Page 124 of Ruthless Rustanovs

THEL didn’t know how long she was out there on the balcony, her mind racing with the implications of what had just happened between her and Bair.

She hadn’t just refused him, she’d screamed at him.

Actually yelled at Bair Rustanov, one of the most dangerous men she’d ever met—something she hadn’t done in the entirety of their relationship.

Not because he’d crashed her sister’s wedding.

Not because he’d manipulated her into becoming his kept sex toy again.

Not because he’d fucked her like an animal before she was even able to get the bread bowls all the way out of the bag.

All those reasons for finally losing her shit with him would have been valid.

No, she’d screamed at him with hysterical tears burning in her eyes because he’d asked her to get a breast reduction. Which, if you looked at it from his point of view, probably didn’t seem like that big of an ask in the scheme of their relationship.

Still, the anger burned like a Rammstein song inside her chest, rendering her unable to go back inside.

Unable to pretend she didn’t care what he thought of her or her breasts.

Which she shouldn’t, because what Thel had done to her body during the six years they’d been apart was none of his damn business.

Still, anger and shame swam around her stomach.

Sharks without a meal for a very long time.

So long that the setting sun stole all the natural light from the city, bathing the street below in a blanket of neon-lit shadow.

So long it started to drizzle, just like the man on Dexter’s radio said it would.

So long that Bair actually came out to get her.

“You cared for this man who bought these breasts for you,” she heard him say behind her. A statement not a question.

And she found herself huffing out a bitter chuckle. Wow, he’d just given her the perfect excuse for her behavior. “Yes, yes I did,” she answered truthfully.

“But he did not care for you back. Or else he would not have let you go.”

This time she didn’t bother answering. Let Bair make up stories about her and some other guy. Drive yourself crazy if you want to, Beast, she thought to herself, remembering how’d she given up reasoning with him about these things less than two years into their completely fucked up relationship.

“Is he the one you left me for?” he asked from underneath the balcony’s eaved shelter.

She looked over her shoulder at him. Left him. Wow, she’d never thought of it that way. More like she’d run away from him. But she guessed Bair, being a complete psycho when it came to her, saw things a little differently on that front.

“No, he’s definitely not why,” she answered, turning back around to face the street again with a tired sigh.

She’d hope to end the conversation with that, but he came out from under the eave to stand beside her. Offering himself up to the cold rain, as he said, “I am trying with you, Sirena. This weekend I decided I would try, but if you care this much for another man. Still. I cannot—”

“I had cancer.”

The three words she’d been refusing to say all this time, through so many weekends of punishment, came tumbling out of her mouth.

“I had breast cancer,” she told him. “That’s why I…” Their two ways of phrasing her departure tugged a war inside her chest, and she eventually settled for… “didn’t stay.”

He turned and she could just imagine the look on his face. All the angry questions. But before he could ask any of them, she said, “No, don’t say anything. Let me tell you. Just let me tell you the story…”

So that was what she did. With her eyes trained on the street below, she told him about the lump she’d found while he was away in Russia.

About knowing it was bad and finding her sister.

About the chemo, the doctors deciding to take both her breasts only to have more cancer cells appear a couple years later.

About the miracle trial at the hospital where her sister worked, and how she ended up being one of the first people cured by a treatment based on genome-mapping.

“These breasts…” she told him, flapping a hand at her new Double-D chest. “They came from a plastic surgeon in D.C. who does pro-bono work for women who’ve been through breast cancer treatment.

There aren’t many plastic surgeons as kind as him on the planet, so yes, I care for him.

Just like I care for my oncologist, and the all the people on my team who worked tirelessly to cure me, because I’m convinced they’re angels.

So no, these breasts ain’t originally mine.

Hell, I even had to get the nipples and aureoles tattooed on, to make them look more real—which was why I didn’t want you getting too up close and personal with them.

But I don’t care if they don’t exactly look natural, I’m keeping them.

Because I earned them. And I’m not letting you or anybody else take them away from me. ”

Silence. Deep, painful silence.

And for all her brave words, Thel just stood there, hands closing and unclosing around the rail. Wishing she had the guts to look over at him now.

I ain’t afraid of nothing.

Ha! She could barely stand to stay there, and it was taking everything she had not to run off the balcony, screaming.

“Why?” One word. Gruff and angry.

“Why did I get cancer? Cuz shit happens, I guess…”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

She raised her head to look over at him with a sad smile. “I wasn’t supposed to be sad, remember?”

But the look he pinned her with…raw and ragged, eyes crazed as the rain plastered his long dark hair to his face.

“You think I am monster, da, but haven’t I always given you the things you needed?

I would have given you doctor. I would have arranged for best doctors.

Anything, everything you needed. But you did not tell me. You ran. You left me. Why?”

She shook her head. “Because I had cancer, and what we had in Germany—it wasn’t healthy for you or me. We were warped, and I couldn’t go on with you like that. I couldn’t deal with you and the cancer.”

“But I could have helped you,” he snarled, slamming a meaty fist into his palm.

“I didn’t want your help,” she answered.

“Why not? Because of way I treat you?” he yelled, voice incredulous with anger. “Who cares if you have a disease that can kill you? Who cares? You should have told me!”

“No. I couldn’t tell you…”

“You know I would have helped you. No matter how bad it was between us, you knew that. You should have—”

“I didn’t want you to see me like that, okay?

” she yelled back, hands raised and balled into frustrated fist. “I didn’t want to become the sick dog you found in the Greek basement.

I didn’t want to be your pet anymore, but even more than that, I didn’t want to be the girl you kept around just because you felt sorry for her.

How would I look, huh? Wasting away in our bed like some charity case while you found some other girl to Fight or Fuck.

Maybe somebody Alexei picked out for you. Because you have needs, right?”

“Do not accuse me of this. I did not ever cheat on you. Not even when I was in Russia and you were Germany. I would not have done that, you are stupid girl,” he spit out, his face ugly with rage. “Stupid, stupid girl.”

He probably expected her to try to argue with him on that point, but she just nodded.

“Yeah, I am. You were right about me from the start, Beast. I’m a stupid girl.

A vain and stupid girl. My mom used to work in the cancer ward, so I knew.

Knew what I’d become. What I’d look like, and I didn’t want you to see me that way. ”

She wrapped her arms around herself as she realized, “No matter how bad you treated me, I always knew you wanted me. Truly wanted me. Unlike those high school boys who told me I made their dicks hard but would never bring me around to meet their parents. I hated the way you tried to control me, but I liked how you saw me. And if you could have seen me when I was going through that first round of treatments. The tubes, my hair falling out, the needle tracks, the scars where my breasts used to be...”

She gulped down a sob. “You wouldn’t have wanted me.

And I wanted you to want me. Always. Sometimes when I was on the bathroom floor, sick as a dog, that was all that kept me going.

Remembering who I used to be with you. That I used to be an opera singer named Sirena Gale.

And one day I might just get to be her again. No…”

Raising morose eyes to him, she confessed, “I couldn’t…I couldn’t let you see me that way. That’s not the only reason I left, but that was a big part of it.”

He took in her words for a long time, his sharp face harsh with censure.

“If I’d seen you like that. With the tubes. And the hair. And the scars…” He swiped his chin back and forth. Once. Twice. Then he said, “If I’d seen you like that, I still would have wanted you.”

“No, you wouldn’t have. Believe me.”

Her denial seemed to incense him. He came toward her so vicious and fast, she backed away on primal instinct, only to have her back hit the wall that separated their balcony from the next suite’s.

Which left her with nowhere to go when he got up in her face and snarled, “You were mine, Sirena. Mine. I would have wanted you. I would have forced myself not to take you, because I am not the monster your write about in your diary. But I still would have wanted you.”

She shook her head, refusing to believe. Afraid to believe. But then he drew her into his arms, refusing to not let her believe.

“I would have wanted you,” he said again, his voice raspy with unchecked emotion. Then without warning, he grabbed the front of her rain-soaked dress and ripped it apart with one yank of his large muscular hands.

Thel gasped when the wet rain hit her naked chest. “What are you doing?”

“Showing you…how much I wanted you then. How much I want you now. You think that disease meant you did not belong to me? You were wrong. You are mine. Mine.”

He lifted her up, wrapping her legs around his thick waist as he pushed her down on his length. The state of his erection shocked the hell out of her. You’d think after that story…

But as if to refute her assumption, he growled, “Mine” as he locked her into his black stare, and slowly started fucking her against the wall.

His, she repeated inside her head, gazing back at him with helpless awe.

And the breasts he’d mocked earlier in? He laid a reverent kiss on each of them. The look in his eyes so incredibly tender as he informed her, “These are mine now, too.”

But then all kindness disappeared from his face. “Do you understand, Siren? Do you understand there is nothing in this world that will make it so you aren’t mine? No other man gets to have you. Cancer does not get to have you. Because you belong to me.”

She nodded. Too overcome with emotion to answer out loud.

But for once he didn’t force the issue. Instead, he picked up his pace, moving inside her with the same sharp thrusts he used to employ when he claimed her in front of other men. Like, Fuck you, Cancer. She belongs to me.

Somewhere in her mind, she knew anyone could walk by below and see them. Understood and didn’t care.

Let them see. She belonged to Bair Rustanov again. And this time when he claimed her in front of the world, in front of Cancer, she couldn’t be any more grateful.

In fact, she pulled Bair down into a claiming kiss of her own as his hips rolled within her. And eventually she came with a scream, no longer caring if the whole city knew exactly what this Beast did to her.