by R. J. Lewis
“Does it hurt, rybka?” he whispers gravely, those hypnotic pale blues of his eyes searching my own.
I stiffen a nod, void of words as he moves closer. Every time he exhales, I breathe the air fresh out of his lungs. The room’s warmer. My body feels tight, my blinks are slow, and he keeps moving closer.
“Did he touch you before he hurt you?” he then asks, his voice low and penetrating.
Before I can answer, his lips brush against mine, and I close my eyes to feel them as I shake my head. “Not like that,” I whisper back.
His tongue swipes along the cut on my lip as he murmurs, “So you were doing something for him.”
It surprises me that he can guess that. My eyes are still shut as I think about how to answer him. “Yes,” I finally admit. “At least…I tried.”
“You tried,” he repeats, taking my bottom lip between his teeth and tugging gently on it once before he lets it go.
I nod again, parting my lips. “I couldn’t do what he wanted.”
“No?” He’s so quiet, it barely comes out as a whisper.
My hand reaches out to him, pressing against his hard chest. I grip his shirt and tilt my face up, trying to kiss his lips. “No,” I push out, just as he kisses me hard. It’s painful and my lip throbs, splitting open again as he ravages me. It hurts badly, but I don’t care. I kiss him back with equal intensity.
All at once, I feel his hands run down my spine, feel his fingers skirt along my ass and to the front of me, resting on my thighs. He doesn’t move them further, and I want him to. I want his fingers under the hem of my dress, and higher even.
He attacks my lips without holding back, yet his hands don’t move, and it’s not enough. I don’t feel like it’s hitting the spot.
Without thinking, I bring my hands down to his and I drag them higher and he lets me, like he’s giving me control of where I can let him touch me. But the higher up I let him go, the more my body begins to tense. I haven’t let a man touch me like this in years. I’m nervous, and admittedly afraid.
My kiss slows as I focus on his thumb rubbing along the inside of my thigh. Just as he moves higher, my palm presses down on his hand, stopping him cold. There’s a moment of stillness with that. His lips slow completely against mine, and I don’t think either of us breathes.
I don’t even want to open my eyes to see how he handles that rejection.
Men don’t handle rejection. Mom used to say.
I tense even more, unsure of what he’ll do, when suddenly he kisses me again, this time softly. My muscles instantly relax, and when he locks his lips around my cut where I’m bleeding, he sucks on the wound gently and my heart goes crazy, squeezing in my chest at this doting act. Then he pulls away, and I can’t help but open my eyes this time to look at him.
His eyes are half-hooded, his breathing is heavy, and his lips are swollen and there’s some blood on his lower lip from where he’s kissed me. He reaches for something behind me – the cloth wrapped around the ice – and presses it back against my mouth.
With a grave look, he says breathlessly, “The whole point you’re here, Alina, is so that I can look after you.” My lips part in surprise. “I’m going to make sure you’re okay and well taken care of, and I can’t be guaranteed that if there’s some asshole out there who thinks he can get away with hurting you. So I’m going to ask you one more time. Who hurt you?”
So many men.
I can’t see their faces, but I remember their touch and where their hands went.
So many of them.
Mother was always in the next room. She couldn’t have always been passed out. She would have heard me at least once cry out.
I let in a breath, feeling queasy at where my mind has ventured down. Funny that Franko doesn’t cross my mind for seconds at a time after that question is asked. The abuse in my childhood is the burden I carry. The one I hide even to myself, and yet Nikolai’s question surfaces it because…because, fuck, nobody’s ever asked me, “Who hurt you?” before.
Never ever.
I sniff and swallow back tears as I look at Nikolai. He disarms me. His touch opens up the floodgates, and it’s like sweet agony because I love the feel of him but hate where my mind goes afterwards.
“Alina?” he presses, waiting.
My lips quiver as I push out, “Franko,” through them.
Nikolai peers at me, his face unchanged, like he’s…waiting for more. Like he knows there’s more.
“Franko,” I repeat, firmer than before. “Just him.”
He steps back from me, his face still set in stone. I don’t know what he’s thinking, especially as he grabs his suit jacket from around his chair and throws it on.
“I don’t know his last name,” I add, wringing my hands together now as I begin to regret my admission.
“There’s only one Franko here capable of this,” Nikolai replies distractedly.
“I doubt he’d do anything –”
“Of course he will,” he interrupts, removing keys from his pocket now. “Franko is violent. He will do something, especially if you didn’t end up luring the man he ordered you to.”
I cringe, my neck and face burning from shame.
Nikolai catches it and tilts his head of the side. “You didn’t think I’d know what he does? Of course I know. I just didn’t think he’d be the one you turned to instead.”
I can hardly look him in the eye. “I thought it’d be easier than…” My words trail off.
“Than being with me,” he finishes, his words icy. “I didn’t know I was so repugnant.”
“You’re not. I was just afraid.”
He doesn’t respond, and when I glance at him, he looks wounded just as he is angry, and it’s the most expressive face I’ve seen in him since he kissed me against the brick wall of the diner.
“I don’t want any problems, Nikolai,” I tell him softly. “This whole thing is my fault. I pulled out last second and he chased after me.”
“How did you get away?”
I lick at my split lip and shrug half-heartedly. “I kneed him in the balls and ran away.”
The dark look on his face lightens a fraction and his lips flinch upwards. “I’d say you’re impressive, but then you turned to him in the first place.” That stings. “Does he know where you live?”
I think about Natasha who has been to my apartment several times before. “He could easily find out if he wanted to.”
He nods and suddenly calls out, “Vlad!”
The door opens seconds later and the muscley man comes through. “Yeah?”
They exchange words in Russian, and I catch Franco’s name a few times. Andrei nods and leaves after, and this time the door stays open. “Let’s go,” Nikolai says to me, tossing the cloth of ice down on his desk.
“Where are we going?”
“I’m going to take you home, and then I’m going to have a word with Franco.”
I shake my head frantically. “Don’t do anything to him, Nikolai. A lot of women depend on him.”
“I don’t care.”
“What happened was my fault. I’m the one that backed out.”
“I don’t care,” he repeats.
I feel like I just want to shake him so he’ll stop to listen. “Nikolai, I don’t want you to do anything. I’ll take myself home and you can stay here –”
“Stop talking,” he interrupts. He looks at me for a solid moment, this no-bullshit look on his face. “If this is going to work between us, you will learn not to argue and do as you’re told. You will get up and I will take you home. There is nothing left to discuss.”
Chapter Fourteen.
I knock on Roberta’s door and wait on wobbly legs for her to open up. I look over my shoulder once at Nikolai. He’s leaning against the wall, staring up and down the hallway with the same cautious look he’s had on his face since the second we pulled up to my apartment building. He didn’t have to follow me up.
“You should go,” I whisper to him.
H
e just looks back at me. “Or what?” he challenges, a small smirk playing on his lips.
Before I can answer the door opens and Roberta’s head pokes out. I cringe at the look of horror on her face. She opens her mouth to speak when she catches sight of Nikolai. All at once her eyes narrow and she casts me a scornful look before disappearing back inside the apartment.
She’s pissed at me.
“Pleasant woman,” Nikolai remarks dryly.
I purse my lips, poker-faced. “She’s good at sensing evil.”
“A joke.” Nikolai’s smirk grows. “Nice, Alina.”
When Roberta returns, she has Scarlett asleep in her arms. I open the door wider for her and attempt to take her when she turns to her side and frowns at me. “You don’t look like you’re in the condition to carry her,” she tells me.
“I’m fine,” I assure her.
She doesn’t look happy as she steps to me and lets me take Scarlett. I don’t realize how exhausted I truly am until the second her weight’s on me. My legs buckle and I let out a surprised gasp, about to pass her back to Roberta when Nikolai suddenly intervenes. His large arms wrap around Scarlett’s frame without effort.
“Go on,” he tells me quietly, and I realize I’ve been standing there in stunned silence.
I nod and quickly move to my door, unlocking it in a hurry and pushing it open. Nikolai steps through. “Show me to her room, rybka.”
I cast a quick glance at Roberta’s astonished face. “Thank you,” I quickly mutter.
Her face softens a fraction before she nods and disappears back into her apartment.
Returning my attention to Nikolai, I walk past him, shutting the door behind us, and then I lead him to the bedroom. I flick on a couple lights along the way, including the bedroom so he can watch his step.
“Put her in the bed,” I say to him, pulling back the covers of the double bed and patting the pink pillow that’s hers.
Nikolai stops cold in his tracks for a brief second, his eyes going from the pillow to me and then to the pillow again. Something passes in his eyes that I can’t read, and then he gently rests Scarlett’s body down so her head is on the pillow. When he disentangles his hands from her, his movements are slow so she won’t wake up. He brushes some strands of her hair from her face and takes the covers from my grip and covers her tiny body with it.
His actions are surprisingly gentle. Not that I expected him to stomp to the room and throw her down or anything, but still, seeing it doesn’t help curb my attraction to him in the slightest. He follows me out of the room, but I don’t miss the way his eyes scan the walls and floor. Welcome to Poverty 101. I turn the light off and close the door halfway so there’s a bit of light coming through in case she wakes up. Scarlett hates the dark, just like me.
He stands patiently beside me, waiting for my next move. Now what? I don’t know what to do with him, so I walk into the kitchen, pretending to distract myself by throwing a few clean bowls I haven’t put away into the sink. I can feel his presence behind me.
I turn to him, my back against the counter, taking him in as he looks about the surfaces. Wherever he lives, it’s probably more glamorous than here because he can’t stop looking around. It makes me wonder what his place looks like. He’s a penthouse kind of guy. Probably on the other side of the city, way out of the Estate. I can almost see it. A building filled with businessmen, wealthy retirees, women with pocket dogs and gym tights and platinum blonde hair.
When his eyes land on the fridge, his hand jumps up to the bills I’ve stuck to the front of it. He reads them all, his tatted finger running over the amounts at the bottom of the pages. Then he drops his arm and turns to me, his face unmasked, looking at me like he can really see me for the first time.
I don’t realize this entire time I’ve been still and straight as a pin. I didn’t anticipate this. This little apartment is Scarlett and mine’s entire world. And Nikolai the penthouse dweller just walked right into it, invaded every corner of my privacy in a matter of seconds. I feel like he’s looked into a part of myself I wasn’t prepared for him to see.
I blink rapidly to keep the water from out of my eyes. I didn’t think I’d be bothered so much as this. I’m being stupid. It’s not a big deal, except that it is. He knows how little we have. He can literally see my desperation, and I would rather he look at me the way he has every time before this, with that lust in his face instead of this pitiful stare I’m sure he’s directing at me now. Though I can’t be sure, because I haven’t looked at him yet.
“You sleep next to her,” I hear him say.
I nod. “Yes.”
“But there’s a room next door.”
“It’s my mother’s.”
“And she took off on you both.”
“Yes.” I don’t expand. It must seem odd to him I sleep next to my five-year-old sister when there is a spare bedroom feet away, but Mom’s room doesn’t make me comfortable. There’s an imprint of her she’s left behind. The whole room is heavy still of her presence, and it soaks into her crappy bed and hangs in the air around it. There’s no way in hell I could sleep in there in peace.
Plus, I’ve been sleeping next to Scarlett since she was born. She still moves her hand in the middle of the night searching for me. I think it makes her sleep better when she finds me.
The heavy silence that follows is the worst yet. I don’t know how to break it, because for once I’m at a loss for words. I try to seem casual when I glance around the kitchen, purposely doing it so I can catch a glimpse of him. He’s deep in thought. In fact, he almost looks wretched at the same time.
“You want a loan?” he suddenly asks me, his voice strangely light.
I still. “What?”
“I’ll give you a loan, if that’s what you want.”
It takes me a few seconds just to digest his words. “You said no loans.”
“Because I wanted to fuck you, Alina,” he replies quickly, his nostrils flared like he’s pissed at himself. “It was all an excuse to fuck you.” My lips part. I’m absolutely gobsmacked right now. “I’ll give you a loan,” he carries on. “And then you get yourself back on your feet –”
“I won’t be able to pay you back,” I cut in. “You were right. I don’t make enough money.”
“Then just take what I can give you.”
“I don’t want it.”
He closes in on me, making me crane my head up as he stops in front of me. “End your pride and let me help you.”
End my pride? “My pride is all I have left!” I retort, my voice breaking as I glare at him. “It’s all I have, okay? I am a nobody. I have nothing. And when you’re stuck in a rut like I am, wanting to earn your way out isn’t so you can impress anybody, it’s a statement to yourself.”
God, did I really just admit that? My heart is hammering inside my chest. I’m dismayed at myself for laying it out like that. I need to keep Nikolai at arm’s length because I know there’s nothing serious about our relationship. We’re attracted to each other, that’s all it is. I feel its intensity every time he kisses me, and maybe I’m doing all this as an excuse just to touch him and feel those things again. Regardless, I should not be opening up to him. Not one bit. That’s just common bloody sense.
Nikolai watches me closely. “What do you want me to do, Alina?” he asks me, giving me all the control.
It’s simple what I want. It’s what he wants too. “I want you to let me earn it.” And to keep staring at me the way you do, like you’re bewitched by me.
I wonder if that’s the real reason I refuse the loan. I don’t want that look to change, and it might if I end up just like everybody else, owing him something. But I’ll never admit that out loud. I’ll lie, even to myself.
I feel his thumb along my neck, at the visible marks I’m sure Franco left behind. I tilt my head up, letting him explore them, all the while I’m looking straight at him. He inches closer, and my heart kicks up a notch. I’m sure he can feel my racing pulse under his f
ingers because he looks back at me and continues moving.
He mutters something, and I wish more than anything to understand those words.
“What did you just say?” I whisper to him, breathing quicker.
“I said you’re sweet,” he replies, but the words don’t meet his eyes. He told me a lie. But I don’t call him out on it because he drops his head and suddenly kisses me, knocking the air out of my lungs. It’s tender and light, a brief touch before he pulls away.
“Is this okay?” he asks me.
I move my lips back over his. “Yes.”
His hands drop and grip at the counter on either side of me. He’s testing his boundaries, moving even closer, until his body is flush against mine. I open my mouth wider for him, and swipe my tongue between his lips. I can feel by the way his body tightens that the move excites him.
The kiss is slow and erotic, a lapping of tongues in a rhythm that makes my skin heat. The second our tongues touch, there’s this zap of pleasure that floods through my bloodstream. It makes me bolder, more eager. The warmer I feel, the more I lose myself in him.
Our kiss gains momentum. I’m exploring his mouth without restraint, thirsty for his taste, like it’s a drug I’m getting a hit of. I grip his black tie and wrap it around my hand, forcing him to me, letting out a soft moan as I feel the sudden hard ridge in his pants brush against me. The sound breaks his resolve. He lets out a harsh breath and his hands fly to the back of my thighs; he grips them and picks me up, resting my bottom on the counter so my head is at his level.
The kiss is everywhere now. On the corner of my mouth, a tongue swiping at my cheek, a grazing of his teeth on my chin. His face falls between my neck and shoulder, and he sucks at my flesh, his hair tickling my face.
I’m getting warmer, warmer…warmer.
His hands run up my back, and when he runs them back down, he drags the top of my dress down with it, exposing my bra and waist, pooling my dress around my hips. His mouth sucks a trail from my neck to my collar bone and then to the tops of my breasts. It feels unusually good. Little bursts of tingles flood me every time my wet flesh hits the air. My breath is mute at this point. I’m needily squirming, my fingers running through his scalp, messing his hair up.