Page 20 of Only for Him (Starkov Bratva #1)

Everything from the tiny scar above his brow to the razor-sharp edges of his cheekbones.

His blond hair is neat and slicked. There's dark stubble on his hard-set jaw that wasn't there last night when he made me submit to my own dark cravings.

I wonder if he also stayed up all night reliving every moment of what took place between us.

He doesn’t smile, and I’m glad he doesn’t. Because I’m not sure if I can restrain myself if he does.

It’s easy to forget just how handsome he really is. I want to hate him and his perfect face, but I’m slowly memorizing it instead.

It’s a face made for admiring.

Just like his voice is made for obeying.

He takes up the space between the rows like he owns it, calm and still. The sheer size of him makes everything feel tight, claustrophobic.

Intimate, even.

He doesn’t move even as I step closer until the light is perfectly framed above his head. Until I’m craning my neck up to look at him—a dark angel of vengeance who’s been waiting for me since the building was built.

Finally, his mouth curves into a shadow of a smile. As familiar now as the memories of his fingers around my neck and the dreams I will never dig him out of.

His eyes are the same glacial blue, but today they’re bright, almost cheerful.

Is it because he knows what he’s doing to me?

Because now he knows what I sound like when I come?

We stand there. Two points in a circuit. Air buzzing between us.

Finally, I find my voice.

“What the fuck are you doing here?”

“Waiting for you, little viper.” He tilts his head, amused.

That cocky motherfucker!

I force a soft laugh out of my nose. “I make one sound, and your days of carefree murder are over.”

“One sound?” He cocks an eyebrow at me, and that beautiful smile of his grows a little wider. “Promise?”

And the space between my legs turns a little wetter in response.

I blink to glance at our surroundings to find that he’s found the single blind spot in the security system on the walls. Here, in this corner of the evidence locker, not a single camera will find us.

Of course he did. I’d be disappointed if he didn’t.

Disappointed? Really?

Yes, really.

I’m supposed to make my way for the exit, but all I do is step closer until I’m invading his space. Reminding him that he’s on my turf. And that right now, he needs to play by my rules.

Frustratingly, he doesn’t back away.

He just stands there, beckoning me to come closer with his eyes until both of us can practically hear my heart thundering in the sliver of air between us.

There’s no threat in his posture, no violence, just the expectation that I’ll do exactly what he commands.

What are you doing, Giselle? No matter what he says, how hot he is, you’re not his. You don’t have to act like you are.

“How the hell did you even get in?”

“You said you’d bring me down to the police station. And now that I’m here, you’re surprised? That hurts, little viper.”

I’m close enough to smell his unique mixture of spices, sweet and cloying at my nose. My hands tremble, but I keep them at my sides. I want to claw him, break his nose.

Pull him close and kiss him.

“I told you I’d put you behind bars,” I hiss. “Not just bring you to the precinct.”

“Did you now?” Finally, he moves, stepping closer until the space between us disappears entirely.

“Because the exact words I heard from you.” His arms spread out to frame me between them as he pushes me against a shelf full of evidence.

“Was that you wanted to put me away.” The heat of his body coils around me, seeping into my bones, my lungs, and my heart.

“Someplace where I’ll never see or touch you again. ”

He dips his head down closer to mine, and I feel my own lips slowly begin to part.

I clench my jaw shut and purse my lips shut. “Must’ve been one of your other victims.”

But as soon as I say it, I wonder if I’m the only person he’s done this to. As soon as I think that, I can’t help but feel something that I refuse to call jealousy claw at me from the inside out.

Because if I actually feel jealous because of him, I should just jump off the Verrazano Bridge now and save everyone the trouble.

“There are no other women,” he whispers, pointedly refusing to use the word I used. I wonder if he heard how unconvincing it sounded coming out of my mouth.

Then, as if to prove his point, his feet move between mine and slowly ease them apart. Slowly put me back into the same position that he already had me once. This time, it’s his hips that make the first contact, and I can’t help the gasp falling from my lips when I feel it.

Something hard and thick and hot.

Positioned right against my clit.

Throbbing angrily through the thin fabric of our clothes between us.

Fight back, Giselle! My brain screams at me. Don’t let yourself be his victim again. Not here!

But the truth is, I don’t feel like a victim.

I feel like a prize.

And I know he’s not lying to me when he says there are no other women.

And goddammit, I’m fucking flattered.

Heat flares in my belly, then shame dumps ice-water on it.

What is wrong with me?

“Did you know?” He nods his head at the door where Arata is on the other side. “That man has a crush on you. You used that to get in here where you’re not allowed. Clever, yes. But I thought I made myself clear, little viper.”

My stomach drops at the threat.

He leans in until his lips and voice brush at my ear. “Didn’t my punishment teach you to take me seriously?”

The strength saps from my legs, and if it isn’t for his body pinning me in place, I would’ve fallen on my knees. I wonder which part was the punishment: breaking and entering, or giving me the best orgasm of my life without even using his hands?

I’ve always thought hypnotists are nothing but cruise-ship hacks, but right now he’s got me fully entranced.

The boom-doom of his heart against my ribs are a metronome, the slow aching grind of his hips and cock are the sliding weight of a metronome.

And my body is the swinging arm moving in time to his demands.

One roll, then another.

I don’t want him to stop.

“You don’t get to be jealous at anyone because of me.” I finally find my way back towards language, determined not to let him take that away from me, too.

He’s already taken my dignity, my sanity, and my God-given right to denial.

“You don’t get to pretend this is anything but you terrorizing me.” I add.

His mouth twitches as it nibbles at my naked earlobe. “Do you feel terrorized right now, little viper?”

“Fuck you.” I breathe as his lips start moving lower towards the place where my jaw meets my ear, and his tongue starts drawing dark delicious circles on my skin.

I should tell him to stop. I should tell him that he got lucky last night because he caught me by surprise. That it won’t happen again. But if that’s true, then I shouldn’t be standing still like this while his mouth laves my neck and his hard cock prods me again and again.

This isn’t a one-off case of crossed wires. It’s a full-on rewiring of my circuitry.

Have I always been this way? Have I just been waiting my whole life for him to come along and prove just how fucked up I am? Or is he reprogramming me with each encounter?

His tongue gives my neck one final gentle swirl and he pulls back. His smile is razor slow and maddening. It holds all the beautiful ruin of a New York winter: black ice, broken windows, something you know you should hate but can’t leave behind.

And both of us know that he’s won yet again.

“Don’t worry, little viper.” He runs his thumb across his lower lip and rubs it, as if he’s smearing my essence into his skin. “You’ll have the chance to do just that. You just have to prove that you deserve it.”

Anger stalls me long enough to breathe. That cocky bullshit is cheap and insulting. I glare at him, refusing to give him one more inch.

My body is stiff with the effort it takes not to let him wrap me up in those impossibly strong arms and eat me alive.

I give up, part of me pleads. You can have me. Possess me. Make me your pet. I’ll be anything you want. Just don’t stop doing this.

But I find enough strength inside to resist. Just a little while longer.

“Deserve it?” I hiss.

“Yes, little viper,” he whispers. If I’m as far away as I should be, I won’t be able to hear him. “Because you don’t deserve it right now. No matter how sweet your desire smells.”

He cocks his head slightly, delicious shadows in his eyes, chin rugged as it tilts downward. Like he can hear my desperate thoughts. The heady scent of him, those blue eyes locking me in place, and the heat of his body… All of it warms me against the evidence locker’s chill.

It leaves me practically salivating for him.

“You can’t tell me that it doesn’t feel good to finally embrace this.” He lifts a hand slowly to give me every chance to flinch.

I don’t, and I fight the urge to close my eyes as I wait for his hand to wrap around my neck again.

But to my surprise, he reaches above that to tuck a stray strand of hair behind my ear. The touch is impossibly light, and more intimate than anything I’ve felt for years. Yet the power behind it is absolute.

“I know you like it,” he says. “Because your body loves it.”

His fingers never leave my skin, and trail down the same path that his mouth had been not moments earlier.

“It wants more.” Electricity dances down my spine as those fingers feather the collar of my blouse and come to a rest at the top button. “You want more.”

My breath stills as his fingers slip under the button and his thumb pushes it through the loop, popping it free. “I can smell it on you, little viper. And it smells fucking sweet. ”

I want to say something to tell him to stop. Anything. But my protest dies in my throat. Inside my head, two voices are warring for control:

Don’t let him do this.

Ask for it!

Don’t bend to him.

Beg him for more!

Don’t give in.

Give him everything!

I should shove him away. I should run for the door.

But I want this so fucking bad that I can’t pretend I don’t.

“Why are you killing these people?” I ask, my voice tremoring as he pops another button free. “Is it the Starkov Bratva?”

He answers by popping the third button to reveal the top of my bra.

“Is it the Starkovs?” I continue asking.

He stops, and I almost beg him to keep going.

The back of his knuckles brushes against my skin, and the contact ignites every nerve in my body. His thumb hovers above the fourth and final button holding my blouse together. The final one that still gives me the illusion that I still have a shred of my dignity against him.

We stand like that for a moment—he in the middle of undressing me, and I in the middle of trying to figure out if I’m still a cop or just his plaything.

“Smart girl,” he finally says, and pops the final button free.

The fabric of my blouse slackens around me, and then he slips a finger under my right bra strap and starts to roll it from my shoulder.

I freeze, not out of fear or knowledge of how wrong this is. But because I’m afraid that if I were to do anything, he’ll stop.

Because I don’t want him to stop. Not until he’s stripped me of all dignity. Not until he makes me admit that this is what I want.

That he is what I want.

“Not in here,” I say, ashamed to hear myself whimper. “Someone could?—”

“I don’t care.” His words are low as he rolls the strap away from my right shoulder and slips his fingers under the left. “Anyone who opens that door leaves in an ambulance. And you aren’t leaving until I feel how much you missed me.”

Anything I say will sound like begging, so I just breathe in ragged gasps, waiting for the next move. His hips continue to roll against me, and I feel the slick wetness running down my thighs.

“I’ve given you all the clues you need at this point.” He frees my other shoulder, and his powerful hand now moves behind my back until it hooks around the clasp of my bra. “Each one left on purpose for you. Only for you.”

“Why?” My voice trembles.

“Because I knew you’d come looking.”

With a single, practiced flick, he undoes the clasp. Fingers slip under the restraint for a moment before they move up, and dance across my collarbone until he seizes it by the center between the cups.

A broken noise escapes my throat.

“Is that why you gave me back the earrings?” I ask. “Because you want me to find you?”

“Have you?”

He gives the bra just a little tug, not enough to free my breasts but enough to show me his intention. My thigh squeezes involuntarily, giving my clit a hint of the friction that it desperately needs.

“No,” I confess through clenched teeth.

Between his constant surveillance, the constant break-ins, and the earth-shattering orgasm, I’m no closer to finding out about him other than a few flashes here and there.

I want to say it’s because he hasn’t given me a whole lot of time to look for him.

But maybe, the truth is that I’m scared that if I ever do find him, I won’t ever want to leave.

“I’m disappointed, little viper.” Inch by agonizing inch, he pulls my bra down until I stand bare-chested in front of him. “I expected you to do better than that.”

His eyes are hungry but he doesn’t leer. Instead, he lets the silence stretch, as if he wants me to dwell on his disappointment. And I do. God help me, I do.

When I don’t move, he slides his hands to my waist, fingers curling around the fabric and pulls me in.

Slow.

Inescapable.

“You like this.” He leans in until his mouth is at my ear again. “The chase. The danger.”

My throat tightens. Rage and arousal alternating so violently I can’t tell them apart anymore. His words fit like a key in a lock, turning something I mean to keep sealed.

Then, he suddenly pulls away, and cool air rushes in between us. His lips quirk up at one side, and he steps back a breath. Just enough for me to miss him with my whole body.

From his back pocket, he produces an evidence bag.

And when I see what’s in it, it’s as if he somehow manages to reach into my chest to close his hand around my heart and crush it.

My sister’s earrings.

“You’ve had your share of questions, little viper,” he growls as he holds them up to my face. “Now it’s my turn.”