by SR Jones
“Cassie.” I keep my voice even. “I don’t give a fuck about Liza, or that she lied to me and screwed Denis.” I’m flat out lying to myself right now.
I don’t care for Liza, but no one wants to be fucked over in such a way. It’s Denis’ betrayal that burns the most. He’s the one I’ll make suffer, the thick bastard. Liza will simply be collateral damage.
“All I need to know is what the fuck happened.”
I’m losing my restraint on my temper, and she surely senses it because she glances at me again, and the fear is back.
Jesus fucking Christ, what do I have to do to make her talk?
Suddenly, I get an idea. A crazy one, but an idea. “Cassie,” I say. She looks at me.
“Stand up.”
She does as I say.
“Come over here, and let’s sit on the sofa.” I take hold of her hand, and she shoots me an astonished glance, but she doesn’t pull her hand away; instead, she sinks it deeper into my hold.
When we reach the sofa, I gently push her down by her shoulders.
“Do you remember what I told you to call me in the office?” I say. My voice is calm, but commanding.
“Sir?” She sounds confused now.
“Yes. Call me that.”
“I don’t understand.”
“You don’t need to,” I reply.
“Okay … sir.”
“Good girl.” And there it is again, the almost imperceptible relaxation at the praise. Or maybe, at the phrase. Who knows? I don’t have time to psychoanalyze her right now. All I know is it works.
“Cassie, can you do what I tell you? Answer yes, sir if you can.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Okay. Good. Now, I need you to tell me exactly what happened, the rest of it. Do you understand?”
“Yes, sir.”
I squeeze her shoulder gently as a sign she’s doing good. “Good girl. Just let it all out and tell me what happened.”
This time she starts to talk, and she’s calmer, clearer. When she’s finished telling me that the baby is Denis’, and how Liza and he are planning on running off together to an island in South America, I’m imagining cutting off Denis’ dick and making Liza eat it before I blow both their brains out.
I realize I’ve tuned Cassie out in my bloodlust fantasy, but her next words make me see red.
“That’s when Denis hit me with his gun. I wouldn’t do it. I wouldn’t transfer the money, so he hit me with the gun, and he said … he said. He threatened to…”
“What? You can tell me; it’s okay.”
“He said he’d rape me, and Liza … she just laughed. He pulled my hair, he hit me with the gun, and he said he’d fuck me in the ass. Those were his words. I think he meant it; he was beside himself, scared. Liza was goading him on. So I did it. I’m sorry. I know I’ve fucked up so bad. Twice now. More than twice. I transferred the money he demanded.”
“How much?” My voice is a whisper, but it’s one of pure, incandescent rage.
“Three million.”
Three million pounds. Those two fuckers took three million pounds from me?
But it’s not that which has me so angry I could explode with the power of a fucking nuclear bomb. No, it’s the fact that Denis hit Cassie hard enough to give her what is going to be a very nasty bruise. He also pulled her hair, and he threatened to sodomize her, and Liza, that disgusting bitch, egged him on. I’m going to hunt them down and punish them with biblical vengeance.
“Are you going to kill me?” She looks at me, her gaze so damn forlorn, her sun almost eclipsed.
“What? No, no. Why would you think that?”
“Because I’ve caused you so much trouble.”
I sigh. “With Popov, you caused me trouble. With this? You didn’t do anything.”
“I gave them your money.”
“I don’t give a damn about the money,” I say truthfully.
“It’s so much. So much. Have I … has it bankrupted you?” More tears form in her eyes, and I swear I never want to see this gorgeous woman cry again.
Then her words sink in, and I start to laugh. I can’t help it.
“What’s so funny?” she says. As I laugh some more, she starts to smile through her unshed tears.
“Bankrupt me? Three million?”
“Yes, I mean, it’s an awful lot of money.”
“Cassie, it’s mere change to me.”
Her smile falters, and she pales some more. “Are you being serious right now, or are you fucking with me?”
“I’m being deadly serious. It’s nothing. A drop in the ocean.”
“My God,” she breathes.
“You did good. Thank you for telling me everything, and I’m sorry one of my men hurt you. That’s on me.”
“It’s not on you.” She looks at me, and her soft, pretty eyes are so damn beautiful I can’t look away.
I brush the hair back from her face and look at her jaw again, running my finger along the bruise that’s forming. “Does it hurt?” I ask softly.
“Yeah, some.”
Not knowing what possesses me, knowing I shouldn’t do this, I lean in and place a softer than soft kiss on the skin where it’s red and purple.
She closes her eyes, sighs, and leans into my touch.
There’s so much betrayal between us. She lied to me about her ability. I made her do something by using her grandfather’s illness against her, when I could have afforded to pay for his treatment, and it would have been like buying a Starbuck’s to me. She’ll figure it out one day, and she’ll hate me, but right now, we’re taking comfort in one another’s touch.
I pull back, just an inch or two, and look at her. Her gaze is open, and her lips are slightly parted. Those full, luscious lips that I’ve fantasized about since the first moment I saw her serving coffee are open like a flower. This woman has been put in my path repeatedly, and it must mean something. Or so I tell myself in this moment.
I lower my mouth to hers and taste what I’ve been coveting for so damn long.
She’s warm, soft, and her mouth tastes of brandy and salt from her tears. It’s an odd combination, but it’s heady.
I deepen the kiss, pressing my lips against hers a little harder, and it’s like kissing a cloud, her lips are so soft. She sighs and makes a tiny whimper at the back of her throat, which only makes me yearn for more. I want to take her to the floor and sink into her. I don’t want to just fuck her. I want to take her apart and annihilate anyone who came before me.
Instead, I wrestle the last bit of my self-control and pick her up. She squeaks, but I kiss the top of her head.
“I’m taking you to bed. You’ve had a horrible day, a shock, and you probably need a doctor.”
“No doctor,” she whispers. “Please.”
I carry her up the stairs, and my heart swells when she wraps her arms around me and buries her face in my neck, pliant and trusting.
For the longest time now, I’ve wanted to become king of all I survey, for reasons I didn’t fully understand. People call me King K, or King Konstantin, but I wanted more. I wanted to be a genuine fucking force to be reckoned with. The king of not just Moscow, but London too. With this woman in my arms, I already feel like a king. She makes me feel like the most powerful man on earth.
It’s heady and dangerous, and I could get addicted to it.
I can’t go there.
I have enemies on all sides now, and I can’t afford a distraction like Cassie.
For my own sake as well as hers, I need to back off. At least until I know more about who and what are in play against me. I need to focus.
A good fuck will help you focus, the devil on my shoulder says.
Not with her, the angel of my better nature supplies. Besides, it goes on, she’s injured, terrified, in shock.
For once, listening to my better side, I place her under the covers of the bed in the room I’ve given her and give her one last kiss, this time on her forehead.
I assure her
she’s not in any trouble, and tell her I will send Derek up to see if she needs anything, then I go to find Vasily.
I’ve got a war opening up on two fronts now, and I need to plan.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Cassie
I can’t sleep. It’s two am, and my mind is racing. I can’t breathe too well either. It’s as if my lungs have sand in them. I’ve never experienced this before, and I think I might be having the mother of all panic attacks.
My jaw throbs where Denis hit me, and my breast hurts. He grabbed me there, but I didn’t share that snippet of information with Konstantin. Too ashamed. When I got undressed for bed, after Konstantin left, I looked and saw horrid bruises where his massive sausage fingers gripped my flesh. He laughed as he squeezed, and I cried out in pain. Then he made his threats to me, of what he’d do to me before he shot me if I didn’t transfer the money.
I cried as I transferred the money from Konstantin to Denis and Liza.
I should hate Konstantin because without him in my life I’d be at home and safe, but I don’t. In fact, my foolish body seems to crave him still, and not simply in a sexual sense. Something about him, his scent, his warmth, it makes me feel safe. I’ve never felt as protected as those few moments when he carried me in his arms.
Am I suffering Stockholm Syndrome? Cleaving to the least dangerous person in a group of very dangerous men? Well, no, that’s not correct. Konstantin is the most dangerous of them all, but something tells me not to me. Whereas Vasily would probably quite happily shoot me and have done with the stress of having me here, and Denis is under Liza’s vile control, Konstantin is his own man. He rules the castle here, and he seems to like me alive.
Sometimes he looks at me, and I see attraction there. I know I do. I haven’t made it up or imagined it. He likes me, maybe despite himself. Maybe despite not wanting to.
I shiver. It’s not objectively cold in the room, but I can’t get warm. There’s a bone-deep chill in me, and I can’t stop freaking out about what is going to happen to me. What if Denis comes back and attacks the house? I shudder.
Konstantin would protect me. It’s something I’m sure of.
He kissed me.
What a kiss it was. In one kiss he turned me on more than any other man has. I’m not surprised, though. He did the same with mere glances and smiles when I first knew him as nothing more than a dark and mysterious regular at the coffee shop.
Add in the danger of the last few days, and I’m sure my adrenaline levels are sky high. I read somewhere once that being fearful or in dangerous situations can enhance libidos, and that’s why there were so many war babies.
I turn over and gasp as my poor abused breast rubs against the mattress. There’s a part of me, a tiny, vindictive part that quite wants to see Denis beaten to a pulp for what he’s done, but I swallow that down. It’s not kind to want such a thing, and I always try to be kind. The world needs more of it, not less.
I don’t always succeed, but I try.
Liza. What will happen to her? I can’t stand her, I have to say, but I don’t want her hurt or killed, and most certainly not while she’s carrying a child. If Konstantin killed her right now, I don’t think I could bear it. Not only would the death of a pregnant woman haunt me forever, but it would kill any feelings I have for him.
I couldn’t love a man who did that to a woman. Wait… Love? I don’t love him. I laugh at the thought, but it dies on my lips. Maybe I do, in some sick way. I certainly crave him.
Another shiver wracks me. I can’t sleep. I can’t even bear lying here alone, in the dark. I’m scared. And I’m so damn lonely. I miss my friends and my grandparents.
Not even thinking, I simply react. I get out of bed, wearing a long t-shirt nightdress that was part of the latest haul of clothes to come my way, and pad out of the room.
I head down the corridor to the room I know houses Konstantin.
I’m like a silent ghost. A needy, pathetic ghoul, craving the comfort of the living, even if the man I seek is the one responsible for this purgatory I live in.
The very man who created the loneliness and despair I feel right now is the one I’m gravitating to. And if that doesn’t make me fucked up, I don’t know what does.
I reach his door, and for a long while simply stand there, unsure, scared, desperate. Needy for a kind word, a comforting touch, some human warmth.
My hand reaches out and turns the handle, my breath held. I half expect it to be locked, but it isn’t.
The door opens without a sound, and I tiptoe into the room.
The curtains are open, and soft moonlight highlights the space, casting everything in an ethereal silver glow. It’s almost otherworldly, which suits me because I can fool myself that this insane moment doesn’t count. I’m not really crawling into the arms of my captor. I haven’t become such a pathetic wretch that any port in a storm will do. No, it’s not really me. None of this is real, it’s simply some strange dream-like interlude.
I stare at the big, bulky form under the sheet on the bed. He’s got one arm raised above his head, and his head is turned in the opposite direction. His other arm is out of the sheet, and even in this light I can see it’s tan against the pale cotton.
Walking as silently as I can, I approach the bed and gaze down at him.
He’s beautiful.
I sit on the floor, cross legged, and simply watch him. His breathing is deep and regular, his face more severe in repose, and it was severe enough before. His lashes are thick and dark, and it should be a crime for any man to own such decadence.
They’re the sort of lashes women pay big money to get from beauty salons or cosmetic companies who promise the earth. He owns them naturally. His bone structure is flawless too. He doesn’t have the beauty of someone like Vasily, who looks like a model. No one would ever think Konstantin a model. He’s far too big, too masculine, too harsh for that, but his beauty is there, in the dips and planes of his face. I like the way his harsh mouth softens in sleep, but his cheeks hollow more, giving him a leaner appearance. I could watch him all night, but that would be too weird, even for me.
I sigh and push myself up to my feet, and the next moment, I find myself up against the wall in a chokehold, a gun against my head.
I can’t breathe. I also can’t think. It happened so fast. How did he move so quickly? Where did the gun come from?
“Christ, Cassie, what the fuck?” Konstantin lets go of me immediately and steps back, making the gun safe, and places it under the pillow next to the one he was asleep on. So that’s where it came from. Wow, he’s a paranoid man.
I take in some shaky breaths and touch my throat. I’m going to be black and blue at this rate.
“What the fuck are you doing?” he asks.
“I’m … scared.” I hate saying it. Would rather he had stayed asleep so I could simply watch him like the creeper I’m becoming.
“And you thought you’d creep into my room, and what?” He stares at me, his face hardening. “What were you going to do?”
“Nothing,” I say.
“Bullshit. You didn’t come in here to do nothing. What were you looking for?”
He’s getting angry. This man is already paranoid enough to sleep with a gun under his pillow, and now one of his closest men has run off with his ex-girlfriend, after robbing him. Yet I thought it was a good idea to come and watch him sleep? Yeah, I’ve lost my mind.
“I really didn’t come here looking for anything. Nothing other than you,” I whisper. The admission coats my throat with sticky shame.
He blinks at me in the moonlight, twice in rapid succession as if unsure he’s heard me correctly.
“I just need… I can’t get warm,” I say.
“Let me go to the thermostat.” He moves to go past me, but I grab his arm, stopping him.
My fingers linger on his forearm with its thick muscle and smattering of hair. He’s got the best hands and forearms I’ve ever seen. Who would have thought something as simple as
a man’s hands could be so erotic?
My fingers are pale in the moonlight against his darker tan skin. They’re small too, particularly against his size, and could be child’s hands when seen against his massive forearms and strong wrists. I want those arms around me, warming me, keeping me safe.
“It’s not the kind of cold the thermostat can fix,” I say.
“Cassie, if you get in this bed, I’ll fuck you. Is that what you want?”
It is, normally. Tonight, though, I’m far too fragile.
“Yes, it is.”
He sucks in a breath.
Then I add, “But not now. I’m a mess tonight, Konstantin. I hurt.”
“Your face?” he says.
I nod, and don’t add that my breast is so painful, I’m scared Denis has done some damage.
“Can you… Will you just hold me? Please?” I look into his beautiful eyes and wait for what seems like an eternity.
Then he turns from me, and I notice he’s wearing black boxer-briefs. I also notice for the first time his firm behind, and for a moment I regret my decision to turn down sex. Until my arm brushes my breast, and I wince.
“Get in,” Konstantin says, indicating the bed.
I don’t know if he’s going to hold me or fuck me, but I give him my trust and climb into the bed. He gets in after me, and a moment later those big arms wrap around me. His body comes up behind me, and he’s so warm. He shares his heat with me, finally helping chase away the frigid chill that settled deep down into my soul.
“I miss my grandparents and my friends,” I say.
“I know,” he whispers against my ear.
“I want to be free again.”
“I know, Cassie, but we can’t always have what we want.”
I sigh and snuggle further into him, letting my jailer become my comforter.
“It’s not safe,” he says then, with a softness to his tone that’s normally wholly missing. “I’m not keeping you here for fun and games, Cassie. Christ, you fuck with my head. It would be better all-around if you were gone. I can’t let you go, though.”
