Torrid

by Nikki Sloane

  An icy chill clung to my skin, but I didn’t mind it. I was cold, like he always was. And if anyone would understand him, it was me. Vasilije had done what I was trying to do.

  My father deserved to die. If I couldn’t do it, I’d ask Vasilije to volunteer.

  He reached behind my back and undid the hooks of my bra then pulled it away from my body. It dropped silently to the thick rug, and I set my palms on his knees, smoothing my hands up his denim covered thighs. But his kiss ended and his expression turned smug.

  “Go clean up the dishes from dinner, and then maybe I’ll tell you.”

  I filled my lungs with a deep breath as he tucked himself back in his underwear and did up his jeans. He was completely dressed and I was stark naked, and as he pulled us both to our feet, I knew what was going to happen. I’d have to clean and put everything away while he watched me.

  Following his order wasn’t too bad when I focused on the tasks and not his gaze lingering on my body. A weird part of me kind of liked it. I closed the cartons and put the leftovers in the fridge. I carried his plate to the sink and rinsed it, then racked it and my own in the dishwasher. He said nothing, but I felt his presence on every fucking inch of my skin, and when I spied his lust-filled expression, I nearly burst into flames.

  His desire for me was sexual, but I was beginning to wonder if I’d scratched the surface of more with him. He said we were alike, and he fucking loved himself, so it stood to reason he might someday feel something for me besides mere tolerance. Never love—because, like me, he didn’t have the weakness of a heart—but maybe we’d come to have mutual respect. Even loyalty.

  I was losing my mind. Loyalty with a Serb? With a Markovic? They weren’t capable. If they had any loyalty, their family wouldn’t be this broken.

  When I’d finished my ‘chore,’ Vasilije turned off the kitchen light and padded into the living room. I followed, stood beside the couch, and waited for his next command. He collected my clothes in his arms, dumped them in a pile at the foot of the stairs, and motioned up. At the top of the landing, his cold fingers curled around my wrist and tugged me toward the door to his bedroom.

  He didn’t turn on the light, and I stared at the bed, lit only by moonlight from the window.

  Had it only been last night since I’d stood in this room? It felt like both a lifetime ago and like no time had passed at all. I was gripped by the same nerves, and they worsened as he skimmed his fingertips over my collarbone. They skated between my breasts, drew an S on my belly, and journeyed onto my back as he rounded me.

  Was he trying to get me used to his touch? Impossible. His touch wasn’t bad, it was just . . . different. Unlike anything else. I was sure he could touch me a million times and it’d always feel this way. Dangerous and a little exciting. His palm closed on my shoulder and urged me down. Without a word, his command was clear. I sat naked on the carpet in the center of the room as he tugged off his t-shirt and tossed it aside.

  His body was like his personality. Hard and cold, yet appealing. He undid his jeans and stepped out of them, casting the heavy fabric away with a thud. I sat perfectly still, my legs gathered to one side of my body as he went to a dresser and fished out a metal lunchbox.

  I’d thought I’d smelled pot last night, but I’d been a bit of a wreck when I’d come out of the bathroom wearing nothing but his robe. He cracked a window, pulled out a rolled joint, and flicked on a lighter, making the end of the joint glow briefly as he sucked down air. The lighter was thrown down on the dresser in a noisy tumble.

  Vasilije grabbed a bowl and sat on the edge of the bed, smoking the entire joint without saying anything, but his gaze never wavered from me. What was he thinking about? His eyes went narrow at one point and he had to be evaluating me critically. It should have made me feel small, but I wasn’t going to let it.

  I sprawled out on the floor, propping my elbow on the carpet and resting my head in my hand, giving him the most confident look I could muster, even though I was more vulnerable than I’d ever been. It was pointless. It seemed like Vasilije Markovic could see right through me, and I probably looked like an idiot lounging on the floor.

  Yet all he did was smoke his goddamn joint and stare with his black eyes.

  It was freezing with the window open, and I tried not to shiver. He wasn’t. Shouldn’t he be cold? It was supposed to be fiery in hell, after all. The only thing warm in this room was the joint and the white line of smoke he blew from his lungs. Eventually he stubbed out the tiny remainder in the bowl, put it on the dresser, and slammed the window shut with a loud bang.

  “I barely remember my mom,” he said abruptly.

  My breath caught in my throat.

  “I can’t even tell if my memories of her are real, or just pictures I’ve seen so many times I’ve turned them into memories.” He leaned against the dresser and focused on me, crossing his powerful and threatening arms over his chest. “But she loved me and my brother. I know that. And she loved my dad for some stupid fucking reason.”

  I pushed up to sit and pressed my hands together in my lap, hoping he’d keep talking.

  “He fucked around. I guess he always had women on the side, but when my mom came home one night and found him balls-deep in some nineteen-year-old whore, that was it. She’d been disrespected too many times, and tried to leave him. In fact, she fucking told him she was going straight to the police to rat him and my uncle out.”

  I swallowed thickly. Nineteen. A year younger than me. My pulse banged along and threatened to shake me apart. “What happened?”

  His eyes had so much gravity, I couldn’t look anywhere else. His expression hardened. “My father called my uncle and had her killed before she could do it.” He stood from the dresser and stalked toward me. “For more than fifteen years, I thought she died in a car accident, but he’d been lying through his goddamn teeth the whole time.”

  Vasilije dropped to his knees before me, bringing our gazes level. His pupils were dilated, announcing the drug was starting to hit him.

  “He fucking took her from me,” he continued, “so I took his life from him.” He leaned forward, putting his lips against my jawline and kissed a sloppy line down my neck. “Now I’m an orphan, just like you. Alone in this big, stupid house.”

  I held perfectly still as his mouth waged its assault against my skin. One attack after another, chiseling away at my ability to stay strong. If he kissed me on the lips, I kissed him back, but I’d promised myself I wasn’t going to initiate again.

  “What happened to your brother?” I asked. “There are pictures of him in the house.”

  He considered my statement. “Luka isn’t like us. He knew what our father did, but couldn’t pull the trigger. And now he’s so pussy-whipped, he goes wherever his girlfriend does, and she went off to med school in Baltimore.”

  I had to tread carefully. Trying to get close to him too fast could make him push me away. I forced a casual tone. “Do you two talk much?”

  “Not really. He’s older.” A faint scowl threatened his expression. “He’s smart, and loves to make sure people knows just how much smarter he is than them.”

  Arrogance must be part of the Markovic genetic code. “Does he know you killed your father?”

  “Yeah, he was there when I did it. He’d confronted our dad about the night our mom died, and when the truth came out, I couldn’t even look at either of them. My dad kept talking, saying some more bullshit lies, but I was fucking done. I pulled my gun and shot out the back of his head.”

  His eyes drilled into me, and it felt like he was silently demanding I ask him. My voice fell an octave. “How did you feel after you did it?”

  “Empty,” he said. “I felt nothing. Luka told me I was in shock, but fuck that.” He sat back, propping his elbow up on his bent knee. Stripped bare of all his clothes except for a pair of underwear, and in this comfortable, casual position, he still looked threatening, the same way a sleeping lion did. “Sometimes I wish my father was still a
live, only so I could kill him again.”

  He’d closed the window, but the temperature continued to drop, and I shivered. I’d had the same thought about Ilia more than once, and Vasilije stared back at me like he knew. Presented with all this evidence, I still refused to accept we were alike. I was a different kind of animal than he was.

  Wasn’t I?

  “Tell me about your mother,” he demanded.

  What? “You want to know about my mother?”

  He shrugged. “You don’t like talking about yourself, so I’m going to make you do it.” When I made a face, his eyebrow arrowed upward. “You want me to bend you over my lap? I bet your ass still hurts from the last time I had to persuade you.”

  He was right, but I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction. “I told you, she was an opera singer.” His glare was razor sharp, and I sighed. “She had a beautiful voice. Such gorgeous tone and vibrato, which I wish I’d gotten.”

  “You can’t sing?”

  I skewed my lips to one side. “I can carry a tune, but my singing voice is average. My musical instrument is my mind, not my vocals.”

  “How come your parents didn’t get married when she got knocked up with you?”

  There were plenty of reasons to choose from. Because my father was already married with a kid. Because he lived in America. Because he was a fucking son-of-a-bitch. “My mother didn’t talk much about him, and what she had to say . . . wasn’t very nice. They were only together that one time.”

  “One night stand?”

  It wasn’t something I’d shared with anyone else. “I don’t think she was . . . willing.”

  It was bad enough being a bastard, but to be a product of something unwanted? At least my mother had never looked at me with resentment. She’d loved me with all of her big heart, which, like her voice, I had not inherited. No, the cold dead spot in my body that beat as a machine must have come from him.

  The boy staring at me suddenly looked cold. Mortal after all. Chaos churned in his eyes. What was he thinking about? That he was putting me in the same place as my mother? Forcing himself on me? I had to make it clear that wasn’t the situation. I’d chosen this path.

  I . . . wanted it, just a little.

  His gaze swung away. “I’m tired. Go sleep in your room.”

  I disobeyed him for the second time tonight, and as I crawled over to him, his eyes narrowed with suspicion. I put my hands on his shoulders and straddled his lap, all while distrust slid down his face. I’d never practiced seduction before, but I prayed it came as naturally to me as tempo.

  It came out breathlessly when I tried to control it. “You’re not alone in this big, stupid house anymore.”

  He peered up into my eyes as his hands settled on my waist, but his expression was impossible to read. “And if you want to stay here in the big, stupid house with me,” he leaned forward and brushed his lips over the pulse thrumming in my neck, “you’ll do what I tell you to.”

  He shoved me hard, tossing me off his lap.

  “I sleep alone.” His harsh tone made me feel like a fool. “Get the fuck out, Oksana.”

  18

  I sat on the end of Vasilije’s bed, wearing the white lingerie he’d bought me and covered with his black robe while my insides rattled. I’d washed the lingerie last night before going to sleep, and my hands shook when I put it on this afternoon.

  It was necessary and just sex, right? People did it all the time. I’d done harder things. Worse things. Fucking Vasilije shouldn’t be a big deal. All I had to do was lie there and let it happen. But I wasn’t an idiot. Nothing was simple or easy with him, and no amount of psyching myself up could mentally prepare me for the moment. He enjoyed my confusion. He liked my discomfort.

  Six o’clock came and went.

  The bedroom was a tomb, and the quiet ate at me.

  I made the bed. That was the only thing I did to ready the room. If I lit candles, he’d never let me hear the end of it, and it wasn’t my style anyway. I didn’t do romance, and was sure he didn’t, either. I just wanted to get this over with.

  Time dragged, and I stared out the window with nothing to do but think about him. I could have been downstairs, seated at the piano and working. Even though the thing wasn’t tuned, I’d never gotten so much undisturbed time to write, and it made me greedy for more. Was this calculated? Was Vasilije making some sort of statement by having me wait for him?

  Because it was late November, the sun had set almost two hours ago, and I stared at my reflection in the glass. My blonde hair fell loose around my shoulders, and I looked pale wrapped in the black robe. If I’d had makeup, I’d have done something to cover the dark circles under my eyes, but there was nothing in this house for me to use. I’d slept a full eight hours last night, but I didn’t feel rested. It was like all that had happened was the passage of time.

  I looked . . . plain. Unremarkable.

  At six thirty, my anxiety morphed into anger. I’d been on pins and needles all day, so dragging this out was cruel, which led me to believe it was intentional. I stewed in my frustration. I couldn’t exactly leave, and I’d gone too far to give up my goal.

  I heard the garage door on the far side of the house at six forty, and blew out a breath. All this waiting, and instantly I wished I had a few more minutes. His loud, rapid footsteps pounded out downstairs, and then he was coming up the steps . . . two at a time? Was he hurrying?

  The door burst open, and he looked as startled to see me as I was him. He was carrying a red plastic bag and flung it down on top of his dresser, while his hand went to the knot of his tie. “Fuck, that took a lot longer than I thought it would.”

  His tone was strange. Almost apologetic. He stared at me on the bed. “Have you been waiting for me this whole time?”

  Was he serious? “You told me to.”

  He unthreaded the tie from his collar, moving slowly as if distracted. “I did. I’m kinda surprised you didn’t give up.”

  It wasn’t in my nature to give up. Like Vasilije, I usually got what I wanted, but I actually had to work for it. I was banking hard on the enemy of my enemy becoming my friend, but as I evaluated the guy in a suit across the room from me, I wondered if I was a fool. He didn’t look at me like he wanted to be my friend.

  He looked like a guy who wanted to fuck me and throw me away, just like my father had done to my mother. The difference was I knew who I was dealing with. I might not outsmart the devil, but I was willing to deal with him.

  He pulled off his shoes and socks.

  I sat straight on the edge of the bed, my legs crossed and the sides of the robe stacked over my knees to cover me. My pulse ticked upward as he stalked forward and undid the top two buttons of his dress shirt, raw lust dripping from his expression. He was so fucking attractive. Vasilije was a beautiful, poisonous flower, luring me to come closer. I’d be so distracted I’d never notice his trap, or how he started to devour me until it was too late.

  He gripped my chin and tilted my head back, forcing my gaze on his. The smile smeared across his lips was lewd. “Have you been thinking about fucking me all day today?”

  “Yes.” It was the truth.

  “Me, too.” Satisfaction gleamed in his eyes. He bent down, bringing his lips almost to mine, and my eyes closed as I prepared for his kiss. Just as I felt his warm breath on my skin, he pushed my chin away and drew back, teasing me. Denying what he’d been promising a split-second ago.

  Fuck him. Did he think I cared about whether he kissed me? I didn’t, I told myself. I absolutely did not care if he wanted to cover my mouth with his or slide his soft tongue past my lips and taste me.

  His focus and hands went to the knot at my waist, and he ripped it free, flinging the robe open. His gaze scraped down me from head to toe, inspecting the white mesh and lace decorating my body. “You’re such a good girl.” He scrubbed a hand over his face, and the gesture made it seem like he could barely contain his excitement. “Too bad I’m going to ruin you.”

>   “Please,” I said, holding back the eye roll. “How good can I be? Are you forgetting I killed someone?”

  He chuckled darkly. “Fuck, no, that makes you hotter.” He shoved a hand into my hair and gripped the strands at the base of my skull, yanking me to my feet. “I meant I’m gonna ruin your virgin pussy.”

  Well, get on with it, then. I’d waited long enough, had endured his threats. It was time for him to show me they weren’t empty.

  It was cold as he peeled down a side of the robe, letting it hang on one shoulder. My chest rose and fell with my rapid, shallow breaths, which drew his attention to my bra. I watched his tongue as he licked his lips, and it made my stomach clench.

  Cool fingertips skimmed over my hips and around my back, drawing me into his arms, and then Vasilije’s warm mouth was on my collarbone. It carved a path downward, leaving a trail of damp skin behind and causing goosebumps to break out on my flesh. Like every molecule of my skin was rising up to get close to him.

  The tip of his tongue drew a line between my breasts, and when he reached the small band at the center of the bra, he changed course. His lips followed the curve of my breast, sucking and nipping at me through the lace.

  I took in air in controlled sips. What he was doing felt shockingly good, and the sight of it was even better. His open mouth soaked the bra cup, and his tongue stroked my hard nipple through the damp fabric. When I issued a soft sigh, the fingertips on the small of my back urged me forward. They urged me to arch my back and push my breast deeper into his mouth.

  Not only did I comply, I threaded a hand through his hair and held his head. His noise of approval sent a rush of desire through me. How long would he tease me like this before taking the bra off? How long until the virginal white panties were wadded on the floor?

  “You like this?” he said, and ensnared my nipple between his teeth, pulling it away from my body. It hurt, but in a good, pleasurable way, and it was so sexy how his dark eyes looked up at me.

  “Yes,” I whispered.

  His sexual expression was going to melt me. I was overheated and wanted the robe gone, but I held still and let him continue to lick and torment me with his sinister mouth. The ache between my legs intensified as he tugged the strap down over my shoulder and pushed the bra cup out of his way.