripped my wrist, a sudden wave of discontent rising in his eyes.
“What the fuck has he done to you?”
I blinked. “Nothing, really.”
“Nothing, really?”
“Well . . .” I swallowed. “I saw him cut off a man’s finger, shoot someone in the head at the dinner table, and, apparently, he murdered another few in the driveway. But things have been going okay for me.”
For a heavy second, Ivan watched me as if I was crazy before he released my wrist. “Nothing about this is ‘okay.’ You should be home where you belong, not—” He glanced around with disgust. “Here.”
Here.
Stay here.
You belong here.
Ivan’s voice, past and present, flashed through my mind, and like a puzzle piece clicking into place, I finally understood why I never fit in at The Moorings. The neighborhood was a shiny cage masquerading as paradise, and Ivan was compliant in my confinement from the beginning.
“Is ‘home’ supposed to be Miami?” The pent-up frustration
of living a lie bubbled out of me. “The place Papa left me for months on end so he could go murder people—boys—in Moscow?”
“You do not know what you speak of,” Ivan returned with heat.
“Maybe not. But I do know I have family here—family I desperately wanted. Was I ever meant to know the truth? Or were you and Papa planning on lying to me forever?”
He tried to mask his expression, but he couldn’t hide a flicker of the truth in his eyes. I was supposed to marry Carter and live the life of a quintessential housewife even though they both knew it would slowly kill me inside.
“Your papa was only trying to keep you safe.”
There was a difference between caring about someone’s well-being and just keeping them alive. My father had always maintained the latter, and while I knew he loved me, the former was never a concern of his. Weight settled heavily on my chest, the burden pulling all resentment down until I only felt an ache that split my heart in two.
“You shouldn’t have come for me,” I whispered.
“Do you think I would leave you here to die?”
The closest I came to dying was halted by D’yavol’s fingers down my throat.
“He isn’t going to kill me.” I suddenly knew it with conviction. “He wants Papa, not me.”
He watched me intensely for a long second. “He sure is taking his time then, is he not?” The tone of his voice settled so thick in the air, it strangled the oxygen and slowed the beat of my heart. The unstable energy refused to disperse even after he spoke again. “You are really unharmed?”
“I don’t want to talk about me,” I said quietly. At the moment, my psyche wasn’t a refined place. Half of it still lay upstairs, leaking out at Ronan’s feet across the marble floor.
“Well, I do. And I think you owe it to me.”
I flinched, understanding the innuendo in his voice. I was the one who got him into this mess. I may be the one to sign his death certificate. Tears burned the backs of my eyes.
He sighed. “I did not mean it like that. I should have assumed you would go to Moscow. I should not have been distracted by that waitress.”
The Darkest Temptation Page 22