The Player

by Kresley Cole

  I wanted to explore everything, but, as ever, Dmitri drew my gaze. I skipped over to him. "You are the best husband ever!" Oh, I could tell he liked that. "This is the nicest, most thoughtful thing anyone has ever done for me." I went up on my toes to kiss him. "How did you know what to buy?"

  "I contacted the head designer at Chanel for advice."

  I laughed, then realized he might be serious. "That wasn't a joke?"

  "No, love. It wasn't."

  "How did you get this set up so quickly?"

  "Money expedited delivery." His standard answer. "I'll show you my favorite part." He said, "Touch screen." That blank wall lit up, resembling a thirty-foot-wide computer screen, with icons of various design programs!

  With a tight wave of his hand, the image changed, becoming an enormous canvas. "Here." He pulled a stylus from his pocket and handed it to me. "You can draw ideas and save them. The lines can be all colors and different widths. There's shading as well."

  I tentatively drew a couple of lines and then, getting bolder, the basic shape of a dress model. "Oh, fuck me. Now we are cooking with gas."

  "I . . . are we?"

  "Just a saying," I said absently, adding more contrast. I quickly figured out how to change colors, and started to outline an idea that had been tickling at my brain.

  When I'd gotten the basics down, I stepped back to view my sketch, only then becoming aware how quiet the room was. I turned to Dmitri.

  He was sitting on the couch near the door, elbows on his knees, watching me avidly. And he was hard.

  He gave me his charming shrug, the one that said, Can't help it. "You're utterly irresistible when you design."

  I set aside the stylus and sashayed over to him.

  "I want to watch you whenever you're in this studio," he told me, his voice husky. "So I take back what I said earlier. This couch is my favorite part of the room."

  My gaze drank in his proud face. Somehow over the last month, he'd grown even more handsome. His eyes were glimmering with satisfaction, his body ready to pleasure mine.

  And yet a wave of sadness washed over me. Dmitri Sevastyan was too thoughtful, too attentive and intelligent and sexy and caring. He was too . . .

  Perfect.

  His gift overwhelmed me. This life overwhelmed me.

  Earlier, I'd called Karin from the restroom of a seaside souvenir shop, in the middle of what must've been a panic attack. "I can barely breathe."

  "Are you going to confess?"

  "How can I risk it?" I would never tell her the tragic details of his past, so she couldn't understand how badly my betrayal would wound Dmitri. "What would happen if I lost him?"

  Her tone grew distant. "You find ways to go on."

  My poor sister.

  "Maybe he cares about you enough to forgive you."

  "To forgive all of us." I still didn't know who'd placed Brett in Dmitri's path, making Dmitri lose his ever-loving mind to jealousy.

  "Hon, it's been a month. Something's got to give."

  She was right. Talking on the phone to my pack of scoundrels a few times a week was like putting a Band-Aid on a sucking chest wound. Hearing Cash's laughter . . .

  As I waited for the answer to my dilemma, the days slipped by.

  "Vika?" Dmitri rose and peered down at me, clearly struggling to read me.

  I gazed up at him. I didn't want to love someone who would end up hurting me--or being hurt by me; yet I was on the brink of falling totally in love with Dmitri.

  Again, I couldn't catch my breath. Freaked out and on edge, I could envision every scenario in the world except one: us living happily ever after.

  You can't cheat fate.

  My survival instinct kicked in--because if he left me, I'd be broken, a shell of myself, forever replaying this dream I'd once had.

  I backed up a step--a grifter sensing the biggest snare of them all--and muttered, "I'll, uh, lemme go make a call."

  "You're doing it again. The more I try to please you, the more you distance yourself. Tell--me--why."

  I just needed to hit the pause button for a bit. I forced myself to turn and walk away.

  Something's got to give.

  I'd made it to the hall when he clamped my arm and pulled me around. I craned my head up to take in his fierce expression, his crazed eyes.

  "You're not going anywhere."

  "I need a minute--"

  "I can't goddamned read you! Except for when I'm pleasuring you." He fisted the material of my dress. "Then you let me see everything." With a yell, he ripped my dress clean from my body.

  I swallowed, shaken by the sudden ferocity of his emotions--of my emotions.

  "Then you hold nothing back!"

  "Dmitri, wait!"

  My bra and thong joined the torn dress on the floor.

  I cried out when he swung me up into his arms, cupping my ass in his hot palms. The intensity seething inside him should've frightened me; my legs locked around his waist, my arms around his neck, his shirt abrading my stiff nipples.

  When he yanked his fly open and shoved his pants down his thighs, my pussy was already wet for him.

  "You are maddening me, woman." He planted me on his shaft, shuddering with every inch he forced inside me. "Ah, God, Victoria!"

  I moaned as my slickened sheath welcomed him home.

  He pressed me against the wall, his lips crashing into mine, his tongue seeking. But he hadn't moved his hips.

  Between kisses, he snatched off his shirt. With his bared chest rubbing against my breasts, he kissed me aggressively, tonguing me, as if his mouth fucked mine. But he still hadn't thrust.

  How was he fighting that primal need? He'd given me his cock, yet held it back from me, leaving me aching for more.

  The point wasn't lost on me.

  He broke the kiss to run his lips up my neck. "You're pulling away from me." At my ear, he groaned, "Don't."

  "I'm not--"

  "Don't lie to me!" He leaned down to lick my tits, nipping them with his white teeth, sucking the delicate flesh between his merciless lips.

  As he tormented my breasts in a frenzy, I could only clutch his shoulders and beg, "More."

  He squeezed me, pinching my nipples hard.

  I cried out, frantic for him to move inside me. "I need you! Please."

  He stood fully. Sweat dotted his skin, beading his upper lip. His hips slicked my inner thighs. "Look at my marks all over your breasts."

  I glanced down. Stark love bites covered them, circling my areolas. At the sight, I helplessly rocked on his cock.

  "No!" He pulled me from the wall and slapped my ass. "Feel what it's like to need more."

  "Ahhh!" The sting nearly brought me off.

  He coiled his arms around me, tightening his ruthless embrace. "I am obsessed with you." He said this the way another man might say, I am in love with you. "Feel the same way toward me! Want me like you want your next fucking breath!" When I leaned in to kiss his neck and taste his sweat, his head tipped back and he groaned, "Think of nothing but me. . . ."

  "Please, Dmitri!" I could feel him throbbing inside me! I drummed my heels into his ass.

  "You belong to me alone." When he nipped my neck, my pussy quivered around his cock. "I want to belong to you as well!"

  In spite of my emotions--or because of them--I was about to come, tension gathering inside me.

  "Why haven't you given me a goddamned ring?"

  Because this dream had to end.

  "Why?"

  I threaded my fingers through his hair, tugging him to meet my eyes. It was on the tip of my tongue to cry, "Any move I make is the wrong one--because I'm falling in love with you!" But I couldn't.

  He could tell I was holding back. His fingertips bit into my ass, and his eyes went even wilder. "Fucking give me something!"

  When I could only whimper, he abruptly pulled out of me, holding me poised over his cock.

  I gasped. "Nooo! Come back--please!"

  In a menacing tone, he said,
"Do you feel empty inside? Cold?" He looked insane. "It doesn't have to be this way, does it? What you need is so close you can feel it."

  I mindlessly undulated for him. "Dmitri?" I couldn't think!

  "You are so close to me, Vika, but just out of reach. When I would kill for this--" He rammed his cock home, impaling me.

  "Ah, God!" My head lolled.

  He bucked his hips, pounding upward. Then again. Deeper. And again. Deeper. He was punishing me, his muscles rippling as he fucked. "Give me something of yourself!"

  My tits rubbed his unyielding chest. My pussy tightened around him, readying to come. Excruciating pleasure/pressure mounted. Between breaths, I cried, "Dmitri! It's too much . . . too strong."

  What my body was about to do scared me.

  What my heart was about to do scared me.

  He shoved into me with all his might. "Give me something! Goddamn it, anything!"

  The truth spilled out: "I'm afraid!"

  Astonishment. He eased his feverish pace until he was slowly grinding me. He knew I was talking about more than one thing. "Moya zhena, just let it happen. I will always take care of you." He was talking about more than one thing too. "Can you do that?"

  Panting, I said, "I want to. I-I'm trying."

  He nodded. Lips thinned, jaw set, he accelerated his rhythm. He swelled inside me to the limit as he plunged harder and harder, relentless. "Let go, love." At my ear, he groaned, "I've got you. . . ."

  My orgasm hit me with the force of a shockwave. I threw back my head and cried, "Dmitri!" That agonizing pressure gave way, wrenching a scream from my lungs.

  My mind blanked. I floated; I begged. I dimly heard him telling me I would be his forever. That he would fight for heaven. That I was making him spend so hard I'd feel his cum like a thrust.

  I was still climaxing when his shaft pulsated inside me.

  His back bowed, his mighty body racked with pleasure. To the sound of his tortured bellows, he shot his hot semen hard and deep--just like his thrusts.

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  After washing and putting on a robe, I returned from the bathroom. Outside, a breeze swept the fog from the grounds, rain beginning to fall.

  Dressed in jeans, he sat on the edge of the bed, elbows on his knees, head in his hands. He'd done the same on our wedding night, when he'd believed he could never have sex with me. "Did I . . . did I hurt you?" He sounded wretched. "The marks I left . . ."

  In the bathroom, I'd run my fingers over them, getting hot all over again. I sat beside him, putting my hand on his back. "Have you seen your shoulders, big guy?" I pressed kisses to the claw marks across one. "I used you for a scratching post."

  He gave a strained laugh.

  "You're not capable of hurting me," I said without a doubt.

  "But I'm not capable of making you content either." He raised his anguished face to me. "I don't have any experience with this. Tell me how to make you happy. If taught, I can learn."

  Realization struck, and I knew I'd remember this moment for the rest of my life.

  He is in love with me.

  No longer could I call it obsession. Or craziness. Over the last four weeks, he truly had fallen. "You are perfect, Dmitri. It's me and my baggage that's the problem."

  He drew back with a scowl. "Perfect? Even after what I told you?"

  "More so. You revealed a traumatic past you've worked hard to overcome. One you're triumphing over. You're so much more than your past."

  Sheer adoration shone in his eyes. And Lady Luck help me, I was close to returning it.

  "Then why have you grown distant? You tell me little of yourself. You long for your family, but won't visit them. You get antsy after every gift I buy you, though you know how much money we have. Vika, why are you afraid?"

  I would give him part of the truth. "I was raised to believe if something seems too good to be true, it is. And I'm superstitious as hell. Put those two together, and I'm waiting for the other shoe to drop." Lightning flared outside, as if to punctuate my statement. I warily noted it before returning my gaze to him.

  "I don't understand."

  "It's too good. I went from having no man to having one who amazes me every second. I went from cocktail waitressing and eviction notices to all this." I waved around. "The whole situation feels like reaching for the stars, which is something I never do."

  Tension eased from him, moment by moment. "Why?"

  "Because that would involve taking my eyes off the road and my hands off the wheel. Great way to crash." The rain intensified, pouring along the coast.

  He shifted closer to me, hope growing in his eyes. "How do we get past your superstition?"

  "This feels like a dream, and all dreams have to end--"

  "Why do they have to end?"

  Not a rhetorical question. He wanted me to explain this? "I don't know why. I just know they always have before."

  "You say I'm more than my past. Why can't your dreams be more than the ones that ended?"

  I didn't have an answer for that. "Dmitri, what if I'm not good enough for you?"

  He looked baffled. "I've told you what you are to me. How you've affected me mentally and physically. Emotionally."

  "I'm not responsible for that--you are. You got therapy for years, and you worked so hard to improve your life; you still do. All the changes you made must have helped you overcome the dissociation." I could tell he didn't agree, but wasn't going to argue his point. "Now that you're able to stay present, maybe you could find someone else. Someone who's more like Lucia and Natalie."

  Someone who isn't rotten from all the secrets burrowing inside her.

  He blinked. "I don't follow."

  "They're both rich and educated. I couldn't pick them apart with a fork."

  He squared his shoulders. "You are rich and talented and brilliant and exquisitely beautiful. You're an artist."

  Yeah, a con artist. A breed apart.

  Dmitri insisted, "I'm far from perfect."

  I sighed, giving him a sad smile. "Not from where I'm sitting, big guy."

  He narrowed his eyes. "I believe I am ready to tell you more about my past. I wasn't entirely forthcoming." His tone was threatening--as if he intended to hit me with a fatal imperfection.

  "Did you lie?" No, I would've caught him.

  "I've never lied to you. But what I'm about to tell you involves another. His secret has been safe with me for twenty-three years, never repeated outside of my family. I will share it with you now."

  He'd definitely piqued my curiosity. "Okay. I'll keep the secret to the grave."

  Nod. "I told you Orloff died. Which is true. But he was murdered." Another bolt of lightning flashed.

  I schooled my expression. "Who did it?"

  "My brother and I."

  CHAPTER 34

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  My mind raced as I got my bearings with this bombshell. Orloff had died when Dmitri had been about nine. Maksim would've barely been a teenager. How do I respond to this? I settled on: "Will you tell me more?"

  Dmitri ran his fingers through his hair. "When Orloff beat my brother and locked him in the cellar, the violence sent me deeper into dissociation; my isolation with Orloff kept me under, until I rarely surfaced. Maksim was down there in the dark for months, suffering, blaming himself for not protecting me. The night of a bitter freeze, I finally woke. Maybe the wind battering the window brought me back. Maybe it was that fuck's smug behavior--he knew Maksim would die."

  Orloff had fully planned to murder an innocent boy. Maksim must've been so terrified.

  "I knew I had to save my brother somehow. When I tried to get the key from the man's pocket, he woke, but I was prepared. Earlier, I'd gone outside and brought in a snow shovel. I hit Orloff with all my might. I freed Maks, and we . . . we strangled the man before he could ever wake," Dmitri said, his gaz
e clocking my face for clues.

  I wanted to shake him: "You felt guilty about this? You carried this weight? Shuck it right now!"

  He swallowed. "I have no idea how you're reacting."

  I chose my words more carefully. "That psychopath forced you and Maksim to defend yourselves. You two were so incredibly brave."

  As if I were missing his point, he said, "I helped kill a man. In the same situation, I would do it again."

  "Do you think I would've done less if I could've saved Benji from the horrors he suffered? Those men are still out there, Dmitri. And we have to live with that knowledge. You and Maksim prevented a homicidal monster from preying on other children, yet no one will ever know you're heroes." I cupped his face.

  As he'd done the first night, he leaned into my touch. "Heroes?"

  "If someone had prevented Orloff from ever putting his sights on you, what would you have called that person?"

  He drew back. "I never thought of it that way."

  "It's crystal clear to me. Thank you for trusting me with this."

  His brow furrowed. "That's it?" His shoulder and neck muscles tensed, his frustration welling.

  "If you told me this to make me see you in a worse light, then you did just the opposite."

  He shot to his feet, exasperated. "I have other secrets. My family has mafiya ties."

  Come again? "You're saying your family operates outside the law?"

  "After Kovalev's death, Aleks took over the man's position as a vor, a very powerful man in the mafiya."

  Dr. Nat's father had been involved in organized crime? Aleks presently was? "What does he run?" Guns, drugs, girls? All of the above?

  "Nothing. He is a former enforcer who is paid for protection. Maksim had political connections to the mafiya as well."

  Unbelievable. "And you?"

  "I have drawn on Aleks's power and influence."

  "To help you with those crucial business dealings," I said. "What were they?"

  Dmitri seemed to be taking my measure. "You'll get no more secrets out of me, not until you start sharing your own."

  How could our investigation of the Sevastyans fail to turn up even a whisper of this? "Wouldn't there be something online?"

  "I've kept a tight rein on that information. Over the last year, I've used a great deal of money and skill to bury our backgrounds."

  I frowned. "Why did you tell me these things now?"