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Warm and wet, she gives as good as she gets with that mouth, making me wonder who taught her to kiss like this. Was it some guy in Paris? Another student? Maybe a dancer? I growl at the image of her in some pathetic kid’s arms as he gropes her with no finesse, only reaching for his own selfish pleasure without worrying about hers.
In my mind I’m there, pulling him off her. Tossing him to the side and taking her for my own. Until I catch sight of us in a mirror. Her eighteen years to my forty-eight. The years etched on my face a stark reminder of who I am, who I’m supposed to be to her, and why this is all wrong.
“No. No.” I let her go and she tumbles away from me, the stricken look on her face tinged with humiliation and rejection.
Her parted swollen lips are too much and I have to turn away. This isn’t right. I made a vow to God. And yeah, she shot all kinds of holes in that promise, but what of the one I made to her father? Her mother? And now her brother?
This attraction has no life outside of the confines of this room. Now I just have to figure out how to control it because right now it’s controlling me.
“Get dressed,” I snap as I spin away from her.
CHAPTER SEVEN
NIKOLETTA
An hour passed since the kiss and still the man won’t speak to me. I feel his lips all the way to my bones. It doesn’t matter how much he fights it, his mouth on mine, devouring me, it only bolsters my resolve. Even if he can’t let himself consider a future with me, there’s only one person I can imagine losing my virginity to, and it’s him.
He is the one who bought me. Oh the irony.
The candles flicker, straining to stay lit in the pool of melted wax flooding them. He’s sitting by the door, his back to the wall, his gaze on me from as far away as he can get. When I look him in the eye, he looks away.
He’s full of shame and for once, I have none.
He pushes to his feet and blows out the one nearest him. It’s okay. It’s just one. There’s still more lit. I bite back the whimper when he blows out the second. Holding my breath, I pray that he’ll stop, so I don’t have to tell him the truth of my fear, but then he blows out the third and I wheeze out a lungful of air.
“Fuck,” he mutters. I hear the sound of a lighter as I grip the edge of the mattress and focus on moving air in and out.
“Why are you so paralyzed by the dark?”
“Vlad.”
Four letters. One name. And really, is there much more to say?
My oldest brother—half brother—has a taste for torture. Evil through and through, his only competition to be the most sinister of monsters is against himself.
“Your father indulged the little shit for far too long.” Frustration laces his voice as he struggles to dig through a bin of supplies, then pulls out a couple fresh candles.
“My father covets him. He’s exactly the kind of evil my father wishes he could have been.”
“Nikoletta—”
“Don’t. You know it’s true. Besides, you have no idea the things he’s done to me. No one knows.”
“Tell me.” He lights the first candle and sets it on a makeshift nightstand next to me.
“What part do you want to hear about? How he used to lock me in rooms in the dark and leave me for hours on end? Or maybe how he started locking me in smaller places when rooms no longer held a thrill for him.” A humorless laugh scrapes from my throat and dies.
He crouches next to me and lights the next candle. Despite his proximity, the chill of panic reaches into the deepest parts of me and I shiver, wishing I could curl into him again.
“The best was the false wall in Father’s wine cellar. A space no more than three feet tall and full of bugs. He shoved me in and locked me there for hours while he taunted me through the wall.”
A slew of Russian curses cut through the air. I’m stupid to take solace in them, but I do.
“As horrible as it was, none of it could match what came next. When locking me in small spaces no longer held a thrill, he locked me in the dark with him. And nothing is more terrifying than being trapped with Vlad in the dark.”
He reaches for me then, smoothing the hair from my temple. His hands shake with barely restrained rage for which he has no target right now. “What did he do to you?”
“Whatever he wanted.” I can feel him willing me to look at him, but now it’s my turn to hide.
