by Black, Paula
He looked up at my approach.
Good. Not dead.
“Here, take these,” I said, offering the pills and the water.
“Thank you.” He tossed them back and swallowed a mouthful, his face scrunching in disgust. “Got anything stronger than water?”
I thought about it, and went to fetch the half-drunk bottle of Baileys from the refrigerator. It was all I had.
He stared at it curiously as he took it and I cocked my hip against the arm of the couch. Konstantyn necked the bottle as though it was water and he was parched, and then sprayed the liquid, cursing in revulsion. “Poison! God. What the hell is this sugary filth?”
“It’s alcohol.” I smirked.
His face was a picture. Clearly it wasn’t the kind of alcohol he’d wanted.
He looked at me in disbelief and I snorted, taking up the first-aid box and coming around to stand in front of him. I patted his arm. “It’s all I’ve got, so suck it up.”
Surly, he drank it like it was cod liver oil, and lay back on the couch to let me clean up his wounds. As I stroked the iodine soaked cotton over the ridges of his abs, I caught him staring at me with those green-flecked eyes. My hand shook and I concentrated on my task, pretending it wasn’t getting hard for me to breathe. Catching the drips that escaped down his flank, the whole thing was oddly intimate. Him bleeding, and me tending. When I had to dip lower, he moved the cushion enough to give me access, revealing the delicious definition of his muscles, his hip-bones, the dark arrow of his happy trail. He truly was a glorious specimen of manhood. My eyes lingered, and I got the impression he was concealing an erection. Or maybe that was just wishful thinking.
I’d never make a nurse with my inappropriate thoughts.
In my attempt at renewed diligence, I swabbed at his lacerations a little too roughly. His thigh flexed and the cushion fell off to one side, and as it turned out, my thoughts were spot on, though my imagination had seriously underestimated his size.
I swallowed, and heard him clear his throat in something that sounded more like a growl. No way I could look him in the eyes now, not after thinking, not after seeing… Shit. Dragging the swab of antiseptic lower, I tried to focus on the wound that carved across his hipbone. He’s injured, I told myself. He’s injured, he’s... hard as steel and smooth as velvet, and you just touched him.
Konstantyn’s breath caught in his throat and my eyes snapped up to his, the apology dying on my lips as my body caught fire from the flames flickering in his dark gaze. His hand reached out so slowly, I swore the world had stopped turning. Strong fingers unfurled mine from their reflexive clutch around the cotton swab. He guided my fingertips back to where they’d brushed, and I moaned.
The thick base of his erection was hot on my skin and I flushed like I’d been infused with his heat, desire quickly overriding concern as he dragged my hand up under the cushion. Crap.
His eyes positively glowed, his chest heaved, and when his cock kicked beneath my fingertips, he didn’t need to guide me anymore. I palmed him, the cushion knocked away as my hand curled his rigid length in a firm base to tip stroke.
Konstantyn groaned and the sound snapped through to a part of me – the logical part – that had shut down.
God, what was I doing?
What was he letting me do?
My hand froze as my lust battled with my conscience, and then I couldn’t think at all as his firm lips slanted over mine in a rough crush that ceased all brain function and fluttered my fingers around the pulse of his arousal. The sound that came out of me was embarrassing, a whimper of surprise melting into his kiss as my mouth opened for him and I gave myself over to the heat coiling between my thighs and urging him on.
Oh hell.
I shouldn’t have urged him on, I shouldn’t, but he tasted like Bailey’s and raw man and he silenced the world when he kissed me. No fear bombarded me, no worrying about my next move, no fearing the worst, no doubting myself. There was just Konstantyn, and the way his mouth took mine, letting me sink into him. Despite the turmoil in my head, my hand stroked up his length as his tongue curled around mine.
He jumped, like he’d forgotten I’d even touched him, and when I did it again, the growl he rewarded me with went straight between my thighs.
How long had it been since I’d kissed someone like this?
Months, maybe.
I couldn’t even remember, and that meant it had either been more than months, or it hadn’t been memorable. With the way Konstantyn danced, that wouldn’t be the case if I let him get any closer.
His hand wound in my hair, strong fingers weaving at my nape and pulling me in. I whimpered that stupid sound again, the helpless one that said I couldn’t pull away. He had me desperate, the tension I’d felt when we’d danced blasting back with his touch and overflowing into a passion that clawed at me. He made my mind blank and my body roar and I was going with the heat building up inside me as my lips trailed along the stubborn angle of his jaw.
“Neva...”
That accent was unfair, rumbling down to the space between my legs that was wet and tingling for him. Why did he have to say my name like that? My hand pumped him tighter, twisting over the blunt crown of his cock, and my lips mapped muscles I’d wanted to taste since I’d first laid eyes on him. Cutting open-mouthed kisses across his collarbone, the cool metal of the bullet around his neck touched my lips as I trailed lower.
He fisted my hair and arched into my hand, and I was on a track of desire that couldn’t be derailed. When my tongue ran the line of muscle along his hip, he cursed something I didn’t understand and bucked up.
It was too much temptation, too much of a release from the thoughts that had been spinning continually since my brother’s murder. I probably couldn’t have talked myself out of it if I’d tried. My mouth replaced my hand in a slick kiss. Bracing my palm on his rigid, muscled thigh, my lips parted around the head of his cock. I suckled, he groaned. My tongue flicked around the sensitive ridge, and he hissed. His abs flexed and his hips curled up as I took him into the hot wetness of my suctioning mouth.
“Fuck, Neva...”
The way he said my name spurred me through my madness, pulled me back to lick along his length. My tongue coiled around his rigid arousal, drawing him back into my mouth as his hips set a rhythm I took on with throaty whimpers. The way he moved was magnetising, the way he tasted intoxicating, and I wanted more of him. Shifting on my knees, I kissed him deeper, swallowing him down as he kicked up. My hands planted on his thighs, feeling them tense and release as he rode between my lips. It was a dance if I’d ever seen one, an erotic give and take that fed me thick inches and accented growls.
This hadn’t been in the plan when I’d made the decision to tend to him, but it was the whole plan now.
My body hummed with lust as his twitched and shuddered, his fingers dragging my hair from my face and tugging until my eyes flipped to his. That seemed to be his cue. Konstantyn’s hips jerked off the couch, and his curses flooded the room.
“Neva, I’m going to come...” he warned, gripping my hair to the point of pain.
I just sucked him deeper, my cheeks hollowing in on an eager draw.
He rewarded me with a shout that made my core clench and rush wet. I took him to the back of my throat as he fell apart in a beautiful grind of undulating muscle, stuttering thrusts working his passion to my tongue in hot surges of pleasure.
I swallowed him, lapping along his twitching length to milk the last drops of his climax, and for the first time in forever, I felt relaxed, my focus dedicated to hearing his hoarse grunts as I suckled him to a slump of satiation on my couch.
“Neva...” he panted, watching me through dark, hooded eyes that were languid and burning with heat. Sparks lit under my skin as I licked my lips, his taste a gloss I savoured, until my mind blinked back online, and the “Oh fuck, what did I just do?” scrambled through thoughts buzzing with lust.
He must have seen something in my eyes, bec
ause he sat up.
“Ah, ah, Neva, stay with me,” he growled, his strong fingers vising my wrist and hauling me up as his powerful body slid down until his knees hit the floor. His hands coaxed me in long sweeping caresses and dragged my pants down, urging me into a straddle over his face. His touch shut me down again, fogged over the “What the fuck?” and set me alight. Then his tongue ran a wet, flat rasp along the seam of my sex and my fingers clenched into the short strands of his hair, raking his scalp as my hips rolled of their own volition and he captured my delicate folds in the kiss of his mouth.
So good, he was a master as he caught onto my rhythm, his large hands curving around the rounds of my ass and guiding my grinding need to the lash of his tongue, a perfect tempo working sensitive flesh to a fever pitch of lust I didn’t know I was capable of. I didn’t care why I was doing this, or what would happen after, he had my desire captivated and reined to the curling strokes he lavished between my quivering thighs.
To say I surrendered was an understatement. I was completely at his mercy and in his unrelenting quest to tear my body apart he gave me none.
“Konstantyn, dammit! Do something!” I gritted out a frustrated whine as his teeth skimmed over my clit. He was doing it on purpose, his smug laughter making me wish he had more hair for me to yank. So I clamped my thighs around his head and ground down desperately, working myself on tongue and chin and lip to the sound of his satisfied growls. So close, I was so close I could see stars, I just needed… Yes! That! His teeth pinched and his lips sealed on my swollen clit, and I shattered.
Thighs quaking against his stubbled jaw, my orgasm swept up and over me in a tidal wave of ecstasy, stripping me down to quaking muscles and shocking sensation. When bliss stole my strength, I caught myself on the back of the couch and lay half-slumped over him, gasping his name in a slew of curses.
His rumbled laughter was smug as he licked at me lazily, and if I’d been in a position to slap him, I would have, but I was too content, boneless and sprawling and trying to keep out the thoughts that were sure to come crawling back.
His warm palms slid me down into his bare lap, and the feel of his legs against my skin – thick muscled and dusted with dark hair – jerked me from my buzz. We were not going to cuddle, and his cock was far too happy for me to be safe cozying up in his lap.
I scrabbled to my feet, the slickness of my own passion and his wicked tongue still wet between my thighs as I dragged my pants up and drew in a breath. Konstantyn watched me silently, his eyes hooded, and when his tongue ran along his glossed lips my thighs clenched.
Dammit.
He didn’t say anything, and neither did I, as I gathered up the discarded iodine bottle and cotton pads. He was bleeding again and he grabbed a corner of the throw, folding it across his lap and leaning back so I could run the disinfectant over the razor blade cuts I’d been distracted from.
I could still taste him, and I fumbled the first few tries at taping gauze over the worst of the lacerations, my hands shaking when his muscles twitched, like he was ticklish, or flinching. Whatever it was, it was distracting, and I had to order myself to seal him up, smoothing the tape down and sitting back when I’d finished patching him up. With the amount of gauze covering his skin, he looked like he was part mummy.
“It’s a good dressing,” he pronounced, checking over my handiwork.
“You like it? It’s my first,” I laughed, copying a line from one of my favourite movies, and looking up at him for the first time since he’d made me come. I fought to keep the blush from my cheeks.
“The Terminator, right?” His smile was genuine. It settled me, easing some of the awkwardness.
“Yeah.” His smile had struck me monosyllabic. I cleared my throat and smiled back, tidying up the kit I’d brought to tend him.
Konstantyn’s fingers linked my wrist and halted my organising. His fingertips brushed over my hammering pulse and my eyes shot to his.
“Thank you, Neva.”
Whether it was the sincerity in his voice or the way my name rolled off his tongue in that foreign accent, my insides fluttered. “You’re welcome,” I stammered.
“Mind if I use your bathroom to clean-up?” His eyes searched my face, like he was looking for something. Regret maybe? I couldn’t muster any.
I shook my head and severed the contact between us. My heart was beating too fast and too hard for him not to feel it in my pulse. “Of course not. Go ahead. The towels are clean.”
He ditched the throw and pushed to his feet with a grunt.
Part of me wished he hadn’t left me there alone, but that didn’t mean I wasn’t watching his ass as he walked away, and I slumped back when he was out of sight, scrubbing a hand down my face.
The shower came on and I stared at the blank TV screen, with only my own reflection staring back at me. I didn’t look so shocked. My expression was softer, mussed from pleasure. I let that relaxation sink into me while I had the chance, before he came back, and I had to start asking questions.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Konstantyn returned wearing nothing but one of my towels, and running another over his short, damp hair. He looked good wet, droplets catching in the shadow of his beard growth and trickling down the chiselled planes of his chest to disappear beneath the towel. Now I knew what lay beneath, the sight fried most of my brain cells. The ones that survived were worried about the spots of crimson spreading across the damp gauze.
I dropped my eyes when he flopped beside me. I didn’t know what to say, and he didn’t volunteer any small talk, the awkward, stretching silence broken only by the swirling of his clothes in the washer.
Where to begin? I had so many questions.
My stomach gurgled and with his quiet laughter, the tension drifted away.
His green-flecked eyes skipped over to me, and he broke the silence.
“Your brother is Daniel Raines,” he said. “You share the same last name?”
I nodded.
“The Friar called you Miss Bailey.”
The guy didn’t miss a trick. “It was an invented name, for the club.”
“Ah.” He nodded. “Neva Raines?” A teasing grin lifted the corners of his full mouth. “Is that a stage name?”
“No, that’s my real name,” I said, like I was apologising for the sheer dumbness of my moniker.
“It suits you.” He sounded sincere.
I shrugged again and dragged a cushion into my lap, playing with the tassels. “The woman who birthed me has a sick sense of humour.” I frowned, remembering. “Neva again, she’d joke. Whether she meant never doing drugs again, or never getting knocked up by a random stranger, either way, she fell off the wagon.”
He looked at me, questioning my meaning.
“Five years after she had me, my half-brother Daniel came along, also fatherless. He was born premature, and fitting from heroin withdrawal.” I felt my eyelid start to twitch, and I stared down at the cushion until the pattern of the fabric was a blur. “Start as you mean to continue, I guess. Growing up was a real party of failed rehab, debt-collectors and bouncing between our mother and foster homes. But Daniel and I always had each other. We stuck together, you know? He was a fat little kid.” I smiled, remembering. “A comfort eater, and he got bullied relentlessly for it. I used to pick him up after school and bring him with me to my dance classes, just to keep him safe. That’s how he got started. The kid had natural talent, and he gave everything he had to dancing. Pretty soon, the weight turned to muscle. He was so young …”
There I went again, running my mouth when I got nervous. I was spilling my life story to this man I hardly knew, and if I stayed on this line of conversation, he was liable to get a show of waterworks.
I cleared my throat and shoved my hair from my face, pushing it up into a high ponytail and switching the subject as fast as I could get the scrunchie on.
“So anyway, what’s your story, Konstantyn Lazarenko? Assuming that’s your real name.”
He inc
lined his head, an infuriating half smile on his cruel, delicious mouth. “Me? You sure you want to know?”
I nodded and leaned forwards, smiling when he copied me by propping his elbows on his knees in a way that made his shoulders bunch and my mouth water.
“I was born in Ukraine, on a pig-farm in the outskirts of Odesa. My mother and father were simple, hard-working people.”
“Sounds like a fairytale,” I said.
He chuffed and his expression turned grim. “I couldn’t wait to get out of there.”
I looked at him, waiting, hoping he’d continue.
“My father was a drunk, with a mean temper, and I was a soft boy. I didn’t want to become like him. I didn’t want to butcher the animals.” He laughed drily. “I was six years old the first time he made me do it. I remember it clearly. My father took me to the slaughter house, and he held the knife in my hand while he cut the animal’s throat.
It made horrible noises, almost human, and then it bled everywhere, on my shoes, on my clothes. And the smell. I ran into the yard and threw up. Mariya was very young then, but I remember her standing at my father’s side, and both of them laughing at me. For days after, I’d find spots of dried blood behind my elbows, and in the creases of my skin. Like it would never wash off.” He scrubbed at his forearm like he could still see the stains.
My eyes were wide by the time he took a breath, and I sort of wished I hadn’t asked.
I didn’t feel so bad about having told my own story anymore though. Neither of us were made for small talk. Our pasts were too heavy for that. But I was interested, and my eyes encouraged him.
Konstantyn took a breath.
“One night, I came upon my parents, up in Mariya’s bedroom. My sister was cowering in a corner, and her nightdress was ripped. My father was drunk again, and he and my mother were arguing. He raised a fist to her.” He looked down, examining the backs of his hands like they were the most fascinating thing. “I got in the way and he broke my arm,” he said quietly. “My mother said it was my own fault, for interfering. That night, Mariya and I sat in the dark, and vowed to run away, together. But the next day, my father brought a stranger home. He was from the military, and he was recruiting soldiers. It was my father’s way of punishing me. I had no choice but to go with him.”