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My breath stalls in my lungs.
He’s not bluffing.
He will do it.
If I push him, he will deprive me of what little freedom I have left.
Defeat is bitter on my tongue as I drop my gaze to the strong, tan column of his throat, concentrating on the portion of the tattoo visible above the crewneck collar of his black T-shirt. “I wasn’t going to jump,” I say quietly. “You don’t have to worry. I’m not going to kill myself.”
Not on purpose, at least. I will swim for it if an opportunity presents itself, but I won’t leap to certain death to escape him.
His voice softens. “Alinyonok…” He releases my arms to cup my jaw. Gently, he tilts my chin up until I meet his gaze again. “Why don’t you just give this—us—a chance? I have no wish to harm you. Just the opposite. You are everything I’ve wanted for so long… and you, no matter what you tell yourself, want me too. Stop fighting. Let me show you how good it can be between us. Unless that’s what scares you? That it will be good? That you’ll realize how many years we’ve wasted being apart?”
I stare up at him, my heart thudding painfully against my ribcage. The words, spoken in a soft, cajoling tone, land seductively on my ears, even though they’re pure insanity—a delusion of the highest order.
It won’t be good between us. It will be a disaster, like my parents’ marriage, like everything about our relationship thus far. We are toxic together—just look at all the bodies left in our wake.
“Alinyonok, my beauty…” His voice softens further, his dark eyes gleaming with an unsettling warmth. “You know I speak the truth.”
He bends his head, and it takes every ounce of willpower I possess to slap his hand away and turn my face to the side, avoiding his kiss. Except I can’t avoid it entirely. His lips, warm and soft, brush over my ear, sending erotic chills down my spine and raising gooseflesh on my bare arms, making me flush all over.
Even now, knowing what he intends, I can’t stop my body from reacting to him, from responding to the raw, animalistic force pulling us together.
Heart pounding and face burning, I take a step back. Then another and another. He allows it, his mouth curling in that dark, sardonic smile of his as he watches my retreat with the patience of a predator who knows his prey has nowhere to go.
Except I do have somewhere to go. I turn and head decisively to where I believe the kitchen to be. Over my shoulder, I throw out, “I need breakfast.”
If there’s one thing I know for sure, it’s that Alexei doesn’t intend to starve me. Even yesterday, when he had me naked in his arms, he held back his lust long enough to feed me. Today, he’s sated sexually—or should be, given how many times he fucked me yesterday. Although, if he told me the truth about not having sex with anyone else since our betrothal ten years ago, it’s possible those three sessions have only whetted his appetite.
A hot shiver ripples over my skin at the thought.
He falls into step next to me, his long strides easily catching up with my shorter ones. “By all means, let’s have breakfast. Though I’m not sure barging into Vika’s domain is the way to go. She tends to be territorial.”
I stop walking. “Oh?” From what I saw of the short, dark-haired woman, she seemed friendly.
“The galley is her space. Only Larson is allowed in there.”
Alexei’s tone is serious, even as amusement glimmers in his eyes. I’m pretty sure he’s fucking with me, but just in case, I say, “Okay, then how do I go about getting food around here?”
“You tell me, and I take care of it.” He reaches into his pocket and pulls out his phone, on which he swiftly types out a message. It goes out with an audible whoosh as I stare at the device, my heartbeat picking up pace.
A phone. A way to reach out to the outside world. Of course he has one. And so do his people. That means there are multiple devices on this boat, multiple chances for me to grab one long enough to let my brothers know—
I stop short. Know what, exactly? That I’m in some unknown waters on an unnamed yacht? Even with Konstantin’s team of hackers, that’s nowhere near enough info for them to find me. Besides, do I even want to be found? Before Alexei dragged me away in the night, I told Nikolai not to look for me because I didn’t want more blood spilled on my behalf—and I meant it. I still do, even though Alexei’s intentions are far worse than I realized. I don’t want my brothers to fight, much less die, for me. Or for them to kill Alexei. As soon as that thought surfaces, I shove it back down, unwilling to analyze it in any sort of depth. Not that there’s much to analyze.
