by Belle Aurora
A bark of laughter left her. Still fuzzy in the eyes, she let out a bemused, “That’s the thing. He never even went there. We just”—her voice sounded faraway—“played.” She licked her lips, then twisted to frown up at me. That was when she whispered, “I’ve never been played with like that before.”
Well, hell. Now I was curious. “How?”
“Like he wanted to pleasure me so hard I’d die from it.” Her tone was reflective.
Okay. That was very specific.
I sat down on my wooden coffee table, patient and watchful, as a whole range of emotions flittered across her face. And when at long last she settled on melancholy, I wasn’t expecting what she said, slow and determined.
“I am going to make that man my husband.”
My expression stunned, I did a tiny double-take.
Pardon me, ma’am?
Cora didn’t talk marriage. It was quite literally the one thing she was happiest about when she walked out on her family, that she wouldn’t be forced into marriage, as she never wanted to be tied to anyone. She called it a death sentence. And here she was, talking about getting herself a husband.
Unbelievable. I was stunned speechless.
Somehow, this broken and scarred man had unwittingly mended the guarded and wary part of Cora’s heart.
The question was, would he allow her to repair the damaged part of his?
9
Nastasia
The second I woke with a pounding headache, I should have guessed something was wrong. My brow creased as I threw open my curtains and squinted out into the gray morning. Fat droplets of rain fell onto my windowpane. Maybe that should have tipped me off too.
It made sense for it to rain on days like this one. It would have been hard for the sun to shine through the darkness that plagued me.
I was midstretch, my tank lifting to reveal my bare stomach, when I heard it.
“Hello, dear.”
And I stilled. My eyes widened a touch, but I maintained my cool appearance. My mind, however, thrummed. A deep buzzing sound replacing my every thought. Static feedback. Nails on a chalkboard.
Oh God.
She’s back.
“I see that even though you’re grown, you still have that defiant, immature streak.”
My fingers twitched. I swallowed hard but turned to look at her, sitting on the edge of my bed with one leg resting over the other, posed primly, looking the picture of poise, dressed in the clothes she was wearing the day she left. And my heart stuttered.
The woman turned, and I sucked in a short breath.
I looked like her. A lot more now than I had then.
Her small smile held reprimand. “Ignoring your mother. Really?”
Walk away. If you don’t talk to her, she’ll leave you alone.
Stuck in mud, I simply stared a while as distress washed over me.
No. No, no, no.
I thought we were past this.
Turning away, I shook my head in an attempt to clear it, focused straight ahead at the wall, and then my feet were moving, taking me toward the bathroom. Once inside, I looked around and breathed a sigh of relief when I saw she hadn’t joined me.
I blew out a long breath, ignoring the way my heart pounded, and picked up my toothbrush with a shaking hand. I went about the motions, brushing my teeth mechanically as I wondered what today’s date was.
“Tell me, rypka. Where is your darling, handsome Viktor?”
My movements came to a halt as I peered into the mirror to find her standing in my bathroom, looking around curiously. And when she looked back at me, there was a glint in her eyes. Her red lips tipped upward, looking every bit the smile, but there was something sinister to it. “Ah, yes. You’ve driven him away.”
Before I could stop myself, I uttered a rough, “I broke up with him.”
Catching myself, I immediately felt stupid, lowering my face and shaking my head in frustration.
Goddammit. I was talking to a figment of my imagination.
“You think that matters? Darling, be honest. If not to me, then to yourself. He was never good enough for you.”
My toothbrush fell into the sink with a clink. My hands, now splayed on my vanity, trembled. “That’s not true.”
“Isn’t it?”
Viktor was kind and funny and sweet. “He’s a good man.”
My mother approached slowly, her heeled footsteps clicking softly as she held my gaze and stepped closer to my back. “Then why do you push, and push, and push him away, Nastasia?”
I opened my mouth to speak but found I had no good answer for that. The silence between us went on for what felt like days.
“I have a theory,” she said.
My lips thinned. Of course, she did.
And then she turned, pacing the length of the en suite as she spoke. “I know you well. Better than you’d care to admit. After all, a mother knows her child.”
The absolute gall. My jaw steeled.
Like she knew Lev? I quietly seethed, gripping the edge of the vanity hard enough to turn my knuckles white.
As if she’d heard my thoughts, she stalled, and when her eyes came to rest on me, she smiled in a perplexed way that said she knew it all. And that smile of hers… it was deadly. “Do your brothers know you miss me? Do they know you still have my things? Photographs, cards, and letters? That you often revisit the past? That you smell my perfume and wear my jewelry, try on a dress or two?”
My expression hollow, I loathed the way my heart filled with shame.
“Do they know you think about me and weep? That you wish you could have hugged me one last time, even after all I did to your brother? That you watched me be dragged so heinously from my home, knowing they would put a bullet between my eyes?” She waited a moment. “Do they know?”
Of course not. How could I ever admit to such a thing?
She looked me up and down. “Nastasia. They would be livid. And you, disgraced.” Mother took small steps toward the bathtub, taking a dignified seat on the porcelain lip. “No, you will never tell them, because you know they would never understand. But I do. Do you know why?”
I shook my head.
Her proud smile both warmed and chilled. “Because you are just like me.”
“No, I’m not,” I whispered. The fear her statement instilled was overwhelming.
She waved off my weak reply. “Deny it all you want. The facts speak louder than your feeble protests. Now, I’ll ask again. Where is Viktor?”
“We broke up.” My voice shook.
“No.” Mother lifted her arm, waving a gentle finger in the air. “You broke up with him, because deep down, you are the product of my womb and therefore me. Because social standing matters to you. And Viktor Nikulin was never worthy of my daughter.”
She was wrong.
My brow furrowed. “Stop it.”
“No money. No breeding. No prospects. That matters to you, dear.”
It didn’t. “It doesn’t.”
She leaned forward slightly, stressing each word. “Then why aren’t you with him?”
My chest ached. “Because…”
“Because why?” she prompted.
It was hard to breathe. “Because…”
Her eyes flashed. “Say it!”
“Because loving him is killing me!”
The words shot out of my mouth like slugs from a pistol. I panted with the realization that it was a death I would willingly accept if I only had him.
My breathing shook as wetness spilled from my eyes.
My heart shattered with the stray thought.
Why doesn’t he love me?
“It is killing you.” Her nod was solemn. “He is poison. A sickness in your veins. A sexually transmitted disease, and you opened your legs, inviting the illness unto you. He is a weak kitten in a bag sinking to the bottom of the ocean, and he is taking you with him.”
My eyes blurred. I croaked, “You don’t know him like I do.”
Mothe
r’s eyes darkened. “I know he is a foul-mouthed, uncouth, spoiled…”
Anger lit deep inside of me. “Stop it.”
“…arrogant, selfish…”
That anger quickly turned to rage. “Mother, stop.”
“…irresponsible, poor excuse for a man.”
I turned on the tap and rinsed out my mouth before throwing cold water onto my face. I then fumed, “I’m not listening to you. You’re toxic.”
Her motherly tone was an insult. “But you are listening, you silly girl. You will hear everything I have to say, as I am inside your head, and I will be heard. I demand it.”
Go away. Go away. Go away!
“Oh God.” I clutched at my pounding head, tangling my fingers in my own hair.
I was going insane.
“My words will echo through your mind until your ears seep red.”
My body began to rock. I shut my eyes tightly. “Please, stop.”
From the corner of my eye, I watched her stand and move to the center of the room. “You are beauty and resilience. Both soft and unyielding. Proud, pretty little thing. You are a Leokov, and you want him,” she sneered at me. “I’m sure you find it just as amusing as I that although you have given every part of yourself to that boy, he gives back naught but table scraps. You gift him your heart, and he cuts it clean out. You bleed from the wound, and he watches but does nothing.” She looked so disappointed in me. “Foolish girl, when will you stop this nonsense? You fell in love with a thug…”
Her words cut me deeply. My breathing turned heavy.
“…and he doesn’t love you in return.”
The cruel laughter she ended on had something breaking inside me.
Reaching out, my fingers folded around the base of the heavy crystal vase that sat on my vanity. Her laughter echoed, and my heart pounded painfully in my chest.
She laughed and laughed on the outside, but inside my head, she taunted me with whispers and lies until the statements all overlapped.
“You’re a fool.”
“Disgrace.”
“A princess who lies with dogs.”
“Such a disappointment.”
“No wonder he doesn’t want you.”
“Your father would turn in his grave over what you have become.”
I held my breath as she locked onto her target, and her final statement hit its mark.
“You are my daughter.”
With that parting shot, the need to hurt her took over.
My body trembled with raw fury, and when I lifted the vase, turned, and bellowed, “I said that’s enough,” my arm extended, my hand released, and I watched in slow motion as the heavy crystal soared through the air, toward the woman who birthed me.
Mother smirked as the vase hurtled toward her, and just when it should have connected with her face, she disappeared, and the vase dashed toward an unintended target. The moment it connected with my shower screen, the shrill sound of glass shattering echoed in the small space.
The shock of it all had me slapping my hands over my ears to mask the piercing blast. My shoulders lifted as I clenched my eyes shut, and I twisted my body protectively as splinters of glass pinged and tinkled around me.
And then silence.
My trembling hands gradually fell from my head. I straightened as much as I could, blinking in a daze, peering around at the shattered glass and broken tiles.
Sorrow filled me slowly, unhurried, like I was a glass under a leaking faucet. Every drop that fell filled me with a little more grief, and the drops continued to fall.
My face crumpled, I lifted my hand to my mouth, and I cried. I cried long and hard, because maybe my mother was right. Maybe I was like her.
She could have been right about it all. Except one thing.
She was wrong about him.
Viktor Nikulin lit up the world with a smile, and he was worth every heartbreak and more.
Nastasia
Age 18
Before I’d even told him, a cold, eerie feeling settled over me. That feeling told me that although what I’d done wasn’t exactly wrong, it wasn’t unerringly right either. So, when he heard my news and calmly said he would see me later, that cold feeling spread to my heart.
An iceberg would have responded warmer than he had.
I bit my thumbnail as I sat on the bleachers, ignoring my homework as I waited for Anika to finish up with cheer practice. My heart twinged, causing me to wince from the sting of it.
The longer I thought about it, I considered I might have been in a wee bit of trouble here.
It was two days ’til prom, and I couldn’t very well go with Vik. Our relationship was a well-guarded secret. And although I had the feeling my brothers had an inkling about Vik and me, they never brought it up.
It’s not that I wasn’t thinking when I accepted Bram Allen’s promposal. I was. All I could think about was us.
It’s not like I wanted to go with Bram, but he seemed like a nice enough guy. He wasn’t a jock, or a nerd, or too involved with clubs. He was just a boy. And when we happened to get onto the subject of prom while we worked side by side in English, he told me he was going stag. I told him I would be too. So, when he casually suggested, “We could go together?” I thought, Why not?
The call I made to Vik from the payphone in the hall at lunchtime was shorter than it should have been, but the moment my news hit him, his tone changed. He grew distant. Aloof.
I wore my regret openly, but he wasn’t here to see it. Until his car pulled up and he was.
My heart settled at the sight of him, no matter the scowl he wore, or how he stalked toward Bram. And when he walked with determination like he did right now…
My stomach twisted.
Oh shit.
I shot up, my books forgotten, and I ran.
“No, no, no,” I muttered to myself.
I ran hard and fast, and just when Vik approached the poor guy and called out, “Hey, you,” I did the only thing I could think of doing to distract him.
He wore what he always did. Black jeans, a long-sleeved Henley pushed up to his forearms and black high-top Vans. His handsome face and muscled body drew the attention of girls and guys alike. And when he glowered the way he was then, his lip curled unintentionally, it just made his appeal intensify. His jaw worked as he snapped the gum in his mouth, and when he spotted me coming at him at full speed, he stilled a moment, turning to face me with his legs apart and a look that shouted anger.
But the closer I got, the more his face softened. And when he realized I wasn’t stopping, he licked his lips and braced. I jumped, and he caught me with a grunt. The moment my stomach pressed flat against his torso, it felt like home. My legs coiled around his lean waist, and I held onto his shoulders. He slid one strong arm under my ass, supporting my weight, while the other came up to gently caress my nape.
I started talking before he even had a chance to speak. “Don’t do this. Not this time. He’s a nice guy, Vik.”
“Uh huh” was all he said as he slowly chewed his gum, clearly unconvinced.
I placed my hands on either side of his neck, caressing his warm flesh with gentle fingers. I closed my eyes and pressed my forehead to his, whispering, “Please don’t be mad at me.”
Those brawny arms flexed and tightened on me.
Close enough to his lips to breathe in his minty breath, I hurried out, “I don’t even want to go anymore. I won’t go, okay?”
Vik took in a deep breath and released it slowly. He sounded more than a little put out when he uttered roughly, “If you think I’m gonna to sit back and watch some little punk dance with my girl all night, pose with his arm around her for some lame-ass photos, and lean in close, hoping to get a taste of those sweet lips…” He reached around in front of me to grip my chin and force my head up so our eyes met. His brows lowered some. “Then you are out of your damn mind.” His gaze flickered to my pouting lips, then back up again. “No one touches my girl but me.”
The inte
nsity of his gaze had shivers stealing down my spine.
My voice was feather-soft. “I know.”
He seemed pleased at my speedy acquiesce, and when I ran my thumbs along his sharp jawline, his nostrils flared. Vik hefted me higher up his body, adjusting my weight, and then, right there in full view of everyone, he slid his warm palm around my nape and jerked me forward, my lips meeting his with vigor.
He kissed me long and deep, bruisingly rough, for the longest time until I came up, clutching his shoulders, gasping for air. Dazed and confused, I blinked at Vik a moment, unsure if it had really happened or if I just fantasized about it so much that I willed it to be true.
Appearing overly-pleased with himself, Vik’s exhale warmed my skin, and when he leaned in for another taste, it was gentler this time. He pecked my throbbing lips once, twice, three times, lingering on the last. Taking in the feel of his stubble against my chin, I closed my eyes and fell even harder.
I wasn’t a stupid girl. I knew what this was.
It was a display of dominance. Of ownership.
The feminist inside me raged, but the romantic in me cooed happily to be considered worthy of a display like this. And frankly, I didn’t hate it.
Vik lifted his hand and gently ran his thumb over my lips. I pecked the pad lovingly and watched his eyes blaze. And suddenly, Vik twisted and called out, “Hey, Bran.”
“Bram,” I corrected.
Vik brow furrowed. “Whatever.”
I hadn’t realized the entire football field had stopped to watch us until I heard a cheerleader ask, “Anika, isn’t that, like, your brother?”
Another asked, “Isn’t that Nastasia?”
My head turned at the question, and when I found Anika frowning at us, I clung to Vik, lowering my face into the crook of his neck, hiding myself away from the judgement of others.
Nothing else mattered but the feel of his body against mine.
When he moved to face a confused-looking Bram, Vik called out, “You’re going to prom alone, kid. You hear me? Just you and your hand. So have fun with that.” An open palm slid over the globe of one ass cheek and squeezed roughly while he bit his bottom lip, then grinned. “Mine are full.”