When he jerked out of his shirt that was stained with my blood, a whoosh of breath left me. His body wasn’t marred by any bullet holes. Only old healed wounds littered his tanned flesh and the array of tattoos that marked his prestigious position as a Bratva underboss.
Leaning down, he heedlessly splashed water over his face and torso, myriad muscles flexing along his back and his taut ass filling out the seat of his pants.
Facing me from feet away, he dried off negligently.
He toed out of his shoes and socks and lashed his belt from the loops with a body-tingling hiss.
He dropped everything on the floor where he stood.
Fierce determination etched across his face as he came back to me.
I breathed raggedly, aware that simply by watching him undertake such masculine ablutions, I was turned on despite the night’s wild reckonings or because of them.
“Is Maksim still here? Was anyone shot? What was that outside?” I threw questions at him, hoping to stave off whatever punishment he had in mind for me.
“None of your concern.” Hard bodied, he stood in front of me, looking like a vengeful Slavic god.
Unwelcome and unwanted, pure heat licked up and down my body as he loomed over me in silent perusal.
Suddenly, a very wicked smile curled one corner of his mouth. “Maksim is gone. And the soldiers have strict instructions to ignore your screams from now until morning.”
My screams?
Fear prickled my flesh, but I couldn’t look away from him not even when he bent at the waist and his broad chest filled my vision.
I can’t move away from him.
His arms enveloped me—sturdy with strength—and he lifted me up.
Pivoting, he stalked from the bedroom and took the staircase. Without a misstep, Arkady carried me upstairs.
Trepidation filled me, but that wasn’t all. Forbidden attraction flittered through my belly and drew wet heat from my very depths.
He looked so foreboding. He’d hardly said a word. Tension coursed through all the unyielding muscles I pressed against as he carried me up to the very top of his beautiful home.
At the third floor, there was only one door, and Arkady fit a key in the lock.
A whimper dragged up the back of my throat while he pressed the door open, stepped inside, and shut it behind him.
The instinct to flee awoke when he locked us in there, breath hastening from my chest, but there was nowhere to run to and no way to get out.
At last he lowered me to my feet and moved to my side where his blue, blue eyes roamed all over me to kindle the shocking flames only he brought to life.
I scanned across the room as he watched me.
Beneath my feet, the warmth of the refinished floorboards made my toes curl. But across from me—attached to one wall—a wrought iron shelving unit held implements of torture.
Handcuffs.
Whips.
Canes.
Gags?
I gasped loudly, spinning for some way to get out of there. Then I saw the most unexpected thing in the middle of this attic of torture.
A massive bed filled a large area of the room, looking so out of place. The bedding consisted of fluffy pillows and covers in sumptuous, pristine silks in the deepest tone of champagne.
My throat worked, and I pulled the heavy cuffs of Arkady’s sweater over my hands that I clenched. “What is this place?”
He gave no answer, features entirely wolfish as he looked me over from head to toe.
With intensely predatory moves, he walked to his wall of implements and took down a bone-handled knife.
His hand swallowed the hilt of the delicately carved weapon, and I remained frozen in place when he returned, captured by the sudden searing heat of his eyes.
He could kill me if he wished.
My head tilted back but my gaze steadied, locked inextricably on his when he slid the slim blade up the outside of my thigh.
His voice held an edge as sharp as the dagger when he asked, “Do you like knives, dragotsennaya printsessa?”
Breath struggled from within my lungs, and my nipples rubbed against the coarse fabric of his cable knit sweater.
I nodded.
His grin grew absolutely dirty, the blade rasping over my hip and into the indent of my waist. Goosebumps erupted across my tummy, and his forearm shoved beneath the sweater, which he slowly hauled up and up.
I stopped breathing altogether when he dragged the flat of the knife down the center of my belly to nick the upper band of my panties.
Swaying slightly, my eyes began to drift shut.
I had to brace my hands on his chest, and I felt the heat of him radiating, the power of him overtaking everything else.
His low, thoroughly naughty chuckle spun chills and thrills through my body.
The knife and his arm emerged from beneath the sweater and I was wet through—pining for some sort of release—before he’d even touched me with anything other than smooth steel.
I opened dizzied eyes. I could almost feel him. I smelled him. I wanted to taste him with a delirium I had no control over.
With the swiftness of a snake, Arkady pressed the knife against my lips, and the coolness of the metal drew a moan from me.
One move and he could do something irrevocable and awful.
Yet I was helpless, held enslaved in his heat and the promise of what he might deliver.
Don’t let it be death this time.
I swallowed when he pulled the blade back to his mouth. His tongue darted out, and he licked where my lips had pursed.
I only exhaled when he pulled out the bottom of the sweater, holding the thick fabric far from my body.
I rolled my neck when he sliced the knit right up through the middle, shredding it off of me in skilled, practiced motions.
Freed from the sweater, my nipples swelled, and Arkady grunted something in Russian I didn’t understand.
“What are you going to do to me?” My voice sounded smoldering and smoky even to my own ears.
He didn’t answer.
Rounding on me, he drew the tip of the knife from one hipbone to the base of my spine then up the center of my back.
I leaned into the sharp, delicate touch that whispered with almost deadly intent along my skin.
His hoarse voice came right beside my ear as he curved a hand around my hip. “You are gorgeous.”
Snip.
He’d cut the string on my hip, and one side of my panties loosened.
His calloused fingers drifted to the underside of my breast. “You are incredible.”
Slice.
He cut the other band free, and my panties fluttered to the floor just like my heart flew up against the wall of my chest.
“No more knives for you though.” He roamed to my front then he grasped my face. “And no more cutting.”
With cold steel against my cheek, he lowered his mouth to mine. Melting against his lips, I was thirsty for his cool smooth taste I tempered on my tongue.
He touched only my face, and I yearned for more—more contact, more of his hands, more of his knowing touch. His tongue twisted against mine, and I felt the hot burst of his expelled breath against my cheek when he pulled away.
I chased after his lips, but he pressed his fingertips lightly against the front of my neck right where he had tethered me to him.
I was his to control.
He walked away from me, fans of golden muscles arrowing down to two dents above his buttocks and lean waist. When he put the blade away then crouched down, I gasped as his flexed ass rounded out and his boulder-like shoulders bunched then relaxed.