Now
I fell from dark, disturbing dreams into awareness. My neck ached. I’d fallen asleep sitting up. My body was cold, and the fire was dying gently beside me.
In my dream, I’d seen my father falling down dead, over and over. He had been the tie between my past and my future. He had been my purpose for so long. Now, I was adrift. Kirill was pakhan, and I was the spare.
Until I spoke to my brother, I had no place left in New York. It should bother me more than it did. I was a rootless person who’d never known a proper home. The closest I’d come was watching the starry canopy over the woods of the house in rural Pennsylvania before my mother had died. I’d belonged there, in the forest pines and wild dirt—at least for a while.
I stretched my painful neck from side to side, and my gaze flicked to the chair where Sofia had fallen asleep.
It was empty.
Tension roared to life inside me as I sat up and looked around the dark cabin. I’d relocked the door once we were safely inside, something that Sofia might not have realized. Since we didn’t have the key, she’d have to pick the lock to open it.
I pushed myself onto my heels and peered into the darkness of the room. A soft shuffle sounded near the door. My clever little cookie was trying to escape. Of course she was. She was as stubborn as fuck, and it was one of the many things I admired about her. Despite her life as a captive to her powerful father, she never lost her fighting spirit.
I crept toward her. My eyes were well-adjusted to the darkness, and I could make her out now. She was kneeling near the door, no doubt annoyed as hell.
“It’s locked, lastochka. You didn’t think I’d leave it open, did you?”
She spun at the sound of my voice. Her hands were untied. How had she managed that? I chalked it up to my benevolence. I’d spared my prom queen’s wrists from harm, and she was paying me back for it.
“Don’t come closer. I’m armed. You better just let me go.” Her voice didn’t shake.
“Open the door yourself, and you can go.” I straightened and leaned a hip against the chair next to me.
She turned back to the door, wiggling something into the keyhole.
I watched her for a moment and tutted. “Your technique is terrible.”
“Ah! Just let me go, you sick fuck! You left me alone, finally, five years ago. Just forget me again,” she snapped.
Those words took me aback. There was so much to unpack that I couldn’t get my head around it. Sofia turned her frustrated face back to the door, wiggling the small piece of metal she’d jammed inside. She cursed, sticking her finger in her mouth. It annoyed me she’d cut herself on such a fruitless endeavor.
“Time to leave it now. You’ve lost. Don’t be a bad sport,” I said.
She shook her head, close to the edge of hysteria. “No, I won’t. I’m not coming back over there to play house with you.”
“Play house? You have quite the dark imagination if you imagine that being leashed to the table is a normal way to eat dinner. De Sanctis family meals must be more interesting than I thought.”
Sofia let out an annoyed scoff and backed away from me. The sight of her retreating urged me to follow. I might have had a piece of material binding her to me, but she seemed to have the same. An invisible string between us we couldn’t cut loose.
“Now, come and lie down. We have a long day tomorrow.” I was aiming for reasonable with my tone. From the way Sofia’s chest was rising and falling, I wasn’t too successful.
“No. You’ll have to make me,” she snapped.
I couldn’t tell if she was warning me or pleading. I didn’t care. Either way, it turned me on.
My grin flashed across my face. “With pleasure.”
I lunged for her, anticipating how she’d feint the opposite way than she ended up going. My left arm went around her, and my momentum spun us into the kitchen.
The sensation of her body in my hands turned my blood to fire. I wanted her, and fuck, I was tired of being well-behaved. I couldn’t forget the curiosity in her eyes when I’d touched her at the river. I ended up pressing her against the counter, one of her hands trapped between us, and the other, I didn’t know where.
“That was a lot of buildup for not much fight. You want to go again, prom queen?”
She smiled at me, and I tensed, sure that nothing good could come from her confidence.
Then I felt it. A sharp point pressing into my thigh.
I laughed. I couldn’t help it. “If you wanted to get your hand in my pants, there are easier ways.” It was my fault for underestimating Sofia. I was ready to bear the consequences of that. Being touched by her in any capacity was as exciting as hell.
“This is your femoral artery. One puncture, and you’ll bleed out in two minutes.” Her voice wasn’t nearly as calm as she thought.
My smile only widened. “We are a vicious little thing, aren’t we? You haven’t changed, lastochka. You’re still the only woman I’d let spill my blood.”
She scoffed. “You didn’t let me scar your face, and you certainly wouldn’t enjoy me stabbing you here.” She punctuated her point by pushing the sharp end of whatever weapon she’d gotten hold of into my thigh a touch harder.
I raised a lazy eyebrow at her. “You’d be surprised, Sofia, how much I’d enjoy any touch of yours in that vicinity.”
She flushed. I could just make out the way her lips parted in the dim light. She was easy to fluster. My little untouched bird was too used to her pretty protected cage. She’d forgotten what it was like outside of it.
I nudged my hips into her, and my dick brushed her fingers. I was already as hard as nails, and my cock was enjoying our tussle immensely.
“Stop trying to distract me. I could kill you right here and now,” she warned.
“Go on, then. I dare you,” I murmured. “Kill me.”
Her cheeks stained darker with anger or frustration. I’m sure she was feeling plenty of both.
“Don’t tempt me. I could do it,” she ground out.
“No. You couldn’t, and that’s okay. You’re not a killer.”
“Maybe I am. You can be my first victim. Besides, this is self-defense.”
“Right, so it is. If that’s the case, make it a bit more personal,” I said and moved before she could stop me.
I grabbed her hand, shooting it upward in a fast arc, and swept her legs out from beneath her. We landed hard, and Sofia swore as I wrestled my way on top of her. I slotted my hard-on against her center. Her legs parted around my hips, and I brought her hand to my neck. The screwdriver she’d found made an excellent weapon. Now it sat at my jugular. My rigid body felt hard as hell against Sofia’s softness. With her legs parted, the material of her panties pressed up against my denim-covered erection.
Rocking my hips against her, I urged her hand toward my neck, sending the point of the screwdriver deeper. “This is better for your first kill, Sofia. This way, you can look me in the eye and watch the life drain from me, bit by bit.”
Her gaze was fixed on the place where the metal point was seconds away from breaking the skin. Her fingers were lax under my grip. She wasn’t trying to push the thing through my neck, but she hadn’t let go either.
I rotated my hips against her, rubbing the rough knot of my cloth-covered cock up and down her panties, and she shivered in my arms.
“I could do it,” she whispered hopelessly.
“Do it, then, lastochka. Do it and run back home to Papa Antonio. Lock yourself back in a protected little castle and let him throw away the key.”
I bucked against her, and heat worked down my spine. Fuck, dry-humping this woman felt better than anything I’d felt in the last five years. I could come like this, rutting her into the floor like an animal.
She tensed, her body still, and her hand came to life again. She pressed the screwdriver against my neck, and the skin finally broke. She didn’t like the truth of her situation being pointed out. Warmth dripped down my neck at the same time as a long track of tears escaped Sofia’s eyes.
I stilled. The world shrank down to just us and the fact that she could kill me, and I could let her.
“Don’t cry, prom queen. It’d be self-defense, remember?” The sight of her tears was unpleasant. Sofia should be glowering at me, her eyes dancing with fire and defiance.
She was as still as I was. Her gaze was fixed on the blood she’d spilled. Another long line of tears dashed down her cheek. I hated the sight of her crumbling.
Before she could get too upset, she seemed to rally. “I hate you.”
That’s my girl.
She dropped the screwdriver but not her fight. Her empty hand raced toward my cheek, and I ducked my head. I leaned in closer, grinding against her, pressing tighter than ever so there was no space between us.
“So you’ve said. Fight me if you want. I like it better that way. It brings back happy memories,” I muttered, my lips dragging over her neck.
She gave a cry of anger and pounded at my back, wriggling her body against mine in a way that threatened to have me coming in my pants all too quickly. I wrestled her arms down by her sides when she scratched my cheeks, and the movement only rocked us against each other more.
Pleasure sparked through my aching body as I thrust against her. She was still fighting me, her little body tense, but now her legs were hooked over my hips, holding me close. I didn’t even know if she’d realized how her body was pulling me in, inviting me with every futile attempt to smack me.
She went for my hair, and I finally grabbed her hands, pinning them above her head. She thrashed, rubbing her body against mine in a way that tore a groan from me. I could feel sticky pre-cum coating my boxers. I was leaking for her, and I’d bet my life she was wet, too.
I rocked against her, and she arched into the motion, a shaky breath escaping her, followed by the sweetest whisper of a moan. I thought I couldn’t get any more turned on by this woman, and then that moan happened.
I held her hands together with one palm and circled her throat with the other, forcing her to turn her head. I licked my way up the slender stalk of her neck, and she gasped again. Then I bit her earlobe, and she tensed.
“I thought you were fighting for your life?” I muttered in her ear as I rushed headlong toward coming in my pants like a teenager. “I thought I was the bad guy?”
My quiet mocking prompted her to fight me again, but this time it comprised dragging her tits against my chest and raising her hips to my thrusts—a move that destroyed us both if the way her eyes rolled back meant anything. She was about to come.
I could feel her anticipation. I could feel her desperation. She burned beneath me, fighting me but holding me closer at the same time. I turned her face toward mine, gripping her chin hard enough to leave a mark as she fought the simple action damn hard. She didn’t want to acknowledge the reality of who she was dry-humping and how much she was enjoying it.
“Eyes on me, prom queen. Or you’re not coming,” I warned her.
Anger flew from her gaze. “Fuck you.” Her tone was too breathless. It was a fucking turn-on by itself.
“Soon, but not tonight. Tonight, you’re going to cream your panties, wishing I’d pushed them aside and stuffed my cock into you. Tonight, your cunt will grip onto nothing and wish it was me. Then you’ll come with my name in your mouth.”
I gripped her jaw and kissed her hard, pushing my tongue along hers as I rotated my hips against her in a frenzy, rubbing her clit with my hard-on. She tensed, a strangled cry leaving her and falling right into my mouth as I held her face to mine and devoured her through the entire peak. Her nails sank into my back through my T-shirt, and her body was rigid with tension. Her face was contorted and tear-stained and so utterly beautiful.
I drew it out, rubbing my hard-on up and down her cunt until she shook and fought me again, too much stimulation to her sensitive little pussy. Then I let myself fall. Three more hard thrusts, and I was coming, too. Jet after jet of hot cum filled my boxers, sticky around the head of my cock. I ground it against Sofia’s panties, dragging out every pulse and twitch. I pinned her down, fucking against her like a man possessed until my cock ached from overstimulation.
I collapsed on her, our harsh breaths rasping in the air. After a moment, I moved, making sure not to crush her. She was so small, despite her fighting words and impressive ability to draw my blood.
Leaning on one elbow, I adjusted myself through my wet jeans, already irritated by the feeling of sticky cum pooling around my crotch. Sofia didn’t move. She was wide-eyed, staring at the ceiling, her chest rising and falling quickly. I couldn’t resist moving a few strands of her dark hair from her sweaty brow. I still had her hands in one palm, and I took advantage of the moment to slide my hand between her thighs and under her short skirt. I stroked the front of her panties and found them even wetter than I’d imagined.
Raising an eyebrow at her as I slid my finger across the soaking lace between her thighs, I tutted. “What a mess you’ve made here with your desperate little pussy. So greedy and sublime.”
Sofia swallowed and scowled at me. “I still hate you.”
“I expect nothing less. Now, let’s make sure you can’t sneak off again. If you attempt it, I’ll pin you in place with my cock, and you can fall asleep on it.”
