VII (Seven)

by Lana Sky

  “Fine… I want you,” I tell him with a sigh. “You can ‘learn’ Robert through my body, but in return, you give me you. You let me inside your head. You give me whatever I want to know—”

  “Prove it.” He encroaches on my personal space a second time, towering above, his breath on my forehead—but I don’t back away.

  Meeting his gaze, I swipe my tongue across my lower lip to find enough traction to voice, “How?”

  He rakes his gaze down my front and jerks his head toward the end of the hall. When he moves, I’m forced to catch up, trailing in his wake like a lamb being led to slaughter.

  Will I cower before his blade?

  Or bare my neck for the lethal kiss?

  “Strip,” he commands as he shoulders yet another door open, revealing a larger room and a small bed. The mattress greets me mockingly, draped in a single crisp sheet. “Then get on the bed.”

  My fingers obediently fly to the fastenings of my jeans. “But first…” I scan the room, desperate to come up with my own test. In the end, I blurt out the first question to cross my mind. “The girl. What’s her name?”

  He hesitates. A sound catches in his throat—a cruel insult, I think. His first instinct is always to resist me. Bite. Roar. Anything to disguise the hint of weakness.

  “I told you my price,” I remind him. Slowly, I let my hands fall to my sides. “Unless you don’t want—”

  “She doesn’t speak.” As his breath fans the back of my throat, I jump. “So I don’t know what it really is. I call her Mouse. She answers to it well enough.”

  “Mouse,” I echo. Not bitch. Or whore. Or a mocking twist on a flower.

  “Now, your turn,” Mischa prompts, radiating impatience.

  I picture him standing there behind me, his hands inches from my skin, ready to rip and tear into it. Then I let my eyes drift shut as I find the front of my pants and peel them open. It’s surprisingly easy to tug them down my thighs and kick them off. My shirt takes more time to wind up. Maybe I’m testing him. Teasing him.

  His breaths seem to grow hotter the more my skin is bared. Another low growl catches in his throat when I finally stand naked.

  “Don’t think you can just lie there like some sacrifice,” he warns, drawing a single finger down my hip. “I need—want you to move. You moan. Don’t you dare pretend like you’re some martyr.”

  “I won’t.” I turn to face him, surprised by how true my voice rings out. “I don’t mind having sex with you.”

  My cheeks sting to hear it said out loud.

  “But that is all you will get from me without upholding your end of the bargain. A body. If you can’t be honest with me—”

  “But can you be honest with me?” He chuckles smugly, as if already aware of the answer. “It doesn’t matter. You tout your body like it’s a prize, but do you even know how to wield it?”

  His hands fan out boldly over my hips, drawing me into him. Warm lips nudge my earlobe and I shudder. He’s turned the tables already.

  “You want power, Little Rose? I’ll show you where it lies…”

  The pad of his thumb traces a path down my belly, ghosting the flesh of my inner thigh before drifting even lower. Too low. Finger by finger, he cups me fully, forcing my legs apart. A low groan betrays his satisfaction as I resist my body’s natural inclination to flinch.

  “What men have killed for,” he grates through clenched teeth. “Died for. And you don’t even fucking know…”

  All at once, he shoves me toward the bed. I throw my hands out in front of me, bracing myself over the lumpy mattress. Before I can regain my bearings, he’s behind me, grasping my waist and flipping me over.

  “I won’t feed you the same lies he has,” he tells me, sinking to his knees like a man before an altar. The altar of a despised deity he serves unwillingly.

  Dark eyes flit over my naked skin, settling on my scars. My barely healed injuries. My eyes. He meets them directly, boring through me like a missile through paper.

  “What lies?” I rasp when he hasn’t elaborated.

  He scoffs and my knees tremble as his breath scorches the flesh between them. One of his hands settles on my thigh, using it as an anchor to drag me close.

  “The lies he used to keep you, Little Rose,” he taunts, but the mocking smile shaping his lips falls flat. “You are beautiful. More than most women—even despite this.” He gestures to my scarred limbs. “But that is not why he hunts you. Why he obsesses over you. Why, even now, the bastard is thinking of you. Dreaming of you…” A devious smile contorts his lips; he relishes that fact.

  At the same time, it irritates him.

  He slides his hand beneath my knee and tugs, opening me up to him further. “Ask me why,” he murmurs as his gaze tracks a tortuous path down my neck, over my chest and lower… “Ask me.”

  Air wheezes in and out of my throat in pathetic bursts. I have to inhale deeply to find the strength to obey. “Why?”

  “Because of your heart, Little Rose,” he replies, sounding bitter.

  Callused fingers inch along my skin, creating a numbing rhythm of sensation and friction. Up, up to my waist. Across. Down.

  “Your eyes. You look at a man without the foolish hopes and dreams most women do. Or the greed.” He sighs: a harsh sound between a growl and a laugh. “You look at a man…and you tempt him, Rose. You’re naked and open, and you show him what he is back. Like a mirror. And some stupid men, like your husband… They believe that they can change that reflection. All they have to do is make you moan.”

  Wet heat explodes through my core, paralyzing me. Only vaguely do I realize what he’s done as I watch his head move, crowned by wild, blond hair: use his tongue. There. Slowly and unhurriedly, without a goddamn care for the foreign sensations crashing through my body.

  “If he can make you cry, Rose. Scream his name. Whimper.” He speaks each word into me and my eyes flutter, threatening to roll. “Then he can…shape that reflection… He won’t be a monster. Not anymore.”

  A cry chokes from my throat, drowning him out. All I can do is feel and writhe and reach for him. Push him away—I want to push him away. But my fingers disobey me, clenching through his hair, dragging him closer. Deeper. More. More more.

  I’m on the brink, so close to going over the edge. One more flick of his tongue will get me there—I know it. So does he, because he draws back just as the sparks ignite and it’s like dumping water onto a newborn fire.

  “Like that,” he tells me, his lips glistening, his eyes dark and unfocused. “You trick your men like that.”

  He makes it sound so evil. I tempt him. I torture him. I’m the one with the power, not him.

  “Now…” He shoves his hands beneath me, cupping my ass, his nails drawn. “I’m going to—”

  “No.” I prop myself upright on my elbows and shove him off. Every movement takes twice the usual effort. It’s like I’m drunk. His promise of power echoes in my head, drowning out all logic.

  “Taking back your offer already?” he snarls.

  “I want to taste you.” Where did the words come from? I don’t know. Unbidden and dirty—something I’ve never spoken before.

  Taste. Only he makes it sound anything but degrading. It’s a weapon. To learn and incapacitate your victim. To understand.

  And I want to taste him.

  His eyes narrow at the request. “I thought your body was the bargain?”

  I can’t think—so I don’t. He doesn’t expect me to buck free of his grip. His shock buys me seconds to slip from the mattress and grasp the front of his jeans. He stiffens like stone and it’s nearly impossible to maneuver my fingers enough to undo the zipper.

  “You bite me and I’ll kill you,” he hisses, betraying the source of his apprehension: He thinks I’ll hurt him.

  But when my tongue cradles the tip of him, I’m not sure what I want. Or what I’m hoping to find in his gaze as I part my lips around him. My heart pangs when he goes rigid. This is stupid. Demeaning.
>
  But then his jaw goes slack around a hoarse gasp. His eyes widen. His head falls back, his lips parted. “Fuck…”

  He breathes out with every stroke of my tongue and fists his hand through my hair.

  And I feel it. Power.

  His flavor explodes on my tongue, ripe and raw. His essence seeps through my skin, feeding me the secrets he won’t say out loud.

  Heat unexpectedly shoots through me, gathering between my legs. I’m rocking back and forth, grinding my thighs together to relieve the ache, even as he swells in my mouth, pulsing and thick.

  “You think you’re in charge, Rose?” He snaps his fingers to draw my attention, but I’ve never taken my eyes off him. “You are…” He reaches out, encircling my throat in his grasp. Then he squeezes just tight enough to tease the promise of danger. “This is what I can give you that he can’t. Control.”

  He tugs, forcing me to release him. Like a doll, he manipulates me to straddle his hips, his cock between my legs, throbbing on the brink of release.

  “I can let you on top,” he says with a groan as he lowers me onto him, inch by impossible inch. His mouth finds my ear as he swears, “I can let you set the pace. Take me as deep as you fucking can. I’m not afraid of you, Little Rose—not like him. I don’t want a caged fucking bird.” He grunts, bucking his hips as I settle against him, chest to chest, pelvis to pelvis. Our foreheads meet painfully, and his lips nudge mine, forcing them apart. “I want a woman,” he says, snarling each word, forcing me to choke them down. “A woman who knows what she wants. Who knows which man can make her scream…”

  My vision blurs as he rocks into me. Hard at first. Then unbearably slow. The greater the friction, the more weightless I feel.

  Endless.

  I don’t even sense my climax until it barrels into me like a freight train. He grips me tighter, riding out his own release.

  Spent, he shoves me off of him and throws his arm over my waist. This close, I feel his heart hammering madly in his chest. We’re conjoined through sweat-slicked limbs and damp hair. Mine sticks to him, tugged with every move he makes.

  He tenses, even before I break the silence.

  “Tell me about your family.” I’m testing him again.

  He hisses at the challenge, his arm flexing over my hips. “I—”

  “No,” I say before he can reply. “Tell me… Tell me about your sister.”

  He turns to stone against me, painfully rigid. His arm is a steel beam, weighing me down and the heat from him cools as if snuffed out. “She died,” he says, but there’s more to it.

  More than I know better than to ask for. The strength of his lust is the deciding factor here: Does he really want me so badly?

  “And with her, so did my family. My father all but surrendered to the Winthorps after. I would have too, if it weren’t for Vanya.”

  I stiffen. Vanya, who he loves like a father, and a man who may be mine as well.

  “Does that bother you?” Mischa wonders. “That you could be his bastard?” He draws me closer, his lips finding my throat.

  The intimacy of the embrace sends a shock through me—he knows that. Hell, he taunted me before, throwing my discomfort back in my face: “You don’t like to be touched.”

  So he touches me, sliding his hands to the front of my belly.

  “T-tell me about your father,” I counter.

  “He went mad when my mother died. And Aljona’s death destroyed him.” There’s no emotion in his voice. He almost sounds too distant. Too detached—a stranger retelling some story he heard once upon a time. “But he grew bitter before the end. He started to resent the mafiya. Resent its leaders—Sergei most of all.”

  “And you?” For a second, I assume he didn’t hear me. I’m not even sure where the question came from. Maybe it’s something he said before: “I know what it is like to be shunned by your own father.”

  “He made his choice,” Mischa says—but I cut too deep. His hands readjust in retaliation, sliding down my inner thigh. “And I made mine.”

  “And…” A grunt rips from me as he traces my outer lips in a series of featherlight touches. I pant, fighting to maintain my train of thought. “What about—”

  “Let me ask you something. If your perfect husband waltzed into this place and demanded you go back. Would you?”

  “I could have left—”

  “But what if he had leverage?” Something in his tone makes my stomach churn ominously. “Like your sister. Or…your son?”

  “Stop it!” I lunge for the side of the bed, but he tightens his grip, bear-hugging me to his chest. The more I struggle, the harder he grips me. Voice rasping, I choke out, “Why the hell do you like torturing me?”

  “I’m not.”

  And that’s the worst part. I can hear the pain in his voice as I go limp in his arms. He’s hidden it well up until now—but Mischa Stepanov can only control his emotions for so long. And I don’t want to think about why he’s asking this now. Why, even as I struggle, he doesn’t hurt me.

  Why he won’t let me go.

  “I’m not,” he repeats gruffly. “So answer the fucking question—”

  “No!” I deflate as my voice echoes throughout the room, high-pitched and breathy. “I wouldn’t go back. Never—”

  “You want to know about me?” he says as if this is some twisted game of tit-for-tat. “My father disowned me. At first, I was too weak. Then too strong. Then too much like them.” He chuckles darkly. “The Winthorps. My own father hated what I became—the same monster Anna saw. And Aljona. And Vanya…”

  Suddenly, he shoves me aside and rises from the mattress. I watch him pace, the muscles in his back rippling with tension. “They were disgusted. They thought I was the corrupted one. But I am still alive, Little Rose.” His eyes meet mine, shining with rage and anger and…pain. “I’m still alive. And them? Where are they?”

  He storms from the room, leaving the silence to fill in the answer for him.

  Where are they?

  Gone.

  Chapter 24

  The next morning, I visit the girl. Mouse. One night and she already looks better. Color paints her cheeks, and her eyes are open when I enter her room, tracking my every movement.

  “Good morning,” I say tentatively.

  She blinks, but I notice her hands twitch over the surface of her blanket. She’s alert, at least.

  “I’ve brought you something to eat,” I add, nodding to the tray I’m holding. Everything on it is courtesy of Vanya: cold porridge, bread, and ice water. “I’ll leave it here.”

  I place the tray on the nightstand beside her bed. As I back away, she sits up and snatches the bread, breaking it in half. Watching her devour each morsel, I can’t help but guess just how young she is. Ten maybe? Older?

  Her frail, slight frame proclaims stunted growth, but her eyes are too bright for a younger child. Only God knows what she saw before the day Nicolai offered her up as a drug mule.

  “Don’t eat so fast,” someone scolds from the doorway, making me jump. Dressed in gray fatigues, Mischa storms into the room, his arms crossed. “You’ll make yourself choke. Are you a girl or a pig?”

  He advances toward the bed and snatches the second half of bread from the girl’s hand—but rather than flinch from him, she flashes a wicked grin and shoves the remaining bread into her mouth.

  “Pig, then,” Mischa says in disgust. He reaches out, ruffling the girl’s ratty hair. His large palm covers nearly her entire skull, but she doesn’t cringe at the contact. “Shame. Pigs can’t learn to fight with knives. Not that you’ll be getting any more lessons for a while—”

  He breaks off and his entire body goes rigid. I must have made a sound. Shock flits across his expression as he spots me in the corner before a cold frown smothers all emotion. His hand leaves Mouse, curling into a fist as he turns for the door.

  “Don’t.” I start after him. Almost against my will, my hand brushes his shoulder. “Stay. I’ll go—”

&nbs
p; Alarm steals my voice as he snatches my wrist, dragging me into the hall. Shadows obscure the corner he shoves me into. I can only make out the line of his jaw, stern and clenched. Without even seeing his face, I know he’s angry. The man radiates rage the way some do their natural scent.

  “I want to show you something,” he says gruffly. “Tonight.”

  My mind goes blank. I’d been anticipating a scathing insult. Not a request. “W-what?”

  He doesn’t answer. Instead, he continues down the hall, leaving me to stare after him. Before descending the steps, he cocks his head, eyeing me from over his shoulder.

  “You claimed before that you wanted answers. If you think you can stomach them, then be ready.”

  He comes for me at midnight, when the rest of the safehouse has fallen silent. Dressed in black, he appears at the mouth of my room. Without glancing in my direction, he inclines his head. “Are you ready?”

  “Yes.” I lurch to my feet and enter the hall.

  Without waiting for me to catch up, Mischa descends the stairs. In silence, we exit the house, entering the chill of night.

  “Where are we going?” I whisper. Maybe I already know he won’t answer—it’s the act of defiance that matters. He can’t order me around. I’m here because I want to be.

  I half expect him to take me to the van—and predictably another far-off location where he makes a shady deal with a strange, imposing man.

  My heart skips when he leads me off the path instead.

  Amongst looming trees and the scuttling of night creatures, I find myself inching closer to him. Every footfall and sharp sound have me jumping, spotting specters in the dark.

  “Here.” Suddenly, he comes to a stop in a small clearing. Through gnarled branches, the moon looms above, casting barely enough light to see by. It doesn’t help any that Mischa towers like a giant, drenching anything near him in shadow. “You have your questions? Ask them now.”

  “Why here?” I warily lick my lips. It’s the perfect place for him to kill me once and for all, leaving my body where Robert could never find it.

  He shrugs. “It’s safe. Unless you’ve changed your mind—”