by Maisey Yates
Which sort of summed up her first time, now she thought about it.
Being in his arms had been wonderful, having him leave, less so.
She walked out of the bedroom and noticed that the doors to the balcony were open and she headed straight for them, not caring that she wasn’t wearing any clothes. The warm air wrapped itself around her skin like a lush robe, banishing the chill brought on by the air-conditioning and Dmitri’s absence.
She looked around and saw him on the far end of the balcony, as though he was trying to blend into the inky blackness that surrounded them.
“You’ll have to forgive me,” she said, starting to walk toward him, “I am a novice at all of this, so I’m not quite sure how things work yet. Is it customary to play postcoital hide-and-seek?”
“You might have said something. About your novice status.”
She lifted a shoulder. “I said I was inexperienced.”
“Inexperienced is not entirely absent experience.”
She let out a loud, exasperated breath. “No, I suppose not. But then, you were the one who made assumptions. Based on what I told you about Nathan, I imagine. And I didn’t really want to clear them up because it’s all sort of embarrassing.”
“How is it he didn’t have you?” he asked, his voice rough.
She cleared her throat. “Not for lack of me offering. I met him in my bedroom one evening when he came to see me. Totally naked. And he looked at me, wrapped me in a blanket and told me things couldn’t be like that. He looked at me like I was so sad. So delusional.” She shook her head. “I felt stupid. Rejected. And when I found out he was after my father’s company? It was even worse. Not that I wished I’d slept with someone who was tricking me, but...but he was a villain. And even then he didn’t want to take advantage of me. He just wanted to manipulate me.”
“There is nothing wrong with you, Victoria,” he said, his voice rough.
“Maybe not. But he made me doubt my body, my heart, my brains...everything. And then on top of that he cost me my relationship with my dad. I have wanted nothing more than to fix things with my father. But I’m starting to think that I never will. Not really. Even if he gets London Diva back I’m not sure that he’ll ever look at me the way I wish he would. And I wonder why I care. So tonight I didn’t. I did this for me. I probably should’ve said something to you, but...I didn’t want to take the chance that you would reject me. This was the first time in a long time I wanted something for me, and only me. I didn’t want to lose that.” She took a deep, shaking breath. “I was afraid you wouldn’t like it. I was afraid I would do something wrong. Apparently I did.”
This rejection hurt worse than any other that came before it. Probably because she had given so much. Because she had made herself so vulnerable, when she hated to do that. It made her question herself again, and she’d never wanted to be in that position again. It was why she’d avoided this kind of relationship, why she’d avoided men.
Why she’d wrapped herself in armor so thick no one could reach her.
But she’d let him reach her, and it already hurt.
He laughed, a frightening, hollow sound. “You think I did not like it?” He began to walk toward her, out of the shadow. “You do not understand. The problem is that I liked it far too much. Do you have any idea how hard it makes me to realize that I’m the only man to ever be inside of you? That I’m the first man you’ve ever been with? Do you know what it does to me? Do you know how it turns me on to realize that I took your innocence?”
“No, no I don’t.” Her heart was pounding hard, her blood roaring through her ears.
“It does. Because I wanted that. I needed it. Do you realize how sick that is? Do you realize how little right I have to that? I am...” He looked around them, as though he might find the answers to the end of his sentence somewhere in the air. “I am the last man on earth who should have ever been allowed to touch you. I used you. Because if there’s one thing a jaded, damaged, sinful soul desires it’s the taste of something innocent. And I would consume it. Take it all until you have nothing left. Because there will never be enough to take away this feeling inside of me. To make me feel new. I’m damaged beyond fixing and it was unfair of me to try to use you to put a bandage on it. There are some wounds that don’t heal, and the wounds on my soul are among them.”
His words hit her hard, strange. As if she was reaching in the dark to try to find some understanding and coming up empty. “I don’t understand what you mean, Dmitri. If you think that somehow you being a fighter makes you unworthy of me, you could not be further from the truth. I’ve made mistakes—I might have been a virgin but I’m far from innocent. I understand the way that life is. I understand the way that people are.”
He advanced on her, placing his hand on her cheek, sliding his thumb across her cheekbone. “Oh, Victoria, you have been betrayed, and I don’t doubt that. I do not seek to minimize it. But you are innocent. You know nothing of the evil in the world, and I would hate to be the reason that you learned about it.”
“So you’re just going to profess to using me and leave it at that? That doesn’t work. It doesn’t work for me.”
“I don’t want to compound my sins.”
“I don’t want to be your damned vestal virgin. Stop ascribing something to me that I don’t deserve. I’ve hardly been wafting around the planet wearing flowing white robes for the past twenty-eight years, untouched by both men and nature. I’ve lived life. I’ve been a part of life. The charities I’m a part of mean that I hear terrible stories. About starving children, about disease, about abuse. My eyes are open, trust me. You gave me a choice. I made it. It’s not yours to regret.”
“Do you know why I’m so angry at myself for what I’ve done to you?”
“Enlighten me, Dmitri, because I have a feeling if I start trying to guess I’m only going to make myself angrier.”
“I know what it’s like to have your innocence stolen from you. And to have the gift rejected.”
“I don’t... I’m not sure I understand.”
“I’m not talking about sex. But it’s far too close to the scenario for my liking.”
“Stop being vague. This is hardly the place for it. I am standing out here on a balcony, naked with you. I have just had sex for the first time in my life. The fact I waited for so long should tell you what a big deal this is for me. I’m naked,” she said again, “in more ways than one. Perhaps you could offer me a little bit of honesty?”
“You do not want to have this discussion with me, Victoria.”
She took a step toward him. “Stop telling me what I want, Dmitri.”
“You know that I’m a fighter, but what would you say if you knew I was a killer?”
His words poured over her, and it felt strange. As though someone had doused her in warm water, the trickle of heat fuzzy, numbing at first, until it faded out into a prickling cold. “I don’t...I don’t understand.”
“Of course you don’t. Because it’s too difficult for you to believe. Because for all that you seem to think you are cynical, I don’t believe you really are. You still want to think the best of me. I know you do. I can see you attempted to justify what I’m about to say already.”
“What happened?”
“I was not born on the streets of Moscow. I am the son of a high-ranking official in the Russian army. At one time in his life my father was a good man. But he was a part of some sort of tactical operation that changed him. All I know is that people around him were killed, his friends, his comrades. I know he felt a lot of guilt. I know he was never the same after. He was depressed at first, sad. He drank a lot. And at some point he began taking it all out on my mother. The violence increased. Over the years I became terrified of him, terrified for her, and for myself. One day I came home from school and he was standing there, my mother in the corner, and h
e was holding two guns.”
“Dmitri...” She found she did want to stop him from talking, did want to stop him from telling the story. Because she knew this was the sort of thing that she would never be able to escape once it was in her mind. Once she knew what happened next she could never go back to unknowing it. And yet, he had lived through it. And she had shared her body with him. She had to let him share this.
“He asked me if I wanted to play a game. He said we would play chicken. We would see who would lose their nerve first. And he tossed me the gun. He raised his gun and pointed it at my mother. And I proved to him in that last moment that there were lines I would not allow to be crossed. It is a pity I don’t think he was ever conscious of that. Because I don’t think he ever knew what hit him. I don’t think he had another thought after that. Because I pulled the trigger and I ended him.”
“He deserved it,” she said. The words came out without her permission, with every ounce of conviction in her body. “You can’t possibly feel guilty.”
“I don’t,” he said, the words hard, rough. “But the fact remains that when you take a life it changes you. When you see someone’s soul leave their body, when you watch their life bleed out of them onto expensive wooden floors, it changes who you are. You lose a part of yourself. I’m not a terribly religious man, but sometimes I think a part of my soul went with his. That some piece of me is burning down there along with him.”
She swallowed hard, her hands shaking, her entire body shaking. “That isn’t true.”
“I don’t think you’re qualified to decide that.”
And she knew she wasn’t.
“What happened after that?”
“The military stepped in. Internally, they did an inquiry and called it self-defense, but saw no point in publicizing it. They did not want to bring any negative press against the government, did not want any light shone on the mission my father had been involved in that caused his trauma. So they swept it under the rug.”
“What happened next?”
“My mother threw me out of my home. She said she did not want me there. Not after what I had done. She called me a killer and worse. And it didn’t matter that I knew I had had no other choice. The end result was the same. I gave up a part of myself, a part of who I had been for her. And she sent me away. All of it...every bit of it was out of my control. I had no choice.”
Suddenly, the leather cuff made sense. His dedication to giving her a choice. And his words about taking from her...
“You didn’t take a part of me, Dmitri. You gave something back.”
She let the words hang between them. They were quickly consumed by the sound of revelers below, by a distant sound of music, different songs weaving together. And yet, her words still seemed to remain prominent. Looming large, impossible to ignore.
He needed to know. He needed to understand.
“Victoria, I can’t have...”
She closed the distance, her heart thundering rapidly, and wrapped her arms around him, pulling him close to her. “I don’t care. I don’t care what you’ve done. Because what you’ve done for me is more important.” She didn’t know if she’d said the right words. They were inadequate; they weren’t deep, or meaningful. But they were all she could say. Everything else was jumbled up inside of her, caught up in a churning current of need so that she could scarcely hear her own thoughts.
“Take me back inside,” she continued. “Take me back inside and make love to me again.”
“You can’t want me to touch you. Not now. Not knowing what you do.”
She extricated herself from his hold and wrapped her hands around his wrist, bringing his palm into contact with her breast, pressing his hand firmly against her flesh. “I want you to touch me. I want you to touch me like only you have ever done. If what happened back there was you taking my innocence, then finish the job. Take it all. Take it all for yourself. Change me completely. Make me yours.”
“All I will ever do is take from you. I can’t give you anything.”
“That’s where you’re wrong. You’ve already given me something. You’ve already given me everything.”
“I took your virginity. That was all for me.”
“No. You gave me passion.”
He stared at her, dark eyes glittering in the dim light. “I should turn away from you. But I can’t. I think it’s that damned, missing part of my soul.”
“If it’s the thing that allows you to be with me, then I hope you never find it.”
“Well, as I think it’s already burning in hell, I might as well go ahead and secure the trip for the rest of me.”
She cupped his face, keeping her eyes fixed on his. “Neither of us has to worry about hell tonight. Because when I’m with you I feel like you’ve taken me to heaven.”
“Being with you is likely the only chance I’ll ever have to experience that.” He bent and kissed her, the context desperate, intense. When they parted, they were both breathing hard. “I cannot give you any more than this.”
“I understand.”
“When our arrangement is over, this will be over, too. You can be my lover in New York, and through the event in London. But once the ownership of your father’s boutiques is returned to your family, this will end.”
“Of course.” The thought of it made her ache, made her feel as if her heart was bleeding. She didn’t want to say goodbye to him. She already knew that. And yet, she also knew there was no place in her life for an ex-MMA fighter with blood on his hands. With tattoos on his skin, with no conscience to speak of.
She knew he wouldn’t fit into her old life. And she tried to ignore the deep, yawning ache inside of her that told her she didn’t want to go back to her old life anyway.
“But until then, I will have you. As often as I like. However I like.”
A shiver wound through her, a burning excitement that she had never experienced before. “I’m yours.”
And she meant it.
But she knew that no matter whether it made sense or not, she meant it beyond New York. She meant it to be on the final event in London, beyond the moment London Diva would be returned to her family.
In that moment, she realized that no matter whether it made sense or not, she was Dmitri Markin’s forever.
And in that same moment she realized that he would never be hers.
It was enough that it should make her turn away from him. That it should make her stop everything that was happening now.
But instead she kissed him again. Kissed him again knowing that all of this would end in heartbreak.
It would be worth it.
Because for the first time since she was sixteen years old, she felt alive. And even though she knew it would end in nothing but pain, she would embrace it. Because if she couldn’t have them forever, she would have him now. She would have him for as long as was possible.
Until the bitter end.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
“WELL, I THINK that went rather well, don’t you, Mr. Charity Director?”
Victoria looked across the hotel room at Dmitri, who was standing by the bed, still wearing his suit from tonight’s charity event. It had been nearly a week since they’d left New Orleans and started preparations for what had been a smashing success here in New York.
All headlines seemed to indicate that approval for Dmitri’s efforts were on the rise, and more importantly, the amount of money that had been pledged so far indicated that, as well.
“It’s very hard for me to tell. I had to wear a suit and make inane conversation. Also I had to get up in front of a crowd and make a speech. None of that reads as good to me. But you might be a better judge than I.”
“These are the hazards of being in the public eye, Dmitri.” She looked at him, at his handsome face, his lean figure outlin
ed to perfection by the suit. Her heart started beating faster. As it always did when she was near him. And rather than getting better since they became lovers, it had only got more intense. So maybe that was better. Depending on what scale you were using to measure. Of course, things intensifying between them as time progressed wasn’t ideal, seeing as days passing meant the countdown timer on the relationship was winding down. “It went well. The media is already calling you a massive success. New Orleans was perfect, and I’m sure the headline for tonight’s event will be just as glittering.” She was determined not to think too much about the end of things, or her feelings.
“Then I trust you.”
“I’m not completely certain you do, but I’ll take it.”
“I trust you as much as I trust anyone, Victoria.” He reached up and began loosening the knot on his tie.
“Really?”
“Yes. Of course, that isn’t saying much. I don’t trust anyone.”
“Well, that does undermine the compliment.”
She watched him standing there, his hands held awkwardly at his sides, as though he was at loose ends. As though he wasn’t certain what to do. That wasn’t typical. Dmitri was a fighter, and she could usually see it in every line of his body. There was always a readiness to his stance, as though he was prepared to engage a mortal enemy at a moment’s notice. But just now he looked as if he was contemplating running. And that was not like the Dmitri she knew it all.
“It does not. If anything, it should let you know how rare this sort of relationship is for me.”
“Sexual relationships?” she asked.
“Intimacy,” he said. “We have been staying together. Sleeping together. That is an expression of trust. You might cut my throat while I dream, after all.”
“I wouldn’t,” she said, her own throat tightening.
“I know,” he said. “I trust that. Victoria, when you live as I have, you learn to keep control. To keep all of your power and give nothing to anyone else. Because people will take your life and reroute it as they see fit. Steal all the money you earned in a fight, rob you of your bed for the night. I learned early on to make sure I controlled my surroundings. But you...you test me, my sweet. I find I lose my control. My focus.”
