Page 61 of Twisted Cage

He drags his nose along my cheekbone in that way of his, his mouth stopping right by my ear. “You didn’t seem to mind my age when you were begging me to fuck you, little girl.”

“I did not beg.” The words sound weak to my own ears.

He hears it too, but he doesn’t gloat. He doesn’t need to. His deep laugh along the shell of my ear does it for him. “Yes, you most certainly did. And you will again.”

Fat fucking chance. I’ll be married in a matter of months tops. And then maybe he’ll know a fraction of the hurt he’s inflicted on me.

He walks me back until I stand in front of the full-length mirror again and drops down onto one knee before me.

Flipping the lid off the shoebox, he tosses the red drawstring Louboutin bag aside. Strong fingers curl around my calf, smoothing down over my ankle and under my heel before lifting my foot onto his bent knee.

Heart in my throat choking out the hostile ‘fuck you’ I should have been delivering, I watch in rapt fascination, this side of him I’ve never seen.

The sexy heels pale compared to the sight he makes—all six-foot-seven of him on one knee—submissive, but only voluntarily so. Taking in the view of us in the mirror, a whole other scenario flashes in my mind, an unattainable fantasy I once clung to when anything more between us than our connection as godfather and goddaughter seemed impossible. A young girl’s dream. One that conveniently glossed over any dangers of crossing the forbidden line between us.

Has he ever proposed to a woman before? Hasn’t he dreamed of having a family of his own? Just the idea of him on his knee for anyone else has me volleying between violence and vomit.

I glance down at him to find his hot gaze locked on me—his eyes trailing over my skin from my face to the valley between my breasts. The brief flash of longing in his expression—longing for my mother or me, I can’t tell—spears straight into my heart. Missing the part of me who loves him, it lands in the black corner poisoned with self-doubt and jealousy.

Embracing the bitter taste of knowing Konstantin has never really been mine, my mouth, as sharp as my knife—at times, sharper—delivers another blow. “Did you offer the same services to my mother when my father decided to toss her some dick crumbs and sent you to fetch her?”

The hand holding my foot goes impossibly still. The only sound in the charged air is of his harsh, angry breaths. I am so focused on the ominous silence, the sharp smack landing on my ass makes me yelp, leaving a swift sting in its wake.

Without thinking, my fingers reach for my knife, just to come up empty. The sheath mocks me from the ottoman a few feet away, where I left it to apply lotion.

His gaze follows mine. “You go for blood and you’ll just end up with a ruined dress, brat.”

My mouth falls open, scathing barbs perched on the tip of my tongue, only to slide silently away as his palm stays planted on my ass as though it belongs to him. Only now, he rubs and squeezes, chasing away the sting. “I don’t know what you need more, a brutal spanking or savage fucking—probably both—but your brother will be here in ten minutes, so for once, fucking behave.”

His words set off an ache that throbs through me from head to toe. Or maybe it is the way his hand has gone back to caressing my ankle, then my calf. Subtly, he moves higher, setting off fireworks so powerful, it takes every last bit of resolve to hold back the whimper.

After peeling back the paper wrapping the shoes, he pulls out the heel and turns it over in his hand, examining it from every angle.

“You’re just asking for a broken ankle in these.”

“You just don’t like how I’ll look in them.”

“Mmmm,” he hums, his deep voice only diving deeper as he undoes the clasp. Silent but for our heavy breaths, I sway on my feet as he slides the shoe over my toes and up over my heel.

“I assure you, that’s the part I actually do like,” he says as he secures the delicate strap around my ankle before brushing a light kiss over the skin just above the clasp, “It’s anyone else seeing you in them and getting ideas that doesn’t work for me, Pcholka.” He trails his fingers over my knee and along my thigh, hooking his finger under the slit of my dress.

I suck in a sharp breath, all of my senses anticipating the back of his knuckle brushing over my pussy. I’ll never survive foreplay with this man. Never.

For this fleeting moment, I embrace the fantasy where nothing stands between us. A brief taste of what it would be like if our history didn’t exist and he could be mine. In this room, we’re just a man and woman, insanely attracted to one another, getting ready for a glamorous night out.

Maddeningly deliberate and with cunning precision, as though helpless to get closer to the heat emanating from me, he glides his finger farther behind the fabric bit by bit.

Like Icarus, but instead of being an overambitious boy flying too close to the sun, he finds the narrow path between the sun and sea, giving us both what we need, but pulling us back from our total annihilation.

How appropriate for my protector to find the balance. How fitting he has a set of black wings carved in ink over the length of his back and beyond.

“You’re going to need to work hard to keep this obscene split closed tonight.”

His gruff voice washes over me, leaving me throbbing and desperate. I’ll take our destruction over his restraint. “That defeats the entire purpose of having Ahmed add it.”

Dark, brooding eyes flash up to mine. Mouth tight, his hand clamps on my ankle, locking my foot on his thigh. The hand he used to explore the slit in my gown just seconds earlier, now reaches into the drawer of the nightstand. “Maybe a bit of motivation then.”

I barely catch a glimpse of papers, an engraved money clip, a remote for the fan before the drawer slams shut, making me jump. Eyes on mine, he grabs the edge of the slit and tosses the shimmering fabric over the opposite side, holding it there with his long fingers curling over my hip.

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