by Lea Griffith
Bone stood and raised her hand to Arrow. Arrow automatically grabbed it.
“You should never trust a killer,” she whispered.
Arrow smiled and cocked her head, tugging slightly on her arm but Bone was too fast. She pulled Arrow into her body, spinning her around and catching her around the throat. She wove one of her legs between Arrow’s, hooking one of them and effectively trapping the taller woman. Then she took her sister to the ground and choked her until the other woman tapped but the lust didn’t abate.
Bullet punched her in the head, kicked her viciously in the side first and finally her elbow. That elbow deadened, and Bone released Arrow who rose to her hands and knees, struggling to draw in breath.
“Stop!”
It was a harsh command from three different men.
Bone could not stop, the taste was in her mouth, the desire to maim in her blood, and she turned on Bullet, striking blow after blow, tearing into the other woman with unmatched fierceness.
Bullet finally took a knee, lifted her face, blue eyes nearly black as she waited for Bone to finish her. That was when Bone realized she had lost control. Everything stopped—Bullet, Arrow, Bone’s heart. She fell to her knees and bowed her head.
“Sisters, forgive me,” she whispered.
“There is nothing to forgive, Bone Breaker. You are who you are and as your sisters it is our right to take your hate and pain from you,” Bullet returned as soon as the last word left Bone’s mouth.
Her sob caught her unaware, the hot track of a single tear the only indication that the pressure had made her crack.
“It has been too long,” she screamed at the sky. “I have killed for too long.”
“You can be more than a killer,” the man who now held her dreams called out.
She looked around—everyone was gone, except for Dmitry. She had not heard them leave. She was distracted and it left her vulnerable.
Bone shook her head. “It is all that I know. If you take that from me I will be…nothing.”
She watched fury take him, pulling his muscles tight and locking his jaw. She was empty inside and instinctually knew only Dmitry could fill that void with something other than pain and death. He held out his hand.
She watched him as a cat—wary, silent. Then she reached for him, stood as her fingers grazed his. He tangled their fingers together bringing their palms flush. His eyes reflected the capacity for a love that knew no bounds, but she was scared to reach for it.
“There is something else you can be, Bone Breaker ,” he told her, his voice infinitely deep and soothing.
She stared at him but said nothing, her throat raw with unshed screams, her breath stuck in her chest.
He shook his head at her unspoken denial and then pulled her closer to his body. “You can be mine.”
His words crushed her. The one thing she wanted more than her next breath and he was offering it to her. It was impossible.
Then he turned and she followed him to the house, up the stairs of the west wing and to his room.
She did not question her actions. All she knew was that Dmitry lessened her need to kill. When she looked into his eyes, felt his heat, she was something more than a killer.
She gazed at him, drawing in his pine and juniper scent, letting it soothe the gnawing inside her. Then he began his seduction, undressing her slowly, meticulously, softly. He stroked every inch of the skin he unveiled, kissed each hollow that had never known the touch of another. He sipped from her skin and when he stepped away and toed off his boots, removed his shirt, and took off his pants she watched, her body coiling tighter with each flex and play of his muscles.
Her mouth watered and as the sweat of her endeavors cooled on her skin a new heat replaced the fires of rage, this one hotter, brighter than her lust for death.
“You will change me,” she said into his silence.
He stood there, arms at his sides, face devoid of emotion but his eyes said everything his lips did not. Want…it was there in his gaze, in the tightness of his muscles and the clench of his fists.
“I have no need to try and change what I don’t understand. Because my heart tells me you are mine, I need only accept that I cannot change who you are and what you have done. Besides, nothing that comes before right now matters to me. I will have you and maybe, Bone Breaker, maybe we will both be changed in the process.”
He picked her up and placed her gently on the bed, settling between her spread legs and meshing their bodies together. His cock was a brand between them and her body wept to feel him deep inside her. It was so foreign, that need, but it was as it should be.
Maybe he could silence the demon that demanded blood. Maybe Dmitry was her salvation. So many maybes and as his mouth lowered to hers, she accepted all of the possibilities.
He kissed her, taking her mouth with intent, every stroke of his tongue a promise. The heat built, his hands fanning the flames with every touch over her breasts, down her abdomen, and over her cleft. He teased, demanded, and through it all he kissed her.
Only during a fight did she feel this peace and yet they weren’t fighting. Had she any experience with these emotions, she would have said they were loving.
“I am going to take you, Bone. I am going to love you and you are going to let me,” he informed her, his breath harsh.
There was that word again…love.
He pressed two fingers deep inside her and her body rippled at the pleasure. He pulled them out, lightly petting her nether lips before concentrating his efforts on the flesh protruding from its hood at the top of her mound. Over and over he stroked her, building the intensity before he delved back inside and started once again. She wanted more.
“Please,” she begged.
He rose off her for a second that seemed an eternity and then he was there, at her entrance, pressing his cock deep, taking her absolutely and completely.
“Take me,” he whispered. “Open to me, moye.”
She relaxed, the sound of his voice soothing her in all ways and when he pushed past her maidenhead, she did not tighten. Rather she took the small pain, realizing instinctively that within moments it would be the greatest pleasure she’d ever know.
He turned them then, and she was on top. “I am yours,” he declared. “Make it so.”
They were joined and Bone looked down at the enormous man seated so deep inside her, thinking he could have rent her in two but instead he’d taken her perfectly. And now he was giving up control but the truth was she wanted to be taken, over and over and over, by him.
She used her legs to leverage her shift and then they were back in their original position. “It feels too good, being blanketed by you, feeling you deep inside me. I have given you something no one else has had—make me remember it forever.”
His pupils expanded in the moment before he closed his eyes. She caressed the skin of his shoulders, reached into his sandy-blond hair to wrap her fingers in the silk, tugging him down to her.
“Forever is a long time, Bone Breaker,” he murmured at her neck.
“You make me feel like I can have it.”
He pulled out, the feel of his cock stroking the unused tissues erotically devastating. She wanted more. She wrapped her legs around his waist, and he began to thrust, whispering such dirty, naughty things in her ear.
He fit as if he’d been made specifically for her. His heated scent became a sweet taste in her mouth as her lips roved the skin she could reach. Over and over he pushed in and pulled out and she followed his movements.
She was a wild thing, cognizant of only the need for Dmitry. It seemed they were running a race and in the distance a shimmering on the horizon.
“Give it to me, moja ljubimaja,” he commanded.
She didn’t know what he wanted. She’d given him her body and he was using it so well she never wanted it to end.
The shimmering became a white hot fire, and Dmitry moved faster, reaching so far inside her body, she had no idea where he ended and she
began. She was there, hovering on a precipice and then he pushed her thighs toward her body, angled his hips and stroked once, twice and she was falling, falling, falling.
She exploded in a wave of incandescent sparks, wondering if they’d be able to find all the pieces of her. He stiffened above her, pressed into her once more and a tremor wracked his frame. His cock jerked and flexed inside her and she was once again flying.
She knew he whispered in her ear but the words were lost to her. He withdrew and she struggled to hold him on top of her but he moved, turning her on her side and pulling her into the shelter of his arms.
There was no time to process the pleasure, her body languishing in the throes of an ecstasy she’d not known possible. She had joined with Dmitry in the most elemental way and though sleep was creeping up on her, she smiled, acknowledging he had been right—she was changed and it was both lovely and frightening as hell.
She let the smile remain as her eyelids closed, blocking out the sun and giving her…peace.
Chapter Eleven
Dmitry watched her sleep through the day. He’d cleaned them both after he’d taken her, wiping her virgin’s blood from her legs and feeling a certain pride that he’d been the one she’d given that gift to. A soft knock of the door had brought them food, though it remained on this bedside table uneaten. He would not waste a single moment of their time here in this room. Dmitry had a feeling it wasn’t going to last long.
She did not talk in her sleep but occasionally her breathing would quicken and he would wonder if she was dreaming. He had fucked the vigilance right out of her it seemed, because she slept with abandon, arms thrown askew, legs twisted in the covers when they weren’t entwined with his.
A single taste would never be enough. Even now his body demanded he wake her up and take her again, solidify their bond and prove her she could not escape him. His gaze flowed over her exposed breasts, down over her smooth, flat stomach and over the graceful flare of her hips. Those hips cradled him so sweetly. He burned with her.
The promise of their kisses had been eclipsed by the storm of the mutual need. It had been beyond anything he’d ever known.
The sun was disappearing and Dmitry couldn’t help but feel his time with her was drawing to a close. He’d never been prone to misgivings but his instincts rarely lied. She stirred and he glanced up meeting her hazel gaze and smiling.
She licked her lips and his hips shifted, cock hard and ready for whatever the curve of her lips was vowing.
Bone surprised him. As hard as she was, her capacity for giving knew no bounds. He’d watched her “dance” as she called it with the children and the peace on her face had been glorious. He could have watched her movements forever, the flow, ebb, and tide of her body unmistakably, unknowingly erotic. Then she’d looked at him and given him her body and he’d known heaven in its clench.
She traced his lips with her fingertip and he made to bite it but she pressed her finger to his lips. “I have never known that kind of pleasure.”
“Neither have I,” he admitted.
He lay on his side resting his head on his hand. She lay on her back in the crook of his body, both of them tangled in the sheets. She glanced out the window. “I slept the entire day?”
“Yes. Your body was tired.”
She nodded. “So was my heart. I hurt my sisters earlier. I am close to being out of control. Normally the only one who can rein me in is Blade. You have proven there is another who can control what the devil created.”
She tried to smile to lessen the harshness of her words, but their point pierced his heart. “He is the devil, but you, Bone, you are not evil. Evil comes in many forms but not yours.”
Dmitry did not touch her. Now wasn’t the time. He’d become attuned to the subtle nuances that spoke of her moods and what she would and would not tolerate.
“I cried today,” she said, clearly unsure what that meant.
“Kazhdaja snezhinka—eto sleza rebenka okutannaja vechnim ljdom,” he told her. “My mother’s words.”
She smiled fleetingly but then it disappeared. “I have not heard you speak of your mother.”
He shrugged and sat up, putting a pillow behind him and then scooping her up and placing her on his lap. He covered them both, but his hands roved. She didn’t stop him and he considered that progress. “My mother disappeared at the same time my sisters did. My father searched for them and when I turned eighteen I did the same. There was never a trace until I began to hear about The Collective, knew that they operated with the help of the Bratva, but when I questioned my father he denied any knowledge of them.”
“Was she nice? Mean? Tell me of her,” she pushed gently for the information but her body was still and she seemed on edge.
“She was a woman under the constraints of four small children. I remember her singing the lullaby you used to sing to Ninka and I remember her making sugared apricots. She seemed to prefer Ninka to the rest of us. Other than that I don’t remember her being particularly loving or gentle with my sisters and she would often say that children should be seen and not heard. She would yell that at Alexander and me. She was a hard worker, tough but I remember not much else about her. Alexander and I were boys, not to be bothered crawling around our mother’s apron strings.”
She rested her head on his right shoulder and her hand stroked up and down his chest. He loved it, the feel of her tiny hands on his body right.
“My father, brother, and I had been out hunting for an entire week and when we returned, the doors had been knocked down, our house ransacked and my mother and sisters gone. I remember my father was furious. Alexander and I were just scared.”
“That is all you remember about her?”
“Yes, why?”
“My own mother was no example of how it’s done right, and I always wonder about other people—did they have their own Dinah Ramler? Or were they lucky enough to have a January Cleaver?”
He barked out a laugh. “June.”
“Huh?”
“It was June Cleaver,” he told her lifting her chin and placing a light kiss on her lips.
“See, I know so little about good mothers, I can’t even get that venerated American example of motherhood correct.”
“You are searching for information. What is on your mind?” he asked her pointedly, trying to ignore the chill in his blood.
She met his gaze. “I want to know all things about you. It is an upsetting discovery and not one I understand. If you’re going to question me about my motives, we can end this.”
Bone made to get up and he halted her, holding her hips tightly and nuzzling her neck.
“I have searched for her out of duty. I’m sure I loved her and looking back she was a decent mother, if a bit distant. There, I answered your questions.” He grinned at her.
She frowned.
He kissed her and it turned hot quickly.
He turned her so she straddled him, his cock hard and jutting between them.
“Kiss me,” he demanded.
She glared at him but eventually she did as he’d demanded. She licked his lips and rolled her hips, the wetness of her pussy coating the length of his cock in her warmth. His woman was tentative at first and he allowed her to play a while before he became more aggressive. That slow roll thing she did with her hips was stealing his mind. He ground his teeth against the softness of her skin under his palms, the smell of her in his nostrils and the tightness of her clutch so close to his cock. He gave her time to explore and when he could take it no longer he teased her, using his thumb to bring her over before he tapped her hips and she rose.
He placed his cock at her juncture and she impaled herself on him. She was a fast learner and she rode him slowly, thoroughly, lifting up and coming back down slow to grind herself on him. The flex and play of her body would be forever emblazoned in his mind. The ecstasy she stirred with her movements would be something he craved the rest of his life.
She ignored his demand for a kiss
and he did not try to force it realizing it might be too much right now. He wrapped an arm around her back and lowered his head instead to her breasts, plumping and suckling the globes until her movements became faster and faster.
The pull of her internal muscles became more than he could bear and by the time she exploded in his arms he was begging her to finish him off. She did and then she gave him her sweet mouth.
He laid them down, side by side but facing each other. Fatigue tugged at him, and he wrapped a hand in her hair to secure her to him. He would never admit to the fear, but he was afraid she would leave him while he slept.
It was what Arrow and Bullet had both done and Dmitry knew Bone had more work to do in Russia.
“Just a little longer, Bone,” he pleaded sleepily.
She snuggled into him and his heart clicked into place before the darkness took him.
Chapter Twelve
She had stayed. Knowing it was past time to leave, she stayed. For him.
“Tell me of Arequipa,” Dmitry whispered at her shoulder.
She woke in his arms, on her back, he on his stomach, one of his legs blanketing both of hers, his arm a delightful weight across her body. It seemed he sought to secure her to him as if he knew she was leaving soon. She had watched him sleep, the light of a full moon caressing the sculpted planes of his face.
He was the most handsome man she’d ever seen. Everything about him was so perfect as to be chimera. Even his snores endeared the man to her. As she watched him now, his blue eyes went dark, his smile sexual. She tsked him and he rose, pulling her back against his chest and seating her between his legs.
He stroked her all over—there was not a piece of her that had not been marked by Dmitry Asinimov. Both inside and out.
“What is there to tell?” she asked, her stomach tightening and her mind shutting down.
“I would hear it all, Bone. I would know what made you who you are,” he said in her ear.
