by Anna Zaires
“All right,” I say. “Thank you for the breakfast.”
Making my way back to the bedroom, I lie down, feeling as exhausted as if I just ran ten kilometers. My head is throbbing again, and my bruises ache. Even my throat is sore, and my skin feels tight and achy all over. On the nightstand next to the bed, I see the pain pills from yesterday, and after a moment of indecision, I reach for the bottle and extract two pills. Picking up a water bottle that someone thoughtfully left on the nightstand, I swallow the pills and wash them down with water before lying back and closing my eyes.
There’s no point in fighting Lucas’s orders today. I need to save my strength for when it matters.
31
Lucas
After being away for several days, I have a shitload of work to catch up on, and I don’t make it home until dinnertime. When I finally walk in, I see Diego watching TV on my couch.
“How is she?” I ask, glancing at the bedroom. “Still sleeping?”
Diego nods, rising to his feet. “Yeah. Like I told you in my texts, she slept through lunch, then woke up for an hour or so, read in bed, and then fell asleep again. I made a sandwich for her, but she left most of it untouched. Oh, and she kept asking to see her brother, but I said you have to authorize that.”
“I see. Thank you for watching her. I’ll let you know if I need you tomorrow.”
Diego grins. “No problem, man.”
He leaves, and I enter the bedroom to check on Yulia. Excessive sleeping is not an uncommon reaction to physical trauma and extreme emotional stress—it’s the body’s way of letting itself heal—but her lack of appetite worries me.
It’s dark in the room, so I make my way over to the bed and turn on a bedside lamp. Yulia doesn’t so much as twitch at the soft light. She’s lying on her back, the blanket pulled up to her chest and her face turned toward me. My chest tightens at the sight of her swollen jaw and darkened eye. With her slender hand lying palm-up on the pillow, she looks achingly young and defenseless, a hurt child instead of a grown woman.
If Kirill is still alive, he’ll wish he were dead ten times over by the time I’m done with him.
This morning, I sent out feelers to all our contacts in Europe and gave our hackers a new assignment: tracking down Kirill Luchenko. I also reached out to Peter Sokolov again to see if he knows anyone in Ukraine who can help. He responded right away, promising to look into it, so now it’s just a matter of time before we locate the fucker.
Assuming he didn’t croak from his wounds, that is. Since Yulia shot his dick off, it might be touch and go for a while.
Sitting down on the edge of the bed, I reach over and stroke her upturned palm with the tip of my finger, feeling the warm softness of her skin. Like the girl herself, her hand is deceptively delicate, an embodiment of elegant femininity. But I know how dangerous it can be—and now Kirill does too.
The fucking bastard will die a dickless eunuch. I really like that.
Yulia’s fingers curl in response to my touch, and a small moan escapes her throat. She still doesn’t wake up, though, and some instinct makes me reach over and touch her forehead with the back of my hand.
Fuck.
She’s hot—much too hot. Her forehead is burning.
In the next instant, I’m on my feet, pulling out my phone. Goldberg doesn’t pick up at first, so I call him again. Then again.
On the third attempt, he picks up the phone. “What is it?”
“Yulia is sick,” I say without preamble. “Something’s really wrong with her. I need you here. Now.”
“On my way.”
He hangs up, and I sit down on the bed and pick up Yulia’s hand, noticing the dry heat coming off her skin. My heart thuds with a dull, heavy rhythm as I lift her wrist up to my face and press my lips against her palm.
“You’ll be all right,” I whisper, ignoring the sharp fear clawing at my insides. “You’ll be all right, baby. You have to be.”
* * *
“Looks like a type of flu,” Goldberg says after examining Yulia. “It hit her hard, probably because her immune system was already under stress from her injuries and everything. I’ll get her started on an antiviral and give her Tylenol to bring down the fever. Other than that, you just keep her comfortable and make sure she gets enough fluids.”
As he speaks, Yulia’s eyelids flutter open, and she stares at me in confusion. “Lucas?” Her voice is weak and raspy as she rolls over onto her side. “What—”
“It’s okay, sweetheart. You’re just feverish from the flu,” I say, sitting down on the bed next to her. Picking up the water bottle from the nightstand, I slide my arm under her upper back and help her sit up, propping her up on the pillows. Handing her the bottle and the pills Goldberg gives me, I murmur, “Here, drink this. It’ll make you feel better.”
I can feel the doctor’s amused gaze on me as he packs his bag, but I no longer give a fuck what he thinks or whom he tells about my weakness for Yulia.
She’s mine, and it’s time everyone knew that fact.
Yulia obediently swallows the pills and washes them down with all the water remaining in the bottle. “Where’s Misha?” she asks when she’s done, and I sigh, realizing this is going to be an ongoing battle.
“Your brother had a very nice day with Eduardo,” I say, putting the empty bottle back on the nightstand as Goldberg discreetly slips out of the room. “They had a lengthy workout session where Michael worked off quite a bit of his aggression toward the guard, and now they’re eating dinner, I believe—which is what we should be doing. Are you hungry? I can heat up some chicken noodle soup. It’s canned, but—”
“I’m not hungry,” she says, shaking her head. “I just want to see Misha.”
“How about this: you take a shower, eat a little soup and drink some tea, and I’ll see what I can do about getting Misha over here again?” I want her to eat so she can recover, and this seems like the best way to go about it.
“Okay.” Yulia pushes the blanket off her legs and starts to get up, but I catch her and lift her against my chest before she can do more than take a couple of shaky steps. She gives me a startled look, but winds her arms around my neck, holding on to me as I carry her to the bathroom.
When I reach my destination, I carefully lower Yulia to her feet and begin to undress her, pulling off her T-shirt and shorts while she stands there mutely, her eyes glazed with fever. For some reason, I’m reminded of when she was first brought here, bedraggled and malnourished after the Russian prison. It seems impossible that only a month has passed since then—that I met her just three months ago.
It feels like I’ve been obsessed with my captive for a lifetime.
“Do you need a moment?” I ask, and Yulia nods, the unbruised parts of her face reddening with a flush.
“Okay. I’ll be right outside. Call out if you feel dizzy or anything.”
I step out to let her use the restroom, and when I hear the shower turn on, I come back in. She’s already standing inside the glass stall, her hand shaking as she reaches for shampoo.
“Here, let me help you,” I say, swiftly stripping off my own clothes and joining her in the shower. “I don’t want you to strain yourself.”
“I’m okay,” she protests, but I take the shampoo from her hand and pour a small amount into my palm, then step under the spray to keep the water from hitting her in the face. As I lather her hair, she leans against me, closing her eyes, and I suppress a groan as her firm, curvy ass presses against my groin, taking me from semi-erect state to full-blown hardness. Up until then, I’d managed to keep my eyes off her naked body, my libido taking a back seat to my concern for her health, but this is too much.
Even sick and hurt, she turns me on unbearably.
Down. Fucking go down, I will my cock. My blood feels like molten lava in my veins as I turn Yulia toward the spray and rinse the shampoo from her hair before applying conditioner to the long blond strands.
“Lucas…” Her voice is a shaky whi
sper as she turns to face me, her fever-bright eyes locking on my face. Water droplets cling to her brown lashes, emphasizing their length, and my lungs feel like I can’t get enough air as she reaches for me, her hand brushing over my abs before traveling downward to curl around my hard, aching cock.
It takes all my strength to step out of her reach. “What are you doing?” I ask hoarsely, my stiff cock bobbing up to my navel as the water spray hits her in the chest. “You have the fucking flu.”
She follows me, blinking the water out of her eyes. “Let me take care of you, at least like this.” Her fingers brush against my erection again, but I catch her wrist before she can wrap her hand around the shaft.
“What the fuck, Yulia?” I stare down at her in disbelief, seeing the dark circles under her eyes and the unnatural pallor of her skin. She’s about to collapse, and she wants to give me a handjob?
At my rejection, Yulia’s lips tremble, and she drops her gaze, her wrist going limp in my grasp. She looks utterly dejected, and as I stare at her bent head, a dark possibility occurs to me.
“Are you doing this because you think you have to?” I ask, my voice roughening. “Are you afraid I’ll hurt your brother if you don’t have sex with me?”
She looks up, her eyes swimming with tears, and I realize that’s exactly what she fears, that she thinks me capable of this. She’s not entirely wrong—I would use her brother to control her if I had to—but not for this.
Not while she’s in this condition.
“Yulia…” I gently cup her jaw, making sure I touch only the uninjured side of her face. “I’m not going to punish you for being sick, okay? I’m not that much of a monster. Your brother is safe. You can rest and recover without worrying about him.”
“But—”
“Shh.” I press the tips of my fingers to her lips. “He’ll be fine on one condition: that you stop stressing and let yourself heal. Do you think you can do that?”
She nods slowly, and I lower my hand. “Good. Now, let’s wash the rest of you and get you into bed. Tonight, I’m taking care of you, okay?”
Yulia nods again, and I rinse off her conditioner, then carefully wash her all over, ignoring my persistent arousal. I tell myself that I’m a doctor caring for a patient, that this is no different than washing a child, but my cock doesn’t buy it. Nonetheless, I manage to get through the shower without jumping her, and by the time I towel her off and bring her back to bed, I’m almost back in control.
“Now soup and tea,” I say, propping her up on the pillows again, and she gives me a listless look, her pallor even more pronounced.
“Okay,” she murmurs. “And then my brother, right?”
“Yes,” I say, but by the time I return with the soup and tea, she’s already asleep, her skin burning even hotter.
32
Yulia
The next several days pass in a fog of fever and pain. My bones ache, and my throat feels like I swallowed a ball of fire. Even the roots of my hair hurt, the heat of the fever consuming from within. The illness takes everything out of me, leaving me weak and shaking, and the simplest activities—like going to the bathroom and showering—require Lucas’s help.
I sleep for what feels like twenty hours a day, and if it weren’t for Lucas forcing water, tea, and soup on me at regular intervals, I’d sleep even more. But he keeps waking me up to spoon-feed me various liquids, and I’m too drained to resist his gentle but insistent brand of caregiving. He’s with me at night, his big body curved protectively around mine as we sleep, and he’s next to me during the day—all day.
“Don’t you have someplace to be?” I croak out the first time I see my captor at my bedside, working on a laptop in an uncomfortable-looking chair. “You’re usually gone at this time.”
Lucas’s hard mouth curves in a smile. “I’m taking a sick day. How are you feeling? Hungry? Thirsty?”
“I’m okay,” I murmur, closing my eyes. “Just really, really tired.” The exhaustion seems to have settled deep in my bones, weighing me down like an anchor. Even this brief exchange has depleted my nonexistent energy, and I’m already almost asleep again when Lucas makes me sit up and drink room-temperature water from a cup with a curved straw.
Swallowing hurts my throat, but the liquid invigorates me enough that I ask about my brother. Lucas assures me that he’s fine, but when I continue to insist that I see Misha, Lucas makes Eduardo take an impromptu two-minute video of my brother and email it to us. On the video, my brother is eating a burger and arguing with Diego about the merits of Krav Maga versus Tae Kwan Do. He looks neither afraid nor abused, which reassures me quite a bit.
“I’ll bring him by when you’re a little stronger,” Lucas promises. “Goldberg said you should be through the worst of it by tomorrow.”
But I’m not. The next day is even worse, my fever spiking uncontrollably, and I wake up mid-day to hear Lucas arguing with the doctor about whether I need to be hospitalized.
Blearily, I open my eyes to see my captor pacing around the room, a thermometer clutched in his powerful fist. “Her fever is almost a hundred and four. What if it’s pneumonia or something like that?”
“I told you, her lungs are clear,” Dr. Goldberg says with a hint of exasperation. “As long as you keep giving her enough liquids, she’ll be fine. You just need to let this illness run its course. The human body doesn’t handle extreme stress well, and from what you’ve told me, she’s been through more in the past three months than most people survive in a lifetime. She’s traumatized physically and mentally, and she needs rest and sleep to heal. In a way, this flu is her body’s way of telling her to slow down and take care of herself.”
Lucas stops in front of the bed, his hands clenched. “If anything happens to her…”
“Yes, I know, you’ll tear me limb from limb,” the doctor says wearily. “So you’ve said. Now if you don’t mind, I have a guard with a bullet in his leg who needs my attention. Call me if her fever goes higher, and for now, alternate her Tylenol with Advil.”
He departs, and I close my eyes, sinking back into sleep.
* * *
The fever continues for three more days, spiking and falling in an unpredictable manner. Every time I wake up, feeling like I’m dying, Lucas is by my side, ready to feed me liquids, put a wet towel on my forehead, or carry me to the bathroom.
“Are you sure you don’t have a nursing degree?” I joke weakly when he places me back in bed, having changed the sheets and fluffed up my pillows. “Because you’re really good at this.”
Lucas smiles and tucks the blanket around me. “Maybe I’ll look into it if this gig with Esguerra doesn’t work out.”
I manage a tiny smile in return, and then I’m out again, too exhausted to cling to wakefulness for long.
That night, the fever torments me nonstop, defying Lucas’s efforts to bring it down with Tylenol and cool towels. I toss and turn, alternately shivering and sweating as troubled dreams invade my mind. The wolf of the children’s lullaby comes to me, gnawing at my side, and I scream as his snout transforms into Kirill’s face—a face that explodes into bits as I shoot him, over and over again. Lucas shakes me awake, holding me on his lap until my hysterical sobbing subsides, but as soon as I fall asleep again, I see a variation of the same dream, only this time, my bullets miss Kirill and hit my brother while Kirill laughs, holding his bloodied cock.
“Yulia, hush, sweetheart, don’t. He’s okay. Misha is okay.” The assurance, delivered in Lucas’s deep voice, calms me down until I’m swept into yet another twisted dream-memory, and the vicious cycle continues until my fever breaks in the morning.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper when I wake up and see Lucas sitting next to me, his eyes ringed with dark circles and his hard jaw unshaven as he frowns at something on his laptop. “Did I keep you up all night?”
He looks up from the computer. “No, of course not.” Despite his tired appearance, his pale eyes are sharply alert as he reaches over to the nightstand and ha
nds me the cup with the straw. “How are you feeling?”
“Like I couldn’t swat a fly,” I say hoarsely after sucking down the full cup of water. “But overall, better.” For the first time in days, my head doesn’t ache, and my skin feels like it actually wants to stay attached to my body. Even my throat is almost back to normal, and there’s a hollow sensation in my stomach that feels suspiciously like hunger.
Lucas’s tense look eases as he places his laptop on the nightstand and gets up. “I’m glad. Another few hours like that, and I was flying you to a hospital, no matter what Goldberg said.” Leaning over me, he carefully picks me up and brings me to the bathroom, where he runs a bath for me since I’m too weak to stand in a shower stall.
“Why are you doing this?” I ask when he’s done washing me from head to toe. Now that I’m feeling marginally more human, it dawns on me just how extraordinary Lucas’s actions over the past several days have been. I don’t know many husbands who would’ve cared for their wives with such dedication.
“What do you mean?” Lucas frowns as he wraps me in a thick towel and picks me up. “You needed a bath.”
“I know, but you didn’t need to be the one to give it to me,” I say as he carries me back to the bedroom. “You could’ve had one of the guards help or—” I stop as his expression darkens.
“If you think I’m letting another man touch you…” His voice is pure lethal ice, and despite myself, I shiver as he lays me back on the bed, stuffing two pillows under my back to prop me up to a half-sitting position. Leaning in, he growls, “You’re mine and mine alone, understand?”
I nod warily. I’d let myself forget for a moment how dangerous—and insanely possessive—my captor can be.
Straightening, Lucas makes a visible effort to get himself under control. His chest expands with a deep breath, and he asks in a calmer tone, “Are you hungry? Do you want some chicken broth?”