Page 10 of Lethal Obsession

“You’re family,” he says tersely. “And this is inappropriate.”

“Oh, fuck family!” I slam my glass down on the terrace wall, so hard it shatters. Shards fall to the ground around me, champagne running over my hand. Thankfully, the music is loud enough to drown out the sound of it breaking.

“Christ. Don’t move,” Alexei says warningly. “There’s glass everywhere. I’m going to pick you up, okay?”

I clench my fists, fighting conflicting urges to hit something or burst into tears.

His arms close around me, his dusky scent so familiar I close my eyes as he lifts me from the ground, savoring the bittersweet intimacy.

He carries me to the far end of the terrace and carefully deposits me on the wide stone wall at the edge of it. Still holding me with one arm, his body close to mine and hand splayed over my bare lower back, he frowns at the ground around us. “Where are your shoes?”

I have no idea where my shoes are, and care even less.

All I care about is keeping him close to me. All I can think about is his hand on my bare skin.

I crave his touch like the worst kind of drug.

He gives up looking for my shoes and raises his eye to mine, his mouth quirking wryly. “Fuck family?” He mimics me. “Somehow, I doubt that is the Borovsky family motto. Or the Petrovsky one, for that matter.”

I give a choked laugh. “But that’s the point.” My eyes search his. “We’re not family, Alexei. No matter how connected we are by marriage and history. We’re no more related than any other two random people on the street.”

His face hardens. “Blood has nothing to do with it,” he says roughly. “My sister is married to your father. I’m your uncle by marriage, Ofelia. Do you honestly think your father—or mine—would see it any other way?”

But you’re still here.

Still holding me. Still so close we could be lovers.

In the years since that cell, have you been haunted by the same questions that torture me?

I turn my head slightly, my cheek against his shoulder, my lips just beneath his jawline.

He shivers slightly—but he doesn’t move away.

His thumb moves slowly back and forth across the bare skin of my lower back, a maddening movement that sets every nerve in my body on fire.

“The torture was never what the Orlovs forced you to do to me with your knife.” My lips are so close to his neck I’m almost kissing his skin. “Torture has been five years of living with the secrets we share and never, ever being able to talk to anyone about them.”

Alexei pulls back like he’s been burned, his lone eye boring into mine. “There must be someone you can talk to.” His voice is harsh. “A therapist. A friend. Someone.”

I stare right back at him. “Do you have someone you can talk to?”

His eye narrows. “That’s different.”

“Is it?” I touch his face tentatively, his jaw hard and set beneath the smooth lines of his scars. “Torture,” I whisper, “has been getting to twenty-one without ever being kissed.”

“You can’t be serious.” His hand comes up to cover my own, his eye searching my face.

I nod slowly, my heartbeat thick in my ears.

“But you’re so fucking beautiful.” He strokes a strand of hair back from my face, the gentle touch a direct contrast to his rough tone. “How is it possible that nobody has kissed you?”

I close my eyes, relishing his touch. “It wasn’t them.” My voice seems to come from somewhere else. “It was me. It was . . . you.”

It’s the raging libido I keep carefully hidden. The savage desire your knife awakened, which I’m afraid to feel in case I drown in it forever.

His hand still rests on my face, but I can feel the tension in it, just as I can sense the internal struggle behind his stone-cold stillness and his thumb paused on the very center of my back. Closing my eyes, I lean slightly forward, my body curling into his.

“Look at me.”