Page 52 of Only for Him (Starkov Bratva #1)

GISELLE

The gunshot blows the world open. My breath saws in and out, sharp and shallow.

Have I lost my ever-loving mind?

Did I just fucking shoot Roman?

Well, is Russo really dead in my goddamn apartment?

I’m feeling too much. Rage, guilt, death, redemption, grace, desire—it’s all inside me right now, and it all came out in the squeeze of the trigger. My ears ring in the metallic echo.

Because I did it. He dared me to, and I did it.

Fuck! I shot him. I actually fucking shot him.

Roman’s hand clutches his shoulder. Not his heart, thank God. He’ll live. He has to.

What the fuck, Giselle? You’re not supposed to want him to live. You’re supposed to shoot to kill because he deserves to fucking die. After all he’s done? After dragging you into everything with him?

But he didn’t exactly drag me kicking and screaming, did he?

No. Never. I was always a good little accomplice. Even from the very start, he said I’d lie for him.

And I did.

Even when he brought me a man who didn’t deserve the fate we designed for him, what did I do?

I played along. Spilled his blood like the rest of them.

Red stains his skin, brighter than a goddamn sunset. For a second, his eyes widen, pure shock.

Then, he lunges, ferocious as a god I’ve dared to turn my back on.

I barely have time to breathe before he slams me into the bookshelf, knocking everything over. My wrists hit hardwood, bones sparking.

I try to fight, but he’s already on top of me, good arm pinning both of mine. The bad one bleeds, but he doesn’t even seem to notice.

“Let go,” I snarl, twisting under him. Because fuck him for always touching me when I don’t say he can, fuck him for always trying to fuck the sense of out of me every time I get a grip.

Fuck him for everything.

He laughs in my face. The sound is empty, a bark from the bottom of a well.

“You wanted this, little viper? You wanted to see what I look like when I’m not playing nice?”

No, I know what that looks like. He thinks his violence surprises me? Thinks this rage is new?

Fuck that. I’ve always known.

Because it’s like looking in a goddamn mirror.

He presses in, his hips a threat. Every cell in my body riots against him—except the ones that remember how good it feels to break for him. His breath is hot and wild on my throat. I shove at him, but he’s unmovable.

His mouth is at my ear, voice low and wet. It still does things to me, still brings a curl of desire to my belly, and still makes my nipples tighten and my clit throb.

“You want me dead so bad? Here.” He wrenches the gun from my hand and presses it to his own head. My finger is still trapped in the trigger guard. “Do it. Finish the job.”

He shoves my hand, hard, so the muzzle leaves a dimple in his skin. I can feel the pulse in his jaw, frantic and alive and all for me.

I can feel him breathing through me, like my lungs were made to mirror his. My finger twitches on the trigger.

I want to do it. I want to end him, end us, end everything that’s tearing me apart. End the throbbing between my legs, the ache in the back of my throat. But even now, I don’t know who that would kill more: him or me.

But the gun is suddenly heavier than the earth.

I can’t.

I hate him more than I’ve ever hated anything. I also need him like nothing else because he knows me like no one else.

And he’s willing to give me things I’ve never even dared to name.

He sees it. Of course he does.

His face twists, disgusted. With me? With himself? With the whole fucking world?

He yanks the gun from my hand and flings it across the room. It skitters under the couch, lost to us both.

He presses me harder into the shelf, the wound in his shoulder leaking down onto my shirt. The blood soaks the cotton, hot and clinging like a second skin.

I try to twist away but his hand is on my neck, squeezing just shy of blackout.

Flames lick at my core, a rage-induced lust rising, absolutely blinding—unparalleled in its ferocity, a rejection of anything that isn’t this .

He’s covered in blood and I’m dripping down my thighs.

“You like this?” His voice is sandpaper, grinding. “You like seeing me bleed?”

He drags me to the ground.

My knees hit wood, bruising instantly as pain ripples up my thighs. He follows, his body crushing mine, the weight a sentence I can’t appeal.

He pins my wrists above my head with one hand, the other—his wounded one—still strong enough to rip my jeans open, button and all. My zipper shreds my skin as he yanks it down.

The rage is a furnace in my chest. I scream, but he just spits into my open mouth. I buck. I thrash. It’s no use. He’s too strong. He’s always been too strong.

And I’ve always been the girl who begged him to stop even as I spread my legs wider, and said no just to make the yes hit harder.

His hand shoves between my legs, rough and merciless. No warning or rhythm as he as splits me open, and impales his fingers deep inside of me.

“Fuck you,” I moan even as his palm grinds above my slit, shockwaves of need and pleasure jolting from my clit to the rest of my body. My knees shake and squeeze around him. He laughs again, but this time there’s something broken in it.

“You’ve always been like this, little viper,” he growls. “You’ve always been my plaything. You didn’t want to admit it, but you were made for me to use however I want.”

When he pulls his fingers free, I gasp. My cheeks are wet with tears and that emptiness returns. That hateful emptiness whenever he pulls away from me. The one I can’t stand.

Because he’s right.

My body is his. Always has been. And I hate it. I fucking hate it.

“My cock is the only god you worship,” he says, spreading my legs wide as his thick, hard shaft slides between them and teases my entrance. “Deny it all you want. Your mouth can lie, but not your cunt.”

He thrusts inside, one brutal push. I bite down on his shoulder and taste salt, copper, my own shame. His hips grind into mine, every thrust a punishment I deserve and deny.

“You’re mine,” he grits. “No matter how much you fight it.”

His hand never leaves my throat. He squeezes with every word, every thrust, like he’s marking the syllables into my skin.

“You. Are. Mine.”

My body betrays me, clenching around him—it only makes him more savage.

He slams into me, again and again, hips brutal and breath ragged.

His blood paints me: smearing down my chest, beading between my breasts, streaking my stomach. He sees it, presses his mouth to where it trails across one nipple, and sucks. He laps the blood like a wolf, then bites down, just shy of breaking skin.

My wrists ache where he holds them. My throat bruises in his grip. My legs shake from being forced open. But all of it is background noise to the heat building between my hips. My body won’t stop answering him.

“Say it,” he growls. “Say you want it.”

I shake my head, but he squeezes my throat until black stars explode behind my eyes.

“Say it, little viper.”

“Fuck you,” I choke, refusing to say that I do want this.

I refuse to say that I want him. Or that I don’t ever want it to end. Even dizzy with need, drowning in his cock, impaled by my own pleasure—I refused to give him that last little bit of me.

The part that he craves most of all.

He roars, so raw it peels the air.

He fucks me through the words, through the hate, through the blood and the fire. When he comes, he slams so deep I swear I feel it in my bones.

He bites into my flesh, consuming me even as my pussy takes all he has to give. His cum pours into me, wave after wave, more heat than I can take, not enough—never, ever enough.

Until, against my will, the pleasure bursts open and swallows me whole. It rips through me, so strong I arch off the floor. I see white, then red, then oblivion.