by Lauren Smith
“Call us if you need us,” Maxim said. “Seriously, I want to be on a beach right now.”
Dimitri hung up and stared out the window at the front gardens for a long while before going to bed. He stripped out of his clothes and changed into a light pair of cotton pajama bottoms and lay back in the king-size bed. Next door was the room Elena had chosen. He gazed at the ceiling. His eyes had just started to close when he heard a strangled scream. Dimitri was on his feet in an instant, rushing into her room.
Elena was on the floor, her sheets tangled around her body as she writhed and screamed. He knelt and tried to free her, but her fist hit his jaw with an unexpectedly strong blow.
“Fuck,” he muttered as he blocked the second punch while she thrashed beneath him. “Elena!” He barked out her name, and her movements stilled. He had a firm grip around one of her wrists, and he could feel the frantic beat of her pulse beneath his fingertips.
“Please don’t hurt me. I’ll do anything,” she whimpered. Her eyes were clamped shut, and she had angled her body away from his as much as possible.
“Elena,” he said gently. “You were dreaming. It’s over now. Open your eyes.”
She gave a childlike shake of her head, and he realized that she was still locked in whatever nightmare she’d been having.
“Kiska,” he said even more softly as he released her wrists. She curled herself into a tight ball inside the tangled blankets on the floor. Her entire body was shaking. He stroked her hair back from her face. “Did you fall out of the bed?”
“No—no. I can’t sleep on beds. Too soft. I . . .” She almost said something more, but before she could, she seemed to wake enough to realize that she was talking and stopped.
Dimitri understood. Vadym would have kept her in a cell on a hard floor with perhaps only a dirty blanket to cover herself. He wouldn’t have let her use a bed. This was not uncommon with soldiers who returned from war. They were used to hard bunks in military barracks, and when they reentered the civilian world, plush California king mattresses were simply too much. Well, this was stopping tonight. He was not letting her spend one more minute on the floor.
He wrapped his arms around her blanketed body and lifted her up. Then he set her down on her bed again, but he didn’t leave. He pulled the light comforter over his body as he lay down beside her, and then he pulled her into his arms. She was still shaking, but he absorbed her trembling within his own body and held her until she finally stilled.
“Kiska, you will sleep in a bed from now on, do you understand?” he whispered in her ear. She wasn’t asleep, her pulse was still too rapid, but she didn’t argue with him. “And I will hold you like this until whatever haunts your dreams fades away.”
Again she did not argue, but slowly, inch by inch, her body loosened. After what felt like an eternity, her breath slowed and the beat of her heart steadied.
Dimitri lay awake for several long hours. Holding her in his arms like this had awakened something inside him. He’d always been a protective dominant, but how he felt about Elena went beyond lust and desire. It was something deeper, something in her blood that called to his.
When he’d been at the US embassy in Ulaanbaatar, helping Royce and Kenzie get medical care, he’d seen this wisp of a blonde beauty carried to another medical exam room. She had been in shock, her green eyes glazed over with terror and exhaustion.
He had gone unseen, fading into the crowd and shadows as chaos filled the embassy hallways. Later, he’d visited Kenzie while Royce was sleeping off his wounds and heavily sedated. Dimitri had met Kenzie for coffee at the embassy, and they both sat silently for a long moment.
“Kenzie, who is the girl?”
Kenzie’s brown eyes rose warily to his. “Girl?”
“The blonde one who came in with you.”
“That’s Elena Allen.” Kenzie let out a bone-deep sigh and rubbed her closed eyes with her thumb and forefinger. “Vadym abducted her from the very bar you, Royce, and I went to. Held her captive for at least a couple of months.” She met his gaze. “She was raped, tortured, and starved.”
“Vadym did this to her?” Dimitri clarified.
Kenzie nodded.
“Then he is a dead man,” Dimitri promised.
Kenzie’s eyes turned hard. “That’s one promise you had better keep. The world doesn’t need a man like that in it. He’s evil. Even poison is too good for him.”
Dimitri had reached across the table and closed his fingers around Kenzie’s. “He will be erased. I vow it.” Shortly after that conversation, Kenzie, Royce, and Elena had all been transferred to the US embassy in Moscow to make preparations for their return to the States.
Kenzie had no idea how deeply he’d meant that vow. As a member of the White Army, a descendant of those who had once guarded the Romanovs, he lived by his honor, and he would not fail in his promise.
He had been haunted by Elena’s face every moment since. As soon as he had heard that the US embassy in Moscow was ready to return Elena to the States, he had called Royce and set his plan in motion. He would be her shadow, help her heal and move on from the darkness of her past. He was needed back in Russia, but now that he had Elena in his arms, he wasn’t about to let her go, even if that meant turning his back on his life’s work.
As much as he missed his father, he was relieved his father was dead; otherwise, they would have disagreed about this. He would have ordered Dimitri to return to his duties, but Dimitri would have refused. His place in the world was now tied to wherever Elena was.
He was her man until the end, whatever end that may be.
4
Elena’s face was warmed by sunlight, and a cozy feeling of security wrapped around her. She lay there a long while half-asleep, hearing the waves crash upon the sandy shore. The bed beneath her was soft, almost too soft, and she rubbed her cheek against the pillow, breathing in the heavenly scent of a man.
Every bone in her body went still. Her breath halted halfway between her lungs and her lips. Where was she? She cautiously peeped an eye open and found herself in the middle of a California king bed with a fluffy white comforter tucked up to her chin.
Bits and pieces of last night came back to her. She had balled up her bedding on the floor to sleep, and when the nightmares had started, she’d screamed, and then he had come into the room. Dimitri.
He had picked her up and put her on the bed. He had slept with her. She threw back the covers and frantically searched her body. Her T-shirt, cotton shorts, and underwear were all still on. She didn’t feel like she’d been violated. She was positive. After all that Vadym had done to her, she’d become hyperaware of when she had been used. But Dimitri hadn’t used her. His scent clung to the sheets, and after a moment she rubbed her cheek against the pillows as her heart calmed, wanting to imprint that scent deep within her.
Part of her was tempted to lounge about all day, but that wasn’t like her. She retrieved her phone from the nightstand and checked her messages. There was one from Kenzie, reminding her that they needed to video chat when she woke up. She checked that the door to the hall was closed, then called. The other woman answered almost immediately.
“Hey!” Kenzie grinned, but Elena could see the worry in her friend’s eyes.
“Hey, Kenzie.” Elena went out onto the balcony and curled up in a chair facing the sea. She held up her phone to an appropriate angle.
“You got into Royce’s house okay yesterday?”
“Yeah, but . . . Kenzie, you didn’t tell me I would have a roommate.”
Her friend’s face paled. “A what?”
“Some guy named Dimitri Razin. I actually met him on the flight over. He’s nice, but it freaked me out to find he was staying here too. He said he’s a friend of Royce’s?”
Kenzie’s brows drew together. “Royce!” she hollered away from the screen. “Just a second, Elena.” Kenzie set her phone down, and Elena got a view of the marble ceiling. She could just barely hear a conversation in the background.
“You let Dimitri go and stay with her? What the hell were you thinking?”
“He’s a good man. You know that,” Royce countered.
“A good man with a serious kink . . . and you know what he’s like . . . possessive, all alpha male—”
“I didn’t hear you complaining when I shared you with him.”
Elena’s lips parted in shock. Royce and Dimitri had been with Kenzie at the same time? Vadym had never shared her, and that was the one thing she was grateful for. His greed had kept her safe from the added abuse of others.
There was a heartbeat of silence, and Kenzie growled, “I consented to that. Elena is a victim, Royce. You just fed her to a wolf.”
“He won’t touch her, not unless she asks him to, and maybe not even then,” Royce shot back, his voice fading as they moved farther away.
The rest of the conversation wasn’t audible and soon dissolved into angry whispers. Then the phone moved, and Kenzie’s face was visible again, her cheeks red.
“Hey,” she said again, far too casually.
Elena was tempted to pretend she hadn’t heard that argument, but she had and now she had questions.
“Kenzie, who the hell is this guy? You just said he has a serious kink. What did you mean? Can I trust this guy?”
“Yeah, so Dimitri is a friend of Royce’s. He’s really powerful in Russia—we’re talking a ridiculous amount of money and influence—but he’s not like Vadym. He’s a good guy, I swear.”
“You trust him?” Elena asked.
“Yes. With my life,” Kenzie replied without hesitation. “Royce is right. He won’t do anything to you, not unless you ask him to.”
Elena was silent a moment. “And the kink?”
“BDSM,” Kenzie replied. “Like Royce. No sadism, just domination, sometimes bondage and discipline. You aren’t into that, are you? I mean . . . after everything I don’t think anyone could be.”
“I was a little bit,” Elena admitted quietly. “Before Vadym.” It was the first time she’d said his name without it causing her physical pain and anxiety.
Kenzie didn’t respond.
“Why is he here? He fed me a line about being here for work.”
“Royce said he is looking to protect some valuable assets or something. If I can find out more, I’ll let you know. And you let me know if I need to give Dimitri the boot. The whole point was for you to have a safe place to relax and pull yourself together, you know?”
Elena turned her gaze away from the sea and back toward the bed where she had slept through the night—unharmed in Dimitri’s arms.
“I think I’m okay for now,” she finally said.
“Well, you call me immediately if that changes, okay?”
“Okay.” Elena ended the call and watched the waves roll in for a long time. There was a peace to be had in watching the blue water fall in on itself and transform into pale foaming tides that drifted in and out from the shore.
It was nearly noon when her stomach grumbled and she checked the time on her phone. She used to have a pretty silver watch, one her father had given her for her eighteenth birthday. But Vadym’s henchman, Jov Tomenko, had stolen it and then lost it in some card game. The memory of that night made her fresh hunger briefly fade.
After a quick shower and a change of clothes, she decided she couldn’t avoid seeing Dimitri again. She came downstairs, her steps quiet on the marble floor. She padded through room after room.
He wasn’t here . . .
The thought that he’d left, that he hadn’t said a word about leaving, left her feeling shaken. He’d promised to be here . . . She started to tremble.
She heard the front door click open. She tensed, suddenly rooted to the ground where she stood. Her stomach seized and her hands clenched as she readied herself for fight or flight. A moment later, Dimitri came inside and closed the door; the tension inside her bled away.
“Ah, good, you’re awake. Do you want lunch?” He held up a bag of Mexican fast food.
“Tacos?” Her mouth immediately watered. After pizza, tacos were her favorite food.
“Yes, I hoped you would like them.” He nodded toward the kitchen, and she joined him. He looked more intense today somehow. Perhaps it was the darker clothing he wore, dark-blue jeans and a black T-shirt and boots. Yesterday he’d seemed almost serene, but now she realized he was letting her see a new side to him, perhaps the real side. The old Elena would have been hooked on him like catnip.
“I, uh, do . . .” She wasn’t sure what was making her mouth water more, the sight of the taco bag or the sight of him.
“Please sit. I’ll get our plates.”
His gentle but commanding tone had her instantly responding by dropping into the nearest chair at the table. She frowned at her own response.
“Dimitri, last night . . . ,” she started uncertainly. “You came into my room.”
“I did.” He set a plate of three tacos in front of her.
“You touched me.”
“I picked you up while you were enduring a nightmare. You were on the floor.”
She shook her head in frustration, not even sure what she was trying to say. “You stayed in my bed.”
“You needed to be held, kiska. Whatever happened to you, it was bad, perhaps the worst thing a person can endure. I knew only what I could offer you last night would help you. If you let me, I can be a good friend to you.”
“I’m not going to just let you in my bed. We will never have sex. That’s off the table.”
She had to make this man understand. She couldn’t have some casual hookup or fling. Even if she wanted him in that way, it wouldn’t be possible. Her body couldn’t handle being touched like that ever again.
“I am only a friend,” Dimitri said. “You needed someone to help keep you grounded last night. That is all I did, and I do not expect anything from you.” He pointed at her plate. “Now, please eat.”
Still scowling a little, she pulled her plate close and picked up one of the tacos. It tasted like the food of the gods. A moan of pleasure escaped her lips. When she glanced at Dimitri, he was staring at her.
She swallowed audibly. He’d said he would only be a friend . . . but a man who looked like him didn’t live as a monk, and apparently he’d been involved in a three-way with her friends Kenzie and Royce. She made a mental note not to let herself be attracted to him. She couldn’t handle it if he changed his mind and wanted more.
“I thought you might want to shop for clothes,” Dimitri said. “I imagine you had only winter clothes in Moscow?”
“Yeah, I could do with some shopping.” She finished her tacos and put the plate in the dishwasher. He joined her, his hard body warm next to hers as he stood so close. She waited for the inevitable wave of panic, but it didn’t come. He placed a hand on her arm, and she turned to look up at him.
“Would you mind if I go with you? I could use some distraction and activity.”
“I . . .” She had every right to say no, but she didn’t want to. While she might not know him well, she had two friends who could vouch for him, and she wanted to trust them and her own gut, which told her he was safe. “Okay. Could you be ready to leave in ten minutes?”
“Yes.” He put his dishes away. “I’ll drive.”
“Wait, you have a car?”
“A rental. You asked how I got here before you did. Cabs often take a longer route to make their fares higher.”
It made sense; her cab fare had been steep.
“I’ll be back down in a bit.” She raced upstairs and retrieved her purse, plus her new driver’s license. Vadym had burned all the documents in her purse. Her passport had been in her Moscow apartment and left untouched, but everything else had been destroyed. She’d gotten some cash from the embassy, but it would be a few days before her replacement credit and debit cards would arrive. She would have to shop at a thrift store.
Dimitri was waiting for her by the front door. He held up a set of car keys.
“Read
y?”
She nodded and put a hand on her purse, which was slung over one shoulder. The moment she got outside, she halted at the sight of the car waiting in front of her.
“Is that . . . ?”
“It is,” Dimitri replied casually. He opened the passenger door of the Aston Martin for her. It was a sleek silver-gray sports car with ice-blue headlights.
“Where did you rent a car like this? You couldn’t have gotten it from the airport.” The sudden implausibility of his story raised more warning bells. Dimitri gunned the engine to life, and the initial rumble softened to a seductive purr.
“You’re right. This is an Aston Martin One-77, worth about 1.4 million. I borrowed it from a friend. He dropped it off for me in short-term parking at the airport. All I had to do was pick it up.”
“So you’re like crazy rich or something, aren’t you?” She relaxed her death grip on her purse a little.
Dimitri chuckled as they backed out of the driveway. “Or something.”
“I’m beginning to think you like being an a mystery man,” she muttered. “Just promise me you aren’t some Russian spy, okay? I really can’t handle that right now.”
Dimitri let out a deep laugh full of genuine delight.
“Kiska, you are too much. No, I am no spy.” He grew a little more serious when he said that. He shifted gears, and the car shot down the street.
She changed the subject. “So, if you can find the nearest thrift store, that would be great.”
He arched a dark brow and shot her a glance. “Thrift store?”
“Yeah, I’m on a budget. I lost all my credit cards and stuff in Moscow.” Elena fiddled with the buckle on her purse strap, too embarrassed to meet his eyes. It was pathetic that she would rather have him assume she was the type of person to lose things than tell him the truth.
“No thrift stores,” Dimitri said.
“But I can’t—”
He lifted up his wallet and waved it. “Please. Consider it a gift from a friend.”
“No, no, thank you. I really can’t.” This time she looked at his face. That was a mistake. There was such a harsh beauty to his features.
