by Lea Griffith
The water streamed down his body, stroking his skin. He was hard with need. She alone did this to him and the fight, combined with the debilitating desire he had for her, solidified in his body. His cock responded to her unerringly.
He showered and got out, wrapping a towel around his waist and entering his bedroom. The shock of her presence was akin to fire ants under his skin. He swiped a hand down his arm before he could check the action.
“What do you want?”
She stood near the window, her body silhouetted by the dull light of the cloud-covered moon. In the distance lightning split the sky, highlighting her blank face and setting her eyes on fire.
He could not do this with her right now. There was too much unresolved between them and she was a killer. Yes, they’d danced around this fiery lust between them for years now—but she was too fragile to handle what he wanted to do to her.
And Dmitry was afraid he would be the casualty of their war.
“That is a question I have never been asked before,” she murmured. Her soft voice snuck its way into his heart and squeezed.
Just that fast she changed his mood. Splintered, he thought, she is splintered. She stood so still it was eerie and at the same time it filled him with fury. She’d suffered too much and he knew she’d only scratched the surface with the story about her parents.
He still did not understand why she hated Minton with such ferocity, or why, unlike her sisters, she smiled as she dealt death. She was the coldest fire and yet something inside her called to everything male and protective inside of him. He wanted to hold her, take her body against his and let her melt into him.
The silence grew and Dmitry found himself loathe to break it. She’d come here for a reason. He would know what it was but he wasn’t going to make it easy for her.
“The first time I saw you, my breath stopped,” she whispered as she turned to gaze to the night.
She managed to stun him and at the same time fan the flames of his desire for her.
“You were in Moscow, working with the Russian secret service. An international arms dealer had come across your path and that path intersected with mine. I was waiting for the dealer, you see. He was my target. Nobody crosses Joseph and lives to tell the tale. I was standing in plain site near Lenin’s Mausoleum. He thought it funny that he was making a deal for stolen weapons beside the Father of the Revolution’s memorial.”
Dmitry remained still and quiet. Her voice lulled him but there was a tone buried beneath the dulcet quality that put him on alert. He remembered that day but he did not remember her.
“You stood less than fifteen feet from me and I wondered how you knew of the meet. But then I smelled you and all thought of killing left me in a rush. I’d never reacted that way. You glanced at me, dismissing me instantly as no one of note. I remember being angry at that.” She breathed in deeply and turned back to him, catching his gaze and pulling him into her. “I have never felt as if I truly existed, and to be affected by a man who dismissed me? It fired my rage.
“I walked away from you, met the dealer behind the mausoleum and stroked my knife across his carotid, leaving him to bleed out. Then I stood some distance away and watched you find him.”
“I remember finding him, but I do not remember seeing you. Were you in disguise?” he asked carefully.
She nodded.
“Because there is no way I wouldn’t have seen you, no way I could have dismissed you,” Dmitry responded in a hard voice. Dmitry had found the dealer dead behind Lenin’s mausoleum and cursed that he’d not had time to question him.
The man had ties to Vadim, and to a shadowy group called The Collective. Dmitry’s superiors never allowed him to pursue any leads about The Collective telling him it was a sham, a front for small-time mafia. Dmitry had wanted answers about why they continuously showed up in his research, and he’d wanted desperately to know who had killed his father. But the dead didn’t talk—at least not to Dmitry.
“A year later I stood behind you in London. Your heat drew me closer and I couldn’t understand it—why you? What was it about you that drew me?”
She wasn’t asking him. She was remembering, so he stayed silent once again.
“You smelled of juniper and pine, Dmitry. Your heat was undeniable and instead of killing you as my contract called for, I inhaled your scent, whispered in your ear and left. Do you know how close to death you came that night?”
He had known and had been unprepared.
“You smelled of apricots and your breath was sweet. You were not the only one affected that night in London, Etzem. You wormed into my mind and when I met your eyes as you backed away, you dug into my soul,” Dmitry admitted. “I was your pass?”
Her gaze widened. “My sister has told you much.” She sighed and the sound made him hard—it was the sound of surrender. “Yes, you were my single pass. I was given another in your place. Until then I had taken care of each contract and kept moving to the next. When I felt your body against mine I knew it would destroy me to take you. Then I rooted through your past and realized Joseph gave you to me for a reason.”
She walked to him and he crossed his arms lest he reach for her. She smelled of musk and sugared apricots. There was a bruise forming on her cheek and he damned himself for letting her fight. “How were you punished?”
And so there they were, feet apart now, him in a towel, her in yoga pants and a T-shirt. Her nipples were furled beneath the spandex material of her bra and his mouth watered. This woman, more than any other, called to him.
“He had already punished me. He knew who you were, Dmitry. He knew Ninka was your sister and he knew Ninka was mine. To hurt the only one who had searched for her would hurt me and that’s what it was about for Joseph. He has always thought his control of us was based off pain or the prospect of it. But as he was training us and writing all of his observations in his little black book he missed the one thing that truly created First Team,” she mused, her gaze locked on his but oh-so-far away.
“Ninka,” Dmitry answered softly.
She nodded and Dmitry was reminded of when she’d taken Azrael. She wore a cape of sorrow now and it was heavy for them both. “Ninka.”
She reached out and up, halting before her fingertips met the skin of his cheek. She struggled with herself and Dmitry lifted up a silent plea that she touch him. He needed her to touch him. And finally, she did.
A stroke over his cheek and then up along his eyebrow. She traced the shape of his eyes, the contour of his brow, and then his lips. “She was a wondrously formed little girl. I can see her in your features. She was the smallest of us all, the weakest. My sisters and I realized she was not like us. She had not been made to be broken; she had been made to love.”
Dmitry’s heart shattered. For all of the women of First Team and for Ninka. He did not want to know what happened, but he had to, there was no other way.
“We hoarded our food rations and when Joseph starved her because she did not perform, we fed her. She would crawl into bed with Bullet in the dark of night and Bullet would hold her hands and keep her warm. Arrow sang to her when she cried. Blade washed her body when she soiled herself.”
Dmitry swallowed hard. Ninka had been tiny. She had been born premature and during a blizzard. He could still remember his mother’s screams.
“What did you do for Ninka?” he asked.
Her fingers stilled on his face, their path halted by her memories. Her hand fell and she closed her eyes.
“As the strongest of us all, I took her punishments,” Bone whispered.
He hurt so much in that moment, Dmitry wondered how he’d survive. Ninka was gone and it would hurt him forever. But that this petite woman who’d probably been no bigger than Ninka had taken her punishments? “Tell me,” he demanded in a voice filled with his pain.
“She could not perform her tasks—she was not a killer. When she failed, we were each given the option of suffering for our sister. She could not have handled her pu
nishment—not after being starved with meager rations. Her mind was fragile, easily bent. Her body was equally so. So each time she failed, I took her punishments.”
“What were my sister’s punishments, Etzem?
She tensed, every muscle in her body drawing tight. “I cannot speak of this.”
“I need to know,” he voiced firmly, fear holding his hand.
“Pain. Her punishments were pain.”
Dmitry growled. “Goddamn him.” He began to look at her skin then, his gaze taking in every scar, every blemish on her. She had many he’d never paid attention to though her face remained unmarked. “Turn around,” he ordered and wonder of wonders she did.
He very gently raised her T-shirt and what met his gaze brought him to his knees. There were marks over marks, some snaking along her back to disappear beneath her pants, others raised and puckered as if made with a brand or a hot poker. There were circular raised areas, obviously cigarette burns, and his fist clenched in her shirt and bra, ripping the material. There was not an inch of the skin of her back unmarked.
“Are your legs the same way?” he asked.
She nodded.
“How did you hide these in St. Petersburg?”
“There is makeup that covers everything,” she answered.
“I will kill him,” he whispered over a scar.
“I never broke,” she said firmly. “I never cried because only a child’s tears reach Heaven and I was no longer a child.”
“I will kill him,” Dmitry vowed again.
“He is ours,” she reminded him.
“And you are mine,” he said out loud. “You are mine, Etzem. And nobody hurts what is mine.” She had taken the punishments meant for his sister—it was staggering, unbelievable.
She shrugged. “They are old injuries, Asinimov. They made me who I am today.”
His hands roved over her hips and he could not stop his next move. He gave in and let his mouth touch her flesh, skimming over the scars that told the story of who she was and the undeniable core of her strength. I am the strongest, she said. Dmitry believed it. These were more than marks on her skin—they were reminders.
At the first touch of his lips, she hissed in a breath. At the second she sighed.
Her sighs undid him. “Za kazhdij tvoj vzdoh ja otdam tebe chastichku serdtza,” he promised with reverence against her skin.
Her breath broke and stuttered out. “Your heart is not mine to hold.”
“It will be,” he said, voicing his greatest fear as he licked across a raised scar.
She shivered and he dropped his hands to her hips, squeezing the lush flesh of her ass as he lowered his head to rest on her back.
“We tried to save her but in the end she was the tool that formed us.” Another long pause and she straightened and stepped away from him. “I have never told another the things I tell you. Why do I do that?”
“Because from the moment I stared into your eyes, you became a part of me. Your body, heart, and soul recognize it even if your mind fights the truth. Turn around, kostolomochka moja,” he urged. “I want your mouth.”
He did not expect her to turn so when she did he gave her no time to back away. He pulled her into him as he was still on his knees. This put him on the same level as her breasts. The shredded material of her tank clung to the top of her rounded breasts.
He pulled it down her arms and threw it to the side. She was marked there as well and he inhaled deeply trying to control the rage. Her skin under the scars was the color of honey and so supple it called to him. Her nipples were hard, a shade darker than her skin and they too, beckoned.
He stared up at her, measuring her readiness for this next step. If she’d been shut down he would have stopped, but her eyes, those magnificent jade splintered orbs told a different story.
She was warm and the apricot-scented perfume of her need told him all he needed to know. She wanted this. She was with him. Whether either of them was ready remained unknown, but his body beat at him to mark her in his own way, with his flesh all over hers and her sighs and moans in his ear.
He kept his gaze trained on hers as he lifted his mouth to nuzzle her breast. Her pupils went wide and it was delicious seeing them round in pleasure instead of pain or fear.
Dmitry licked the underside of her breast and then made his way to her nipple, flicking it with the tip of his tongue before he drew it deep and suckled.
Bone’s head fell back. The thought of the name she called herself stopped him cold.
“I will not call you Bone. Not when pleasure is between us. I know your given name, but give it to me so that I have your permission to use it,” he demanded.
She stilled, every muscle going loose in that way she had. He held her hips tighter in his grasp, unwilling to let go.
She sighed, he smiled and she looked at him. “Togarmah.”
“Literally translated as 'Bone Breaker.’ It is a lovely name. Perfect, I think.”
“You know too much,” she admonished.
He inclined his head. “I know some. But not nearly everything I want to.”
Her eyes widened again and he knew then she would give him everything she was right here and right now. She lowered her head, skimming her lips over his brow until he raised his mouth and she settled her lips on his.
They stayed that way for long moments, sharing breath and want and need—letting it flow between them in a luxurious tide.
Then, when the desire coiled too tight for him to deny any longer, he stood, took her head in his big hands, cradling her, and Dmitry kissed her. Her taste exploded over his tongue and the heat built inside him. He felt nothing but her—knew nothing but her.
The world could have ended and he would have been fine as long as her mouth was under his and he could taste her. She reached for him, her fingers pressing into the muscles of his chest and she took as she gave, wholly, completely.
“I have waited a hundred years it seems to feel the silk of you in my hands,” he told her.
She spread her hands flat on his chest and smiled that gamin smile, which never failed to rearrange his heart in his chest.
“I think you were created for this, Asinimov.”
That she reveled in his body was another step taken in his conquest to vanquish her soul.
“I should warn you,” she began.
His breath hitched.
“I do not know what I am doing.”
Elation swam through his bloodstream. “And I’ve never done it with you, so we are both brand new, da?”
She hid her face against his chest but not before he saw her cheeks pinken and her smile go soft. She fit him like a puzzle, sliding against him like the click of the final piece into place.
“It is not too soon?” she asked, her voice muffled.
He chuckled. “Serdtse mojo, had I known the taste of your kiss, the feel of you, naked in my arms before tonight, you would not be questioning this.”
“I had thought to battle when I entered this room,” she said and the words sounded pulled from her.
His skin tightened painfully. “Ljubovj—velichajshaja bitva,” he promised.
She stepped back then, her hands on his arms, squeezing and releasing. “I do not know love, Dmitry. It is too much to ask of one such as me.”
“Bone might not know love and it is not Bone I seek to make mine. But Togarmah,” he said at her lips, “Togarmah is the one I crave and while she might not understand that thump in her heart, the heat between her thighs or the lightning dancing under her skin, she can be taught love and I am the one who will do it.”
She shook her head, denying him. “I am Bone. Togarmah is nothing more than a name from my past. You seek a resurrection and it isn’t possible. I don’t know that I have ever known any emotion other than ones based in hate. Best you know that I am only Bone—and a name is simply a name.”
He drew in a rough breath. He’d thought her splintered but she was much closer to broken than she realized. “Then I
will take you both and when I’m deep inside your body, holding you close, I will call you something else.”
She stared up at him, waiting.
“I will call you my own.”
She bit her lower lip, contemplating his words. He swore he could see the wheels of her mind turning, turning, turning until finally she nodded and walked to the bed. Dmitry watched her, wondering what she would do.
He was unprepared when she lowered her pants and stood before him glorious and perfect and naked.
“There are decisions I have made my entire life solely for the benefit or gain of others. Never have I had the chance to touch the sun and truly feel its warmth. Show me the sun, Dmitry. Help me banish some of the darkness.”
It was a plea and his entire body, heart, and soul responded.
“Lie down on the bed, Etzem,” he commanded. The word had become an endearment.
She did as he ordered. “The sound of my native tongue on your lips gives me the illusion that I can be more than a killer.”
“Then I will learn every word there is in Hebrew and I will spend my life talking to you so that you never forget,” he vowed.
“You would do that for a killer?”
Oh, the pain and hope in her voice made his soul shake. “I would do it for you.”
His hands clenched and the pain in his fist and shoulder were excruciating but he pushed them aside. She lay there, a still golden statue lit by the moonlight and the faint glow from the bathroom, and all he felt was a desperate need to sink into her and never come out.
He walked to her then, trailing at finger from the tip of her toe to the tip of her breast. She sighed and it woke the ravening beast inside him. He’d told her moments ago he’d give her his heart for her sighs.
He owed her now.
He walked back to the end of the bed and began to crawl up her body, towel now on the floor, his entire body needing to be on hers, skin to skin, breath to breath. “Spread your legs, moye.”
She did and his heart clicked into place as he slid his hips into the cradle of hers. She gasped and rose to her elbows. This put her breasts at his mouth and he took advantage, licking and biting and sucking—loving them in every way he knew how. He scraped his fingernails over the tips, cupped them in his hands and lifted them to his face.