I’d disappointed her. I’d hurt her, and shame immediately flooded my body with heat.
I never wanted to hurt her. This was why I needed to stay away.
She rebuilt her walls, the sadness melting off her stunning face until only that careful mask remained. Watching the transition, witnessing the absolute mastery of how quickly she composed herself and hid every trace of emotion, that was the first real glimpse I had into Irina Ryan’s head.
The person who lived inside her head was vastly different from the facade everyone saw daily, and somewhere in there, pain lurked and waited to spring.
“Is that all it is?” she asked, reaching down to touch my hand. She moved slowly, the tips of her fingers barely grazing my skin as she watched my face for a reaction. She waited for that moment when I would explode into chaos, only applying more pressure when I didn’t react.
She wrapped delicate fingers around my hand, holding it with gentle ease as she walked backward toward her apartment door. I followed, fully caught in the trap of the siren as she guided me inside and closed the door behind us.
The apartment was clean, but there was nothing noteworthy about it as she took me toward the living room area. Raising the hand she held clutched in hers, she shifted her grip to avoid touching me as she pressed my own hand against my thigh next to the fly of my slacks.
“Butterfly,” I warned, my voice catching as she slid her fingers along my forearm and grabbed me by the elbow. She shifted my hand toward my zipper, brushing against the rigid length contained by my suit pants. I swallowed, watching as she pulled her own hand away and backed toward the sofa. Her eyes never left the spot where I touched myself, my hand seeming to move of its own will to make tiny, teasing strokes along my length.
Exactly the way I imagined she would touch me.
“I think it’s more than that,” she said, her tongue running over the top edge of her perfect bottom teeth. “I think you want to touch me, but you can’t.”
“I’m too dirty for you,” I said, the words slipping out before I could catch myself. They were an admission, a confirmation of all the things she didn’t need to know.
A woman like Butterfly would slip inside what remained of my soul, making her home there until I didn’t know where I ended and she began.
She wouldn’t do it intentionally, wouldn’t understand the consequences of caring for me until it was too late. She was just...mine.
In a way that she couldn’t be.
“Whatever it is you think you’ve done, it doesn’t matter to me,” she said, raising an eyebrow and lifting her hands to the ties on her robe. She unknotted it slowly, letting the front fall open to reveal every inch of her smooth, light brown skin to my gaze. The tiny slip of fabric that had covered her pussy in the window was gone, and the silk pooled at her feet as she slipped the robe off her shoulders.
I’d never seen a woman completely naked in person. Never wanted that kind of vulnerability from someone when I couldn’t give it back. But looking at Irina, I was suddenly glad for it.
No one would have ever been as perfect as she was.
My hand moved faster against my cock, overcome with the urge to unzip my fly. The barrier of the fabric between the contact was too much, too hot, too stifling. But just as I had never seen another woman naked, none had ever seen that part of me.
I froze when she trailed manicured nails through her cleavage, coasting over her flat stomach and to the trimmed hair between her thighs. My breathing quickened, my fingers fumbling for the button at the top of my pants with all thoughts of embarrassment fleeing my mind.
Her hand brushed against a white line on her upper thigh, drawing my attention to the cluster of them and away from the place where she slid her fingers over herself. She glanced up at my face when my hand stilled, her own fingers following suit as her piercing green eyes landed on mine.
I clenched my jaw, taking my hand away from the button of my slacks to clench it in a fist at my side. “Butterfly,” I growled, a warning in my voice that sent her hurrying to grab her robe off the floor.
I closed the gap between us before I realized I’d moved, grabbing her by her pretty little neck and raising her until she stood up straight again. She stared up at me, her lips parting open and filling me with the desire to feel them on mine again. My hand tightened on her throat, her own grip shifting up to claw at the ink on the back of my hands as her breathing restricted.
I needed to be inside her. Needed to have part of me be a part of her, but considering the panic threatening my racing heart and what I’d seen on her thighs, that couldn’t happen.
Only the fact that I was very clearly in control, that my grip was on her throat and she was the one who was vulnerable, kept the demons at bay. She opened her mouth wider, my name coming out in a harsh rasp as she struggled to get enough air.
“Scar,” she begged, her body going limp until it was only my hold on her neck that kept her on her feet. If I didn’t control my impulses, the violence surging in my veins, I’d hurt her.
I’d break her.
I reached around her with my other hand, grabbing the tumbler of scotch resting on the end table next to the sofa where she’d likely sat to work herself up to her strip tease. Watching and waiting for her reaction, I drew a sip into my mouth and let it rest there.
I let the burn consume me, then I dropped the tumbler back to the table and leaned my face over hers. Tipping her neck back until her face was parallel to the ground, I tightened my grip just enough that she gasped.
Her mouth flew open in shock, another plea in her eyes as they filled with tears.
She’d find no mercy with me. No protection from the monster she’d awakened with the sight of her scars. I spit the scotch into her open mouth, watching as she struggled to swallow it at her unnatural angle.
When she finally worked the scotch down her restricted throat, something settled inside me. I was inside her. Part of her. And if I gave into the monster inside me, she would never be able to cut me out.
I loosened my grip on her throat, touching my forehead to hers while she blinked back tears. “Now,” I growled, dropping my other hand to the raised white lines covering the tops of her thighs. “What the hell are these and who do I have to fucking slaughter?”
12
IRINA
The eyes staring down at me were so dark they were almost black, midnight gems twinkling in a face twisted with savagery that left me with no doubt.
He would kill whoever hurt me.
I swallowed back my tears, pinching my lips together to fight back the urge to tremble in his grip. His face was so close, his lips so near mine that we were only a breath away from kissing again. The night had gotten off-track, so far from the gentle coaxing I’d first intended when I started to tease him.
I’d never expected his reaction to the scars. Most men never even noticed them, and if they did, they certainly didn’t stop what they were doing long enough to ask, let alone demand, answers. The scotch sloshed in my stomach, feeling weighted in the face of his intensity.
I didn’t answer, couldn’t seem to find my voice as he gritted his teeth and his jaw clenched. “Who the fuck hurt you?” he said, his voice so deep it was almost inaudible. Like something only other monsters could hear, other demons who came hunting in the night for the prey they claimed as theirs.