Page 18 of Only for Him (Starkov Bratva #1)

GISELLE

I wake to the clatter of garbage trucks taking out last night’s sins. My brain is slow to start, and my eyes remain gummy. I’m in my pajamas: a T-shirt from a band I haven’t listened to since high school and boy shorts.

I don’t remember going to bed, which is odd. The last thing I remember is…

My eyes suddenly fly open.

Fuck. Fuck!

Last night was a dream, right? It had to have been. That didn’t actually happen, did it?

A dream? scoffs the voice in my head. You sure you don’t mean a nightmare?

Sure, whatever. A nightmare, then. Whatever it was, it wasn’t real. It can’t have been real. There’s no way I’d let that happen, no way my stalker can make me come that hard from grinding on his leg.

But it wasn’t just the grinding, was it?

He removed the firing pin from my gun. Like he’d planned out everything down to the last little fucking psychotic detail.

He held me by my neck while his blue eyes drilled into mine.

And the smell of spices that rolled from his body down into my nostrils until it took root to awaken my darkest desires.

Until I admitted that I can’t control myself around him.

My heart thuds heavily behind my ribs. Panic blooms in my chest even as I lie to myself, over and over, that it was a dream. I just need to find a way to prove it.

There’s no sign of intrusion in my room. And of course there won’t be. He’s far too careful for that. But knowing him, he’s bound to leave me more fucked-up little messages.

That’s what psychopaths do

Then, I see it: my pistol, its firing pin removed once again and glinting traitorously in the morning light.

Air burns up my throat from my empty stomach, and I fight the shudder rushing through my body.

Not a dream.

He was here. Without permission. Violating me.

No, I correct myself. Not violating me. It’s only violation if I didn’t want it.

And I fucking wanted it. I would’ve begged for it if it weren’t for the gun in my mouth.

Memories crash back like waves, threatening to drown me in the weight of what’s happened. The cold barrel in my throat, the thrill of surrender, and the exquisite way that his fingers tightened ever so slightly around my throat as he choked the consciousness out of me.

The orgasm that came at the edge of my world fading away.

And the effortless way he picked me up onto his shoulder. He must’ve dressed me in my clothes, tucked me in like he has a right to, and then left after he cleaned up after himself while remembering to leave behind all the trophies of his conquest.

I reach up to touch my fevered forehead, and briefly wondered if he might’ve kissed me goodnight before he left.

Ugh!

I hate that my thighs start clenching at the memory.

I hate that I can feel wetness already slicking my thighs.

I hate that I want not just a repeat, but for him to do so much more.

Why is he doing this to me?

Why didn’t he do more to me?

Sitting up, I swing my legs over the side. The world tilts for a second when I stand, vertigo lapping at my temples. I brace myself on the nightstand, and knock over a water glass.

He was in here.

And he pulled away. Why? Did he just want to prove to me that I’m powerless to resist him? That he can control anything and everything between us? That he gets to set the terms and the tone of our obsession for each other?

“Fuck you,” I hiss. My empty stomach flips with shame.

Last night was an impossible mixture. Something raw, terrifying, and inescapably thrilling. Now, two emotions that shouldn’t share the same skin—rage and lust—but here they are, twisting around each other like a pair of snakes around a staff.

I glance down at the nightstand at the gun.

He made me suck the barrel of my own loaded gun like it was God’s cock, and it was the hottest thing anyone has ever done to me.

Frustration gathers on my eyelashes and I swipe it away, angry but horribly alive. My body is still tender and loose from the release I found on his leg. And now that he’s gone, there’s an emptiness in me. It’s like he surgically removed the part of me with dignity.

Or the part that pretends to be good.

Because I’m not good, am I?

I’m dirty, and dark, and I’m starving for more of what he’s feeding me.

My pulse quickens again. I run to the bathroom to wash him off me, but goddammit—he’s already there. Of course he is. He’s always ahead of me.

Not physically, of course. But more of his fucking mind games.

Another fucking rose. Another fucking note.

You’ll see the truth soon enough, little viper.

I want to crush the perfect petals in my hand, and keep going until they turn into dust.

Where did he even get the idea that I like roses? He thinks he knows me so intimately, but he doesn’t even know that I don’t give two shits about bouquets.

But at the same time, I know that if he stopped sending them to me…

No! Stop it!

I can’t possibly already be pining for a man who broke into my home , watched me shower, choked me against the wall, and forced me to come.

And yet…

When I force myself to look in the mirror, my reflection is a disaster. Hair mussed up everywhere, eyes wild, and a smear of dried spit at the corner of my mouth.

All of them the ashes of a night spent burning at the mercy of a monster who excites me as much as he disturbs me.

I stare into my own eyes, waiting to see if they’ll back down, but they don’t.

I grip the sink until my knuckles are bone white.

I won’t let him break me. He doesn’t get that victory.

But he did. And he did it without ever touching me.

I’d never had pleasure like that before. I’ve never come hard enough to actually satisfy me. Every climax in the past has always left me frustrated because I know that something was missing. Not the physical sensation, I got off plenty on those. But something deeper down in my soul.

Somehow, the idea of submitting to him. Of handing over control over everything I’ve clung to so tightly for years to him.

It was a surrender on every fucked-up, climactic level.

And I loved it.

My eyes fall away from the mirror towards the sink and squeeze shut.

I should file a report. I should tell Russo. Or even Teddy. But all I do is stare at the new note, promising answers to questions I haven’t even asked yet, and mulling its meaning over and over until the words stop meaning anything and become just lines on paper.

I want to hate him. I want to forget.

But if I do either, I’ll lose him forever.

And I don’t want that.

I can’t be Giselle without also being his little viper. As soon as that thought crosses my mind, a life raft drifts by in my river of despair and realization.

I can still be Detective Cantiano.

Even if I can’t stop thinking about his hands, his smell, and the muscles of his thigh between my legs, I can still think about his motives and means.

The conversation in Captain Russo’s office floats to the forefront of my mind. The one about Timofey Starkov and how the killer has a bone to pick with Starkov and the Starkov Bratva.

And the fact that the killer’s fingerprints are still on my earrings.

Earrings that I’ve dropped off with Arata.

The answers, if they exist, will be on the police database, not here in my nest of obsession. I straighten up and blink at the sunlight starting to stream brightly through the window. But I don’t move.

It’s almost as if I’m afraid to step outside to find him waiting for me.

But I’m no safer here than out there. Last night was proof of that.

I can crawl back to bed, pull the sheets over my head, and hide.

And let him think he’s won?

Fuck that.

I need to go talk to Arata. He’ll have both MacDougal’s tox screen and the prints from the earrings by now. Both of which should help me find him.

Maybe next time, it’ll be me showing up at his door.

And do what, exactly?

To arrest him, or ask for a repeat performance? Or worse, ask him to strip away every last bit of who and what I am until I’m irrevocably his?

I shut down that snarky voice in my head, and shove it—along with the remnants of last night—into the back of my mind.

My shadow has played his hand.

Now it’s my turn.