Page 26

ARSENI

I ’m laying down on the bed, my hands clasped behind my head when Margot finally walks from the bathroom. It’s been at least thirty minutes since I left her, and I don’t imagine she hates me any less.

I don’t know what to say. I don’t have anything to say.

I expect her to find the closet, but instead she walks to the bed and sits down facing away from me. The white towel she’s wrapped in doesn’t run low enough for me not to see the fingerprints on her thighs. I can’t decide if I should hope they’re mine.

I lay my head back and close my eyes, telling myself she’s safe now. It’s over. But it just … doesn’t make it go away.

“Are you really going to let me go?” she asks in a small, hopeful voice. How she could possibly believe me now is beyond me.

“Yes.”

“How are you so sure your boss will let you?”

I don’t answer right away. The ‘how’ has not been figured out. I don’t know. I really don’t know how Nikita will react.

He cannot kill me, but he can put her head up on a pole if he chooses. There aren’t any rules against killing a witness. In fact, there is absolutely no way the Bratva will just let me set her free. If Vitaly gets a whiff of this idiocy, I’m dead.

But Nikita… He’s a psychopath who needs me. At the very least, he needs me not to open my mouth about what I know. There’s a trade to be made here. If I can just figure out how to do it without getting Margot and myself killed…

Rule against killing me or not, Nikita wouldn’t just risk me blabbing about what I know. I can’t betray him. I can’t turn my back on him. Even if I did walk away from him, I wouldn’t know where to go.

So I need him to agree with this without the overt threat we both know I could throw. And that is gonna take some time.

I take too long to answer. Margot inhales a sharp breath like she thinks I was bullshitting her, all my credibility sucked away in a gust of air. I can’t blame her.

“Even if you let me go, I still wouldn’t escape him.”

I stare at her for a moment, her chin lowered, her grasp around the towel tight. It takes me a second to figure out she isn’t talking about Nikita.

“If you gave me your stalker’s name, I could take care of him before the night is over.”

She shakes her head without a moment’s thought. “It isn’t that simple.”

“Of course it’s that simple. I’ll get a video confession of him planting the photos in your house. You can be free of him forever... I just have to know who he is.”

Again, she shakes her head. If tonight hadn’t created such a cloud of guilt inside of me, I’d probably get irritated with her. Maybe even snarky.

Instead, I just stare.

“I want to tell you,” she whispers, turning her face slightly toward me while still looking at the ground. “But I can’t. He’s more dangerous than you’re imagining.”

“Have you not figured out by now that I’m dangerous?”

“It’s different.”

“How is it different?”

“You’re not crazy,” she grinds out like it somehow matters. Like I don’t already live every day of my life dealing with a fucking lunatic. I roll my eyes but push to sit up. I’m not going to press her about it. In fact, I’m glad to be finished talking about him.

Then Margot speaks.

“He’s law enforcement.”

I perk up, the heel of my palms sinking into the memory foam.

“High up,” she squeaks. “Really high up… He’d destroy you, and if that didn’t settle him, he’d have you killed by your own people.”

My head tilts as I think. The high pitch of her voice gives me the impression that she’s lying. That she just doesn’t want me to pry again. But I can’t quite tell.

“He can’t, Margot. He’ll be dead.”

“He’ll find a way.”

Leaning back against the headboard, I can’t help but laugh, even without finding anything funny. She sounds delusional, like she thinks the guy is supernatural. “Okay, so what? What does it matter if I’m dead?”

“It matters.”

My lips fall. “Why?”

She doesn’t answer... She doesn’t have to.

I look away when she gets harder to stare at. Even now, even after everything, she still cares what happens to me. And even now, after everything, she still thinks she’s a rotten person. A predator. A monster.

Like me. She hates herself the way I should.

“You’re too good of a person, Margot…”

Her shoulders lift with a puff. “Tell that to the rest of the world.”

“I will.”

When she turns to me, I get the biggest urge to move closer. To hold her. Maybe even kiss her.

“I’ll scream it for anyone who will listen.”

She laughs dryly, but her lips soften with a small, grateful smile that tugs at my chest. Suddenly, what I want most in this world is to see that smile widen.

“So… no one then?” she asks.

“Fine. I’ll scream it until they listen.”

There it is.

Her lips pull, only another half centimeter but enough to make me move down the bed to sit next to her. My fingers light, I collect her hair over her back, exposing her shoulder to me.

I’m gonna fix this too . I so badly want to tell her. So fucking badly. I want all this shit in her life to go away. But I don’t tell her, and it isn’t because I think she won’t believe me. I don’t tell her because I’m selfish. Because I want her here, to be really here, not just waiting to leave.

I want her to want me, even if it’s only to avoid the weight of the world. Even if it’s only because she thinks I’m better than the man who claimed her soul first.

In some ways, I don’t want him to die. I want him quietly in the background, sidling her closer to me.

Because fuck, I like the way she’s looking at me. Like I’m her comfort. Like I’m absolved.

“You forgive too easily,” I whisper, running my knuckles up and down her arm.

Her smile slips, but she doesn’t pull away. “What do you think I should do?” she whispers back. “Should I kidnap you? Hurt you? String you up so others can use you?”

I shake my head, letting my eyes trail her bruised body. I fucked up. I really did.

“Point taken.”

My eyes draw to her when she cups my face, her brows pinching like she wants to say something. It takes her several seconds to try.

“You know, my entire adult life, I’ve only dated people a decade or more older than me?” She licks her lips nervously, the supple flesh glistening like she’s glazed with sugar I wanna lick away.

“Okay.”

“And I…” She swallows. “I was never attracted to them. And I hated myself for it. I think this is why I’ve never been married.”

Okay , I want to say again, not fully understanding her point.

“What I’m trying to say…” She sucks in a breath as she slowly unravels the towel. “Is that you’re right. I’m obsessed with age. I’ve spent my whole life pretending I didn’t want someone like you…”

The towel falls onto the bed, revealing tits I force myself not to reach for. Not right away.

I can see the rest of her unsaid words so clearly in her nervous eyes. I’m tired of pretending .

Chewing on one corner of my lip, I press my thumb to her collarbone and mark a path to her shoulder. My cock hardens, demanding what I’m not used to denying myself.

“Are you sure?” I whisper, tucking hair behind her ear.

She twists toward me and places her palm on my pant leg, her chest expanding sharply with her nervousness. Or maybe it isn’t nervousness. Maybe it’s lust.

“I don’t want my memory of tonight to be…”

What it is, I finish for her in my mind.

“I just want to remember you. And I want…”

My eyes narrow with concentration as she looks around, stumbling for words.

“Yes?”

She closes her eyes. “I want you to be nice to me.”

Nice to her.

“You want me to be gentle?”

Her eyes are intense when she opens them. She shakes her head. “No… Not really. Just … after .”

My balls tingle like she just told me she likes it rough. Which she didn’t, but… Close enough.

My mouth dips to her ear so I can roll the lobe between my teeth. She gasps at the little bite and puts her hand over mine when I squeeze her tit, letting it spill through my hand.

“Do you have any idea how much I love your sexy little body?” I ask, dipping my hand between her thighs. She spreads them for me eagerly and grips the comforter in two tight fists.

“ Tell me ,” she urges, her lips parting when I rub her needy clit. I could make her come a thousand times in a row and she’d still moan for me. I’m certain of it.

“This pussy,” I say, breathing into her ear while I insert two fingers into her soaked hole, using my thumb to work her clit.

“This pussy has ruined all other pussy for me. I wouldn’t have stuck my cock in that blonde cunt downstairs if she begged.

” Margot’s deep moan massages my balls. I’m mostly full of shit, but if Margot knows it, she doesn’t seem to care.

I think she wants it. I think she wants me all to herself.

The truth is, I don’t know what I’ll do once she’s gone. I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t turn down pussy if the girl literally begged, but it would be a letdown. For the rest of life, that’s what I have to look forward to. Fucking letdowns.

But not tonight. Probably not tomorrow either.

So in the meantime, I’m hers. It turns me the fuck on that she wants it that way.

“You’re the most stunning woman I’ve ever laid eyes on, Margot.

” I don’t even know if I’m lying, but I love the way she arches her neck at that, her face twisting like she’s about to come when I know she isn’t there yet.

“I wanted you the moment I saw you.” Definitely not a lie. “And every goddamn moment since.”

“I wanted you too,” she moans but then snaps her eyes open. “I mean, not right away . I?—”

I stutter a laugh in her ear, broken up by shushes. “ Stop , silly girl. I don’t care either way.”

I kiss her cheek, her jaw, her neck, all while working her cunt. I’m a selfish lover, but I could explore her body all day.

“Th-that day you brought friends over to skinny dip in the pool… I looked.”

I smile against her neck.

“At first, I didn’t know what you were doing, so it was an accident. But then…” She grunts at the pressure against her clit. “You had climbed out of the pool, and I watched you through the kitchen window. I didn’t look away.”

“Naughty girl,” I purr, kissing my way to her nipple that I take in my mouth.

Every part of her my lips touch is another piece off-limits to another man.

I can’t even think of hands on her, mouths on her.

It makes me see red, makes me hungry to go shoot up the playroom like a teenager with my head shoved in a toilet one too many times.

“Do you want me to kill the men downstairs?” I ask, hoping she’ll say yes. Part of me hopes she wants me to fuck her in a pool of their blood.

“No.” Her jaw quivers with ecstasy. “I just want you .”

I slide my hand from her pussy to her chest and shove her to her back. “Do you want to know how many times I watched you while you slept?” Pulling my shirt over my head, I stand.

“That’s terrifying.”

I chuckle as I unbuckle my belt. “You used to have wet dreams. Well, actually, you still do.” Shoving my pants to the ground, I grip my cock and pump a few times, as if it needed a primer.

“I used to fantasize about putting my cock in your mouth while you slept and letting your moans vibrate the tip. I’d make you drink my cum so you’d wake up with my taste on your tongue. ”

“I always dreamt of you,” she whispers, and I know without question that she’s serious. I knew it at the time too.

I lift her knee to her chest as I enter her, her warm pussy squeezing me. “Did you fantasize about me while you were awake too?”

“Yes.”

“Tell me about it.” I shove in hard at the demand, not knowing how badly I want it until it’s done. She looks into my eyes as her back arches.

“I found a playboy in your room once, opened to a page with a woman who looked like me. You were out with friends, and I…”

“Yeah?”

Her eyes get heavy with a moan. I want her words so badly I think about slowing my hips, but I can’t. It feels too good. My cock is too needy. And I have a feeling if I stopped, I’d break the magic. I never knew she could be so vulnerable.

“I crawled under your covers and touched myself, imagining you masturbating to a photo of me in that very spot.”

“Jesus, Mommy . You’re so bad.”

“I always hated it when you called me that.”

I smile. “Do you still hate it?”

“Yes,” she says without hesitation. “But… Not as much.”

“So it’s on the table then.”

“No, Arseni. It is definitely not on the table.” Her words are authoritative, but there’s a smile playing on her lips while she peers up at me like a sweet little deviant. God, I love her like this. She’s never been more beautiful. More free.

Right now, if I told her she was the most stunning woman I’d ever seen, it would be true. No fucking question.

“I could look at you like this for the rest of my life,” I say while grinding my hips. The words are out before I realize the full extent of their meaning, and I kiss her with my eyes closed just so I don’t have to see her reaction.

I don’t know what I would feel if she told me she could never see me with that same intensity. But I know if she said she could, it would be a lie. Even if she didn’t know it.

I love her vulnerability. It’s turning me on like the horny teenager she touched herself to.

But she wouldn’t like the same from me. That shit isn’t nearly as cute as a taboo crush.

I’m still kissing her when she comes, her lips pausing while I devour her moans. Her pussy contracts around my cock, bringing me closer to release, and it isn’t long before I get there.

My palms slamming beside her on the bed, I jerk my hips hard with explosive pleasure wracking my body. She takes my face to kiss me brutally, passionately, hungrily.

When I’ve filled her with every drop of come my balls have to offer, I pull out and take her in my arms. I lounge back against the headboard, cradling her while peppering kisses on her forehead.

Be nice to me , she said. I didn’t really know what that entailed, and I’m not sure I cared. But suddenly, it feels important. It feels like something I don’t want to fuck up.

Ever again.