Page 54 of The Crimson Lily

Maksim doesn’t respond. Not because he doesn’t want to, but because I already know the answer.

Instead, he puts his hands on my shoulders and gently leads me to the wall adjacent to the window so we fall out of sight.

He plants both his hands into the wall and cages me beneath his glare.

I’m not scared; I’m longing. Maksim heads for my neck, first inhaling my scent, then taking a sweet bite.

“Would you do the same to me?” I exhale after a frail moan.

“Not if you don’t want me to,” he whispers to my ear.

I just have to know if he’d do it. If he’d get off on being that close to taking my life. If he’d enjoy crushing my face or gouging my eye. It’s an ounce of selfishness that makes me realize I’d be okay with Maksim’s tendencies if they’d never be directed at me.

“Would you kill me?” I ask softly.

No answer at first.

“I don’t get off on killing,” he groans before kissing me.

His tongue pushes through my lips and greets mine.

This isn’t a normal kiss. It’s too…dangerous.

I try to push him away, but he resists and keeps me pressed against the wall with his massive size.

However, despite his beastly strife, he is careful not to touch my wounded arm, careful to not even lightly brush it.

“Can you explain it to me?” I murmur.

A low growl escapes his hungry lips. “I just got you back, Liliana. Do you expect me to teach you something now?”

His husky voice sends tremors through my blood. I could fall to my knees right here, such is the power he has over me.

“Were you…worried when I was gone?” I ask, my voice almost disappearing behind my shallow breaths. I’m hoping he’ll say yes, then it’ll prove one hundred percent he cares for me.

Maksim lets out a complete and guttural growl. “I was furious,” he declares. His eyes flare with his allure. “You gave yourself up for me. You could have died.”

“But I didn’t. And we finished the mission thanks to that.”

I’m right. I have the right to be a little entitled. My ingenious plan to surrender to William de Loit and smuggle that GPS tracker into the Syndicate’s lair worked after all.

“That’s why I’m not punishing you right now,” Maksim declares. “If it were up to me, I’d be pressing into that bullet wound on your arm until you begged for me to stop.”

Cold shivers run down my spine. I’m not scared. I want to learn. “So, is it about pain? Is it seeing the other suffer that turns you on?”

“Partially.”

“What else?”

He frowns. “Why do you want to know?”

I take a deep breath, preparing for the tallest leap of faith. Here we are, against a wall in a suite in Rome, a successful job behind us. Maksim is just within reach of me, and I can finally ask him about what I’ve been dying to know. “I want to know how you work if we…”

Break. I can’t continue. I want to say “If we’re going to be together forever,” but I chicken out and swallow my tongue.

“I could show you,” he proposes, and I round my eyes in curiosity.

He lowers his arms, releasing me, and he goes on his knees. I shiver when he starts unbuttoning my jeans and lets them slide along my legs. He doesn’t even flinch when his lips slip between my thighs and make me quiver. He’s absolutely in total control.

“What are you doing?” I whisper and pass my hand through his thick black curls.

“I’m making you more exposed than you already are.”

He stands up and turns around to fetch something from the table. The box of Plexiglas.

“Should I follow?” I ask, already entranced by this short moment of intimacy.

“Stay right where you are,” he says. He turns around and holds the Kinzhal Strastey in his hand. “Do you know what Strastey means?” I shake my head, so he continues. “Passion.” He comes close to me and delicately brings the point of the blade to my neck. “And I am passionate about my work.”

My body stiffens, and I can’t avoid his silver glare.

“That look in your eyes right now—that’s fear, and that’s what makes you so fucking desirable.” His tone has changed. It’s no longer the stern voice of a serious man but the growl of a cruel fiend. “The best feeling is when they break.”

I am frozen, terrified, or actually, maybe I’m excited. My bare legs tremble. Am I cold? My Columbia sweater still keeps me warm, but the bumps on my skin erupt like a myriad of tiny volcanoes bursting.

“I’ll ask a question, and you just have to say no .” He approaches me and delves into my gaze. “I’ll keep asking until you say yes .” He brings the dagger to my chest and gently presses into my bra’s center gore through the sweater. “Of course, your answer will be an obvious lie.”

He presses, even more, only to make me flinch. Then his blue eyes switch to a strident silver. Here comes his question.

“Do you love me?” His husky voice breaks the brief silence.

I instantly turn to stone. My spine twists on itself. I blink repeatedly, nervously. He just asked me the question I’ve wanted to ask him since day one of this journey. I can’t reply. I just can’t tell him. I squeeze my arm dangling in the sling closer to my body as a shield.

“No,” I stammer, reinforcing my posture and maintaining eye contact.

He flicks the dagger up and leaves a light scratch on the skin under my chin.

The ice in my blood cracks. I yelp, statically, too tense to move.

His eyes now gleam, and he leans in to steal a kiss, not one I can enjoy.

“Do you love me?” he asks, in the same tone, very close to my lips.

“No.”

I shouldn’t have said that. The dagger makes its way to my face, to my cheeks, and to my lips.

Maksim draws microscopic scratches in my neck.

He pokes my skin with the sharpened tip of the glass blade.

This is sickening, but I love every bit of it.

It scares me how much I enjoy this. My nipples are screaming underneath the sweater.

I wonder, eagerly, if he’ll scratch there too.

For now, he keeps the dagger to my neck. “Do you love me?”

I refuse to say anything this time.

He seizes me by the jaw and forces me to look up. With a quick movement of his wrist, he cuts my thong and scratches the side of my hip with it, the piece of cloth fluttering to the floor. Then, towering above me, he brings the dagger between my legs, dangerously caressing my thighs with the blade.

“Do you love me?”

I swallow something in my throat and close my eyes. “No.”

He pauses. I can still feel the blade touching me. I tremble, afraid of what he’ll do next. No, I’m not afraid. My body is…begging for it, and much louder than I want to admit.

Because what will that make of me?

He pushes it inside me.

I scream something that sounds more like a deliciously relieved moan. It’s not the blade that moves in and out of me. It’s the hilt.

I can barely control myself. My hips are oscillating against Maksim’s leg, opening the way for the hilt he’s handling with such delicate care. His silver eyes flare.

“Do you love me?”

I’m losing myself. Too intense. “Y…no.”

Lies, lies, lies.

He draws the dagger out, grips my hair, and pulls my head to the side. He brings the blade to the frail skin of my neck and looks me dead in the eyes. I can feel how much he wants me.

“Do you love me?” he growls.

“No,” I whisper, but my body screams yes.

He discards the dagger. Maksim lifts me up; I can only hold on to him with one arm, so I grip as hard as I can.

He lets me fall on the bed, drops his pants, and crawls on top of me.

His hips overtake mine, hold still, then start the tease.

He keeps on going until I can no longer look at him.

I’m convulsing under him, and he enjoys every bit of it.

He comes close to my lips without ever taking them.

“Do you love me?” he murmurs with another low growl.

I feel like I’m going to die; this is too much to endure. I can no longer speak. I can no longer answer Maksim’s questions without telling him the simple truth I damn wish to hide.

He raises himself up and grips the back of my head, leaning in to give me a most unsatisfying kiss. He pulls my hair back and nibbles on my exposed neck, low growls escaping his lips at each touch.

“Do you love me?” he asks one last time.

I inhale deeply and close my eyes. That’s it. I let go.

“Yes…” I admit with the most quiet whisper, pressing my eyelids shut, hoping with all my heart that he’ll respond with at least something .

As I mutter this ultimate word, he gives in and enters me fully. And I come. Hard. I scream yes a thousand times. Spasms invade my body. My skin burns as much as I burn for him. I grip on to his back, his muscular arms, his face. I scream yes a hundred times again.

A minute later, I forget where I am, who I am, who he is. I just lie there, quiet, breathing in and out slowly. He rolls to his side and leads me into his embrace.

Next, his soft voice prepares to speak a few words. “I love you too,” he says, naturally, as if those words have always been there, with a squeeze and a kiss on my forehead. “Let’s sleep, zaya .”

I turn my head to meet his blue eyes.

“Together?” I ask, hesitant, not wanting to hear the answer.

He takes my lips and a deep breath. “I broke both my rules long ago, Liliana. I thought you’d want me to stay.”

I don’t let him avert my gaze. “I love you, Maksim,” I can finally say, after all this time. I can finally admit it out loud.

He looks deeply into my eyes and gives me his most beautiful smile. “You are wonderful. Absolutely wonderful. Don’t you ever dare put yourself in danger again.”

Understood. I won’t do that again, Maksim. I promise. Stay with me forever, and I’ll be good.