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“And that’s the problem. The thinking. The thinking is we’re supposed to be sweet, virginal, sexless, beings who don’t know what a clit is. The thinking is we desire whispers and soft touches, and delicate need so as not to excite us. Dirty, bad, wrong, we are all those things if we like sex, if we want—and we do because who wouldn’t want a little death to feel alive?” Her head shake is sad.
“What?”
“There is no one way to heal from what happened, to be who we want to be: not a survivor, just a regular woman. My why is different than another woman’s. You could do everything ‘right’ and you could still break her.” It’s a warning.
She’s saying what I wondered before I came here. With every intent to only help her, I could break her. And if I break her, could she ever be put back together?
CHAPTER12
Phoenix
I feel his eyes on me. A glance up finds Aleksander filling the doorway, god he is so freaking big.
“Good morning. How are you feeling?” His voice, deep and rich, is heavy with tiredness. Bulging muscles are clear through the white button-down shirt.
“Good. I think I’m ready to go home.”
An eyebrow goes up. “You are home. Home is where I am.”
“You can’t do this. You can’t force me to stay married to you.” It isn’t butterflies in my stomach, it’s a swarm of something bigger, meaner, and they’re freaking the fuck out—he hasn’t moved an inch, yet the shift in the air makes him somehow a thousand times more terrifying than he was ten seconds ago.
“I can do whatever the fuck I want.”
And he can. He fucking can if he could marry me while I was unconscious. “I have a life, a job. They’ll come looking for me.” I wail like a child.
“The job you blackmailed your way into? They have been informed and they gave us the warmest of wishes. John says he’s glad you’ve put the nonsense you mentioned to him behind you.”
“How do you know all that?” Fear sends me upright, he’s blocking the only way out, in every single way.
“Zhena, I know everything about you.”
The way he says it sends a shiver through me. I remember him telling me to behave, to be a good girl. He called himself Daddy. I’d been freaking out about the whole married thing, so I hadn’t even been able to think of Aleksand—no, oh god, no.
“I know of every ring you’ve broken up since you started. I know you sleep best when it’s raining out. I know you were sold by your father when you were seven years old. I know you want a daddy. And now that you’re my wife, I’ll be everything you need.”
Thank god I’m already lying down, because if I weren’t I’d fucking faint from embarrassment at how every single bone in my body melts when he saysdaddy.
I hate the way his eyes soften. “There is no shame in what makes you come,zaika. While your particular need is not one I’ve indulged before, I do so love to be in control. Of your body, of your pleasure, of—”
“Shut up! Stop talking! I’m here for just one reason: tell me what your family did to Raymond Carmichael—my uncle. It had to be you or Milos. Which one of you killed him? Why did you kill him?”
Aleksander straightens from leaning against the doorframe. “What makes you think I know what happened to Raymond?”
“His girlfriend at the time he disappeared, she knows he was your agent within the Bureau, that your family paid him off. She’s dead. Before she died she told me.” The words are painful but I push them out. I’m so tired, I give up. “Fine. I can’t and I won’t get back at your family. I’ll drop everything if you just tell me.”
“He wasanagent my family paid off. We’re not small enough to only have one. What happened to Ray is in the past. What matters is here and now. Focus on that,” he orders me.
“Bullshit. The past got me here. It fucking matters. I need to know what happened to him,” I plead.
“Keep the good memories you have of him. Let it go, Phoenix.” His face is as hard as his voice.
“What does that mean? Keep the good memories? Let it go? You say it like it’s so easy. He was the only person who loved and cared about me. Ray would never leave me alone. I need to know what—why he had to leave me.” I try to explain, to get him to understand.
“Drop it.” He begins to leave.
No, damn it. “I’ll leave. I’ll disappear. You’ll never see me again—”
Stopping, he turns slowly. “Zhena, I’m never going to let you go. You belong to me. The sooner you come to terms with that the happier you will be.” The words are a threat…or maybe a promise.
