Page 30 of Only for Him (Starkov Bratva #1)

I lean in closer, almost daring him to flinch. “There are good people left. Not everyone’s like you. Some of us?—”

“Some of you what?”

“Some of us still believe in justice.” My voice cracks on the word. It sounds thinner now, too fragile to stand on its own.

He studies me, slow and careful. “Justice is what I’m giving you, little viper. You just don’t like the flavor.”

He reaches out and takes my wrist. Not hard, but with precision. Like he’s showing me something, not restraining me. His fingers press into the spot where my pulse hammers.

A flash memory of cum and blood staining my hand and mouth makes my blood run even harder.

I won the last battle, or at least tied. I need to tap into that again. I need to figure out how to stop this before it becomes my eternity.

I feel the throb of my heartbeat beneath his skin. I hate that it speeds up. Hate how my breath shortens, chest rising higher with every second I stay this close.

“You want to be the thing that scares the monsters,” he murmurs. “But you won’t let yourself go there.”

The words crawl down my spine.

He’s right. That’s the worst part.

I swallow, throat dry. “There are still people worth trusting,” I say again, quieter now. Pleading with myself more than him.

“I’m the only one you can trust,” Roman says, frustrated. “The sooner you understand that, the faster we can move.”

“Teddy…”

“Do not speak that name to me.” His voice sharpens, teeth bared. “Do you really want to rely on a fucking fed?”

I meet his stare, searching for anything soft. There’s nothing but cold fire. Jealousy, maybe. Or possession. Or rage.

Whatever it is, it looks like a mirror, except bluer.

I realize: is how I feel about Rosa, how he feels about Teddy?

This crawling, repulsive thing inside me that screeches against my skull. Is this what he felt when he saw me with Teddy? When he imagined me smiling, laughing, trusting someone else?

A scowl anchors itself deep into my face, blood running hot.

“What’s so wrong with trusting him?” I ask, sharp as a knife. “He’s someone who’s actually fought for justice. We were friends long before any of this shit.”

Roman’s expression darkens, fury simmering beneath the surface. “You think I’m obsessed, but you’ll have to drop your fascination with your precious Teddy. He can’t protect you from me. From what I’ll do to make you see who you really are.”

The implication shouldn’t make my thighs clench. But it does.

A harsh laugh escapes me, bitterness rippling through the sound. “You’re one to talk about obsession, Roman. Especially when I see how fucking taken Rosa seems to be by you.”

He tilts his head, changing the way the shadows sharpen across his features. Handsome, priceless, singular.

I want him so goddamn bad. It’s humiliating, and that only makes me wetter.

He steps forward, bridging the distance between us. “Do you really think so little of me that my relationship with Rosa would be anything but professional?”

I don’t believe him. Or, I do, and it doesn’t matter.

They don’t need to be lovers for me to hate their closeness.

Jealousy flares in my chest like dry leaves catching fire. My hands curl into fists at my sides. I’m strangled by it. Rage. Want. That sick, territorial ache I wish I could carve out with my bare hands.

“That’s exactly what you’re accusing me of with Teddy.”

We’re close enough now that I can feel his breath, hot and steady. He doesn’t blink. The whole world is spiced air and wet throbbing heat.

He leans in, and the heat coming off him threatens to melt the fury from my bones and replace it with something needful.

“If you really think this is all there is, that you are just another woman I’ve decided to give attention, you underestimate me. I told you already. There are no other women.”

His eyes sizzle against mine.

“It’s you, little viper. Only you.”

It shouldn’t land in my chest like a vow. It shouldn’t thrill me like a confession. But it does. I hate that it does. I waver, lip quivering.

My nipples are tight and aching. I feel like I could come right now, just thinking about his tongue in my throat, his cock pushing into me, just an inch and I’d be rolling with pleasure.

“This isn’t about?—”

“It is,” he interrupts again, voice barely above a whisper. “You’re just as jealous as I am, little viper. Maybe even more. You hate that she has me. You want me to be yours.”

My breath hitches. I don’t even notice it until he smiles.

“I want you dead,” I hiss, desperate to believe my own lie.

He spins me around so fast I almost fall, but he catches me by the throat, thumb tracing the hollow of my neck, the fluttering pulse there. I can almost feel the mark on his palm, the one I left when I still believed I might have control over the situation.

Over myself.

“You don’t know what you want, Giselle. You never have.”

He’s wrong. He’s right. I want to ruin him. I want to keep him. I want to crawl into his ribcage and tear out whatever organ keeps whispering my name.

“You’re not special,” I hiss. “You’re just another psycho with a god complex.”

He leans in, lips at my ear. “And you’re just another girl who likes being broken by one.”

Rage claws up my throat. I want to spit in his face. I want to kiss him hard enough to swallow his soul.

He thinks he knows me, that this game is his. Prove him wrong, Giselle. Prove that you can’t be owned by hands soaked in blood.

I look into those blue eyes, ready to scorch them back into the void they came from.

“No, I’m not,” I say, but the words sound hollow, because they are. So weak I need to repeat them, and they come out even smaller. “I’m not.”

But I feel it: the mercurial shade of my lust in his arms, the way he’s right about me, the depths that weave darkness into desire.

The humiliating thrill when his grip tightens and I don’t claw away.

“You’re hiding again, little viper,” he murmurs into my ear. I shake and lean, my clit swelling between my drenched pussy lips.

My next words slide out on a rasp of air I can’t seem to swallow. He’s right, again. He’s always fucking right.

The truth peels out of me, a last gasp of defiance. Right now, honesty feels like rebellion.

“I’m jealous,” I breathe. “I’m obsessed. I want to know you as much as you want to know me. But I’m stronger than any of that. I’m stronger than what you do to me.”

For a blink his eyes widen, their blue lightning caught off guard. I’ve touched something raw.

Then his body crowds mine, heat rolling off him in waves that slap my skin. - The need surges as he grips my waist, lifting me closer, his breath fanning my skin.

Lamps throw gold over his hair and the surveillance monitors blink behind him like a jury condemning me to hell.

You don’t mind though, do you? You plead guilty.

“You have no idea how much I want you,” he says, voice low and fervent, sending shivers down my spine. I feel worshipped. “Not just for your beauty, your perfect fucking body, but for that righteous rot inside you. For the darkness that makes you fierce and alive.”

“No,” I manage to say, barely breaking past my own thoughts. “You’re lying. You just want?—”

“It’s as real as the breath in your lungs.” He fists the hem of my dress, dragging the silk up my thighs. “I know you feel it. Right…”

A knuckle presses my soaked panties and I jerk.

“… here.”

His voice licks my entire body, slow and torturous.

“I’ll get out,” I spit, desperate to resurrect logic. “I’ll go back to the NYPD and do it right.”

Roman’s expression shifts, becomes almost playful.

“Then let’s gamble, little viper. Try to get out. Run from me, from this. If you make it past the gates, you’re free to phone your captain, your priest, your Teddy. ” He spits the name like a tooth.

“And if I don’t?” I’m trembling now, not just from fear but from the weight of possibility.

“If you don’t,” he leans in, his voice a velvet whisper, “you will stay here, with me, until Pavel is dead. And you will be obedient”

Obedient . The syllable tastes like iron. Like sublime satisfaction.

The stakes hang heavy, a single moment poised on the edge of chaos. The room contracts around me, heartbeat in my ears. His scent—spices and campfire smoke—floods my lungs.

I look into his eyes, the challenge bright. The pressure between us cracks like thunder, the storm set to break.

This world no longer belongs to me, or him. It belongs to us. There is nothing else.

He smiles. A real smile. Dark and vicious, but so beautiful my ribs crack open, serving my defenseless heart up on a platter.

“So, little viper,” he says, teeth glinting. “What are you going to choose?”

Something fractures: fear or sanity, I can’t tell. I shove off him and my feet hit the carpet at a sprint.

I don’t look back. If I see his face I might turn to ash.

The hall yawns ahead, dim and unfamiliar, heartbeat counting off the yards between freedom and surrender.

Behind me, his laughter follows—dark and hungry as the hunt begins.