Page 17 of The Crimson Lily

My heartbeat halts. First, I feel angst, but it’s quickly replaced by a sense of relief. Strangely enough, I feel safer than I have ever felt near Mr. Business Class, who looks at me with curious eyes. I finally start to cry, and he’s looking at me with that silver glimmer in his gaze.

“Why does the Bratva want the dagger anyway?” I ask the question Maksim initially refused to answer, between sniffles, wiping my tears with my sweatshirt’s sleeves so they won’t run lower than my cheekbones.

I know I wouldn’t have accepted this twisted partnership had the Bratva not had a good reason. But then again, they are the Bratva, and maybe I was afraid, scared, terrified for my life, like I was when I saw that gun.

“The dagger was found on Bratva grounds,” Maksim discloses.

I did not expect that. Things slowly start to make sense.

Béatrice and I found the dagger somewhere we shouldn’t have been in the first place.

William took the dagger for himself, seeing it mostly for its price, and the reason I didn’t like the relic at Columbia was because I knew the Bratva was coming for it.

I don’t remember at all, but this explanation is the only one that makes sense to me right now—intrinsically, as if it’s the only justification in the world that can possibly make sense. What else could it be?

There’s something in Maksim’s voice I didn’t notice until now.

The rattle of a repressed growl. He leans in close to me, observing my tears as they desperately try to escape.

I look down in my glass, at the counter through the whiskey.

Maksim just lets me cry. He doesn’t ask those stupid questions you ask someone who’s crying.

Are you okay, or How do you feel ? Will you be all right, or Do you need help ?

I don’t want him to ask anything. He’s perfectly fine here, as a mute giant tasting his single malt.

However, I still need to open my mouth and talk.

“I was alone in the hospital.” I say something I’ve never talked about with anyone. “They say I’d hit my head on the ground.”

He remains silent and lets me talk. He turns slightly to face me better, coming a little closer to me.

“You know what the worst part is?” I ask rhetorically.

He shakes his head but says nothing.

“I’ve asked myself the same question from day zero until now,” I murmur, repressing tears and letting them go at the same time.

“What kind of person I must have been…?that nobody was there to claim me. I mean…” Darn, these tears!

I wipe a few more and take a deep breath.

“I think I’m a pretty likable person, or so I’ve been told. So…?why nobody?”

There’s a minute of silence where I swallow my tears. All the muscles in my body solidify next. Maksim has laid his hand on my thigh. I am frozen. He caresses me with his big hand. I look at him and only see silver.

“Let’s go back to the room,” he suggests—no, orders .

I stutter, unable to decline nor comply. I can’t say a word. I can’t even take a breath. My tears have stopped, and now Maksim stands from the stool and paces away. I have no choice but to follow him. I trot behind him, longing to know what’s going to happen in the next five minutes.

That was really too much whiskey. I am tipsy, way too tipsy.

Not as bad as yesterday, but I know here and now that tomorrow will bring another awful morning.

It takes me a lot to drag myself upstairs, and it takes me even more to stagger back to the room.

On the way there, I keep on sniffling, wiping the final bits of my tears.

Maksim doesn’t seem to care. He walks ahead, not looking at me, not turning to me, just marching toward the door at the end of the hallway.

When I step into the room, I have my back facing him. I can hear him breathe behind me, soft and shallow pants. I can’t figure out what has gotten into him, why he spontaneously decided to take me to my room, why he stands silently behind me.

“Are you going to leave?” I ask with a little voice, like I don’t want him to say yes.

Within seconds, I feel his hands reach for my waist. He makes me turn around and delves his silver glower deep into me. I don’t have time to catch my thoughts; he’s already leaned in and caught my lips.

Oh, man, that release. An electrical shock. A blazing pulse from my heart to the tip of my fingers.

His lips make this kiss worth everything I have to give.

They’re so ripe yet so delicate, so enticing.

He presses them against mine like he wants to devour me, to consume me until there’s nothing left.

He pushes his tongue, so sweet and tender, into my mouth.

I let a moan escape when he releases my lips to feast down my neck.

He takes a few nibbles, a few soft bites, while his hands slip underneath my large Columbia sweatshirt and explore my skin.

They make their way to my back and haul me in, giving me no choice but to stand on my toes or I’ll lose balance.

I moan a loud, uncontrolled wail, which sounds like too much. I push him from me, looking him dead in the eyes with a cocky smirk.

“I didn’t think of you as a man who takes advantage of drunk girls,” I say in a cheeky little voice, expecting a silent response or a smirk.

He pulls back instead and scowls at me. No, this isn’t the reaction I hoped for. I almost trip the moment he releases me.

Maksim stares at me with his mouth half-open, panting, his blue eyes piercing right through me. “You’ve wanted this for days, but I won’t ask you to do anything you don’t want to do.”

Busted. I don’t wait. I wrap my arms around his neck and pull him down to steal a kiss. Not a minute later, I am latching on to his hair. I clench my fingers in his mane, semi-aware of this animalistic effect he has on me.

I hear him growl. He leads my arms up and rids me of my sweatshirt…?and everything else above the belt.

He lifts me up. I am now two heads taller than usual. He brings me to the bed and gently lays me on the sheets. His eyes bounce furtively between my face and my chest. He crawls on top of me and kisses me again, bites my neck, dives down my breasts, and takes one of my nipples between his lips.

I manage to get a hold of his shirt and pull it off him, then pop open his buckle and slide his trousers along his legs.

Fuck. I want him. I want him so bad. My body is screaming for it.

I make him roll over, then climb over him like I am the rider and he is to be my stallion for the night. He’s exploring my body, discovering me, squeezing here and there just a little too hard. His eyes, now silver again, swallow me whole.

I have to ditch my jeans and thong, I just have to, so I reel off the bed and do exactly that.

I almost trip. The earth is still spinning.

I stand there, naked and quivering by the side of the bed.

The whiskey has taken over most of me. I take one good, long look at him, savoring the view.

His muscles, tight and firm, effortlessly work on getting him to sit up straight.

His skin gleams with ivory hues in the light of the room.

I think he notices me staring because he reflects my gaze back at me.

Then his eyes narrow. The silver turns back to a severe blue.

“I don’t take advantage of drunk girls,” he says with an undefined sneer.

No, don’t stop. He can’t stop now!

“But I want it!” I whine. I sound like a little girl who desperately wants something she’s not allowed to have.

The moment I yelp, he relaxes his stance and motions for me to come back to him. I swear, I am about to, but his last words buzz in my head, and so does the alcohol.

And maybe a spark of reason.

I can’t continue, not like this. I don’t want a night with this man to be like this, with a drunk me who can barely stand.

I simply go sit beside him, still naked, and my eyes meet his.

I look down. And back up. And back down again.

I suddenly feel so ashamed. Yes, I just threw myself at this criminal, without even a shred of hesitation.

I am so inebriated that the earth is about to fall from its own axis.

“Maybe we shouldn’t do this,” I murmur. Again, like a little girl who’s about to do something bad.

He catches my wrist.

“Liliana, know that if you change your mind, I won’t let you change it again,” he says, stern and emotionless, but I swear his eyes are silver again.

“Y-yes,” I stutter and nod. Then I regain my smirk, faking it, hoping he won’t notice. “I just think I’d perform better if I weren’t?—”

“Drunk?”

I nod silently again. I slip beside him, finding my way against his broad chest. I look up. His lips are still in reach. So I meet his eyes and stay there for a little while. I ask him if I can sleep next to him. I don’t get an answer, but I fall asleep in his arms, his heartbeat my lullaby.

I wake up in the middle of the night, finding myself in a cold bed.

Maksim is gone. Oh, of course, the first thing I do is panic.

I stand up, completely stripped of my clothes.

The earth is definitely still spinning! I head into the bathroom, search all four corners of the room, and peek into the hallway at least three times.

I call his name. Nothing. No response. Maksim is really gone.

I am dead scared. I haven’t been this scared since I woke up in the hospital, alone.

No, actually, since much more recently. Since unsolicited memories have started to come back.

I call his name again. Tears invade my eyes.

I sit on the bed, my arms around my knees, my skin reflecting the lights of Paris at midnight that loom into the room.

I don’t know how long it’ll take me to fall asleep again, but I am submerged in a rising tide of loneliness.