by Maisey Yates
“Yes, you did.”
The car he’d ordered was idling outside. He put his hand up when the driver started to get out, and opened the door for Jada himself. “After you,” he said.
She slid into the car and he got in after her. She was looking down, a strange expression on her face, then she looked back at him. “I haven’t been on a date since…you know since when.”
“Is this a date?” he asked.
Her eyes widened. “Not really, but…well, it sort of is.”
“I’m not certain I’ve ever really been on a date,” he said.
“That can’t be true,” she said, looking out the window at the passing view as the car started moving. He watched where she watched, taking in the lights smearing across the darkness as they drove on. She was seeing the city for the first time. It was interesting to see it through her eyes, to see it with wonder and excitement.
“I don’t date women, princess. I sleep with them.”
“I see,” she said, her words clipped.
“You find me crude. I understand that, but I also don’t lie.”
“I do appreciate that.”
“But, for the purposes of tonight,” he said, not understanding quite why the words rolling around in his head were giving him pleasure, only that they were, “we are on a date.”
“I think I can handle that if you can.”
“I have dodged enemy gunfire, and on more than one occasion, not dodged it entirely, so I think I can handle going on a date with my wife.”
His words hung in the air. They’d seemed louder than anything either of them had said before. And they seemed to just float there.
He had never called her that before. Never referred to her as his wife. Because while he considered them married in the eyes of the law, he’d never thought of her with the title attached.
So maybe she was right. Maybe marriage was more than paper, even to him. But it didn’t explain why he’d suddenly called her his wife.
“It’s okay,” she said as the car slowed. “I’ll let it go if you will.”
He nodded, aware that in the dim lighting she might not have seen.
The car came to a complete stop and again, he halted the driver, getting out and then rounding to Jada’s side to open it for her.
He extended his hand and clasped hers in his. She felt so good, so soft and warm. And then he didn’t let go. “Since we’re on a date,” he said, leading her up the lit, white stairs that led into the opera house.
They walked in and the lobby was filled with people, glittering from head to toe in designer gowns, tuxes and enough gems to fill the vaults of the World Bank.
Alik watched Jada’s eyes as they walked through the opulent entryway. And he took notice of the high-gloss, cara-mel-colored marble floor, the pillars, the ceiling. Took notice of the chandelier, hanging low above them, dripping with crystals.
It had been a long time since he’d been impressed by such things. A long time since he’d even bothered to notice. When he’d been a boy, taken into the organized crime business, he’d been stunned by the glamor, by the wealth. And at some point, he had gotten used to it, and it had become tarnished by the kinds of activities he knew were often involved in the acquisition of such things.
Funny how, though he’d inhabited the world for most of this life, he had never loved it. Had never felt entirely settled in it.
Through Jada’s eyes, things seemed glittery again. Strange. Interesting. And wonderful in its way.
“We’re up here,” he said, gesturing to the curved staircase that led away from the crowd.
“Don’t tell me you have some sort of private box.”
“The royal box,” he said. “Actually, it’s the box the last Tsar of Russia and his wife used to use when they visited Paris and got a craving for theater. It was designed specifically for them, and I think our host found himself quite clever putting me in this particular box.”
“Tsar Alik. It’s not so bad.”
“Tsarina,” he said, bowing slightly to her, gratified by the flush of pink in her golden cheeks. He took her hand in his and led her up the stairs, into the booth. A heavy velvet curtain in a robin’s-egg blue was held back by thick, velvet ties. Matching curtains were tied back around the front part of the box, keeping the far recesses of it obscured to any curious onlookers.
“The thing about these sorts of boxes,” he said, putting his hand low on her back and guiding her inside, “is that you don’t have the best view of the stage. You are in front, which is prestigious, and if you sit in the center, you are on stage yourself. We even have our own curtain. People will look up here and wonder who we are. And that is what they’re designed for.”
“Very ostentatious,” she said.
“Very. But it’s what people do with money.”
“It’s not what you’ve done with money,” she said, taking a seat in one of the plush chairs, her fingers tracing the carved wood on the edge of the arm. “You’re hardly in the news, if you are at all.”
“Because attention has never mattered to me,” he said, taking his seat next to her.
“What does matter to you?”
It was a good question. As a kid, he had wanted to survive. To get up and live to see another day. As an adult, he’d grown tired. Had pushed back at life, challenged it. Now that he had Leena, things had changed again. “Life to me has often just been something I was doing. I was not dead, which meant I lived, which meant I was obligated to act. I never loved my life, was never so concerned with it as some people. So I went on dangerous missions no one else would take, rode motorcycles too fast, jumped out of airplanes.”
“You had a death wish, you mean?”
“Not so much. But there I was, alive. And I was trying to…feel it.”
“By courting death?”
“Makes a sick sort of sense, doesn’t it?”
She looked away from him, down at the filling auditorium. “Yes. It does. What is the name of the show?”
“La Traviata. She dies at the end.”
Jada shot him a deadly glare. “Spoiler alert!”
“It’s hardly a spoiler…it’s opera. She always dies in the end.” He leaned back in his chair, and Jada fell silent. They sat like that until the house lights dimmed, until the curtains below opened.
And the music started. And Jada was on the edge of her seat, her eyes rapt on the stage below them. While she watched the singers, he watched her, watched her shoulders tense, watched her expression contort dramatically when something would happen.
She was so beautiful to him then. So unguarded. He knew that was how people saw him. As unguarded. Perhaps he was, but it was simply because he’d never had anything to protect. He was too numb to hurt.
Jada was so soft inside. She had so much light in her, so many delicate intricacies to her that would be so simple, and so cruel to destroy. It made him worry for her. Made him feel all the more fascinated by her.
By the time intermission came, he found he could hardly breathe, and it had nothing to do with the performance happening on stage.
Jada relaxed, leaning back in her chair. “This is wonderful,” she said.
“Yes,” he said, his throat tight for some reason, “it is.”
She stood and stretched, arching her back, her breasts rising, pushing against the fabric of the gown. Her tension might have dissipated with the halting of the production, but his had not.
He felt like something was going to burst inside of him. Like he was suddenly aware that there was a dam inside of him, a great stone wall holding back the potential for torrential destruction.
And he had to stop it. Had to shore it up with something. Something simple. Something he understood. He stood, his hand shaking, his heart thundering.
Jada looked at Alik and froze. She realized, in that moment, what it was like to be a gazelle, stalked by a predator. Except, she wasn’t going to run. She didn’t know why, only that she wouldn’t.
The opera was
mesmerizing. It was all feeling, feeling put to music, so rich and affecting. And even though she didn’t understand the words, it transcended language. It went down deep inside of her, tapped into a well of emotion, a well of need, that she hadn’t known was quite so immense.
And now Alik was looking at her like he wanted her. More than wanted, like he needed her. There was something dark and deadly in his eyes now. Something desperate. And she liked it, responded to it. It was different than the flat nothingness she usually saw there, different than that blasted, false, shallow front he usually put on.
In that moment, as his eyes met hers, everything fell away. Her present, her past. There was nothing but Alik, nothing but the intense, terrible ache he made her feel.
This was frightening. This was real. And it was enticing. A black flame dancing in front of her, so beautiful she couldn’t look away, so dangerous she knew she had to. But she wouldn’t.
Instead, she reached out her hand and prepared to touch the fire.
CHAPTER EIGHT
JADA’S FINGERS MADE contact with Alik’s heated skin, and a shiver went through her body. She was burned, heat arcing through her, raging in her veins, but she wasn’t hurt. And she didn’t want to take her hand away. Didn’t want to turn from the path she was walking down now.
And then the moment of calm was over. Alik growled, taking her into his arms and pushing her behind the curtain, against the wall. And then he was kissing her. Deep. Hard. Hungry and desperate and everything she’d ever fantasized about. Everything she’d never known to fantasize about.
“Alik,” she whispered, a plea. For him to stop. For him to keep going.
He kissed her neck, her bare shoulder, his hand resting at the base of her throat, gentle, arousing. He spoke to her, low and rough, in more than one language, as if his brain couldn’t settle on one in that moment. Gratifying, since she was no less confused. No less lost in the sensations that were rioting through her.
His other hand rested on her hip, his fingers curling, bunching the thin material of her dress up into his palm, widening the slit that ran up to her thigh. He brushed her bare skin with his fingers, tugged the fabric to the side.
“Alik,” she said again, a warning this time.
“No talking,” he said, kissing her lips.
She didn’t want to talk. She wanted to kiss. So the order seemed fine enough to her. Except there was a reason she was supposed to stop him; she was sure there was. But she couldn’t remember it, and even if she could, she was sure that right now she wouldn’t care about it.
She just kissed him back, sucking his tongue deep into her mouth, feeding off his hunger, letting his desperation fuel her own. She tugged at the material on his suit jacket, pushed it from his shoulders.
He growled and his hand tightened at her throat, then eased, fingertips sliding down, so gentle, tracing her collarbone, curving over the swells of her breasts. She sucked in a sharp breath, her nipples puckering beneath the crimson fabric, aching for him, for his touch.
“Tell me,” he said, pressing a kiss to her neck.
“Touch my breasts,” she said, not sure why it was so easy to tell him what she wanted. Only that, in that moment, there was no time for embarrassment. There was no time for hesitation, for flirtation. She was on the edge of something, something she couldn’t put words to, and she knew that only Alik could take her over.
Alik obeyed her command, his hands coming down to cup her, thumbs teasing her through the gown’s bodice.
She tugged at his tie, loosening it, not bothering to pull the knot out completely. There wasn’t time. Music swelled in the background and she didn’t care. Because her need wasn’t satisfied yet.
For the past three years this part of herself had been dormant. Buried. Lost. She hadn’t experienced desire, hadn’t burned for the touch and kiss of a man. She hadn’t let herself remember what it was like, not truly.
And now she was on fire, the sensation so hot, so painful and beautiful, that she had to embrace it, had to follow the path, even if it led to total ruination. This was beyond the desire she knew. Past reason. Beyond herself.
He lowered his head and kissed the top of her breast, his tongue tracing the line of the dress. She forked her fingers through his hair, held him there for a moment.
The hand at her hip moved, fingers teasing at the edge of her panties, dipping beneath the silken fabric, sliding through her slick folds. A low moan escaped her lips, swallowed by the music coming from below.
“You’re so good at this,” she said, her words broken.
He said nothing, a low chuckle vibrating against her chest as he licked and kissed his way back to her mouth, fingers pushing deeper, sliding over her clitoris. He dipped one inside of her and she bucked against him, hungry for more, hungry for everything.
She held on to the front of his dress shirt, her face buried in his chest while he worked her body with his skilled hands. An orgasm built in her, and he brought her to the edge, then pushed her away from it, his rhythm maddening, enough to turn her on more than she’d ever been in all her life, without giving her the release she craved.
“Alik, now,” she said, her hands gliding down his muscular chest, to the buckle of his belt, undoing it quickly, then his pants.
He pushed them partway down his hips, freeing himself.
She took his heavy length into her hand, squeezing gently. He was a very big man, and without making comparisons, she could honestly say she’d never seen a man quite like him. But she wasn’t nervous. She was too needy for that, too desperate. She knew what she wanted, and she knew he could give it to her.
He reached down and picked his coat back up, digging through the interior pocket and producing his wallet, then a condom. She could have wept with relief. At least one of them could think. She was well beyond it.
“Let me,” she said, taking the packet from his hand and tearing it open, rolling it onto him quickly.
He pushed her panties to the side and put his hand on her thigh, opening her to him, positioning her. He teased her entrance with the head of his erection. The breath hissed through her teeth as he filled her slowly, completely, perfectly.
She arched into him and he slid his hand around to palm her butt, pulling her more tightly against him, pushing inside of her farther. She kissed his mouth, her hands on his back, holding on to him tightly as he thrust into her, driving them both toward completion.
She was so close, had been since he’d first touched her, but now she wanted it to last. Wanted that moment of him being in her to go on. Because it was so delicious, so incredible, far beyond her experience.
It was lust and desire, a perfect storm of physical need being met, of the need being exceeded.
He thrust deep, hard, her body pressed tightly against the wall, Alik, hot and delicious in front of her. She was surrounded by him, lost in him.
And when she reached the peak, as it built, so strong, so fast, she fought it. It was too much, too much too quickly. She was sure she couldn’t survive it. It was too big, too far beyond anything she’d ever known. The sensation, the pressure, felt like too much for her body to contain, too much for her to withstand.
Then it broke over her, like a burst of stars inside, white hot and bright, overpowering, beautiful. It consumed her, burned through her like a flash fire. All she could do was cling to Alik.
She felt the moment he found his release, felt his muscles go tight, his body still, felt the shiver of pleasure that worked its way through him, the pulse of his erection deep inside her setting off a series of aftershocks.
And then she was back on earth. Back in the real world. The music didn’t seem so distant, the background no longer fuzzy.
And she realized what she had done, with who and where.
“Oh no.” She pushed against his chest, her hand coming up to cover her mouth.
“What?” he asked, his voice hushed.
“We just…” She looked around, tried to see if anyone was watch
ing them. She couldn’t see anyone from her position behind the curtain, only the edge of the singers on the stage, and they were completely involved in their performances. “We’re in public, Alik,” she hissed.
And she’d just had sex with another man. A man she didn’t love. It didn’t matter that he was her husband on paper because in truth, he was a stranger. If she was going to be with someone other than the man she’d loved, there had to be a better reason than blinding lust.
It made a mockery of everything she believed in. Of the values she wanted to teach her daughter. Of everything she’d always thought about herself. Of what she’d shared with the man she loved. Only with him.
And she had done it all with an audience below.
For one, terrifying moment, she felt like she was drifting without an anchor. This wasn’t her. It wasn’t how she was. She was sensible, she was safe. She went to bed by nine every night. She didn’t have sex with strange men in opera boxes.
Tears pricked her eyes. She was horrified. She didn’t want to cry in front of him, not after coming like that in his arms. It was heaping mortification on top of mortification. Because no matter how she regretted it now, there was no pretending she hadn’t wanted it. That she hadn’t been an equal partner, if not an instigator.
She had wanted it. That was the part that scared her most. Her body still ached, still hummed with the aftereffects of her recent release. And her frame was shaking with the effort of holding her tears at bay.
“I have to go,” she said.
“The show isn’t over,” Alik said tightly, his eyes burning in the darkness.
“Yes, Alik. It is over,” she said, not talking about the opera. “It’s over for me.”
She turned and swept the back curtain aside, walking out of the box and into the hall. There were people there, people milling around who could have easily walked in on them.
Her heart thundered, her legs shaking, her stomach nauseous as she made her way down the curved staircase and into the lobby, then out the front door. She ran along the line of cars idling at the curb until she found Alik’s driver.