Page 102 of Little Blue

My body wants nothing more than to settle deep inside her again, but I won’t take her as I took her on the forest floor. I won’t claim her roughly again tonight. If I have her, it’ll be as her first time should have been. Gentle. Tender. Not with the monster that lurks under my skin clawing to break free.

I lay her on the bed of blankets that sprawls before the lit fireplace, a hum of pleasure swelling as her eyes widen with awe. A twinkle of gold catches her eye, and she cranes her neck, gasping.

“Oh, Ilya, wow.” Christ, the way she says my name. Does she know it could bring me to my knees? “How?”

“Polina and Daniil.” My voice is a rough contrast to the soft spill of hers.

“This is—” Shimmering eyes find mine as I lower my body over hers. My hands are planted into the floor on either side of her head, my knees between her spread legs. The amber flames of the fire dance with the golden glow of the Christmas tree that overlooks the scene of us, painting her freckled, flawless flesh in magic. She’s radiant.

I finish her sentence. “Beautiful.”

“You planned all this?” I don’t nod. I say nothing. Her eyes drift to the flames in the hearth and she pulls her lip between her teeth. Then her chin quivers. “I’m sorry.”

The shimmer in her eyes intensifies. My heart bleeds for her.

“Why are you sorry?” Is this when she tells me she regrets it all. That she lied, and she doesn’t want me? That her letting me in had been an act to keep me on her hook because she’d failed to lose me in the escape?

Sick rage boils my blood.

I want this woman with everything I am. I could breathe her into my lungs for the rest of my life and die a happy man.

I want her to want me. I need her to need me.

I don’t know why I thought I could steal her and command her affection. It doesn’t matter now. It’s too late to turn back. Even if she hates me, I’ll devote the rest of my days to making her fall for me. Even if she never feels for me half of what I feel for her, I will be happy.

Her eyes land on mine, and it’s like a fist to the chest. A blow to my soul.

“I ruined everything, didn’t I?”

Her voice is so quiet, so broken, I frown. “Talk to me, Little Blue.”

Her hands lift from where they’d settled on the blanket to touch my sides. Slowly, her fingertips drift over my torso, my chest, as she’d done in the shower. A single tear falls from the corner of her eye to disappear into her wet hair.

When she gets to the place where my heart thunders like a storm inside my chest, she lays her palm flat. Her eyes settle on mine. They’re like an open book, codes of emotion I need to decipher.

“You’re always so in control. Always so—so methodical. Even when you want something, you take it with calculation.” She sucks in a breath. “I wanted to experience what it might be like to make you snap. To have that control shatter. To feel what it would feel like to just have you. All of you.”

Heaven help me, but this woman will be my ruin.

She continues spilling her truth. “I ran because I knew the predator in you would chase. That you wouldn’t be able to help yourself. That you would want to punish me. I ran because—when you bought me the cream and I kissed you—and tonight—just everything.” She pauses, her truth turning jumbled on release. “I—you—Ilya…”

Watching her struggle with her words, with her emotion—she’s exquisite. Her chest heaves with every heavy breath, her hands trembling where they rest against my chest. My dick is heavy and swollen as it hovers above her wet entrance, dripping with the need to sink into her warmth.

“You what, Irelynn?”

“I don’t know how it happened.” Panic is seeping into her voice now. Her entire body is trembling, and there’s a wildness to her eyes that wasn’t there even as I stole her innocence on the forest floor. She truly looks like she might fight to flee me now, but instead, she juts her chin, resolute. “You’re not a good man. I know you’re not a good man. You’re the head of the bratva. I don’t even know what that means, but I know it’s bad.” Her lip trembles as she wets it, my eyes tracking the movement. “You’ve told me you’ve killed people—and that’s—it’s not okay. It terrifies me. You terrify me.” She releases a breath I inhale into my lungs. It burns a brand into me, scarring. “You stole me, Ilya. You. Stole. Me.” Another tear slides across her temple as she looks up at me. “You’re not a good man, and I don’t know how it happened, but it did.”

I study her. “What happened?”

Her shoulders lift in a helpless little shrug. “I fell in love with you.”

There are words I expected her to say, but those hadn’t even been at the bottom of the list. For a long moment, I can’t move or think of anything but the echo of those words as they sink into my mind, into muscle, and bone, and blood.

They settle in the void where a flicker of light warms me, resuscitated by her affection. Her love.

My eyes close, attempting to brand the image of this moment on my mind. Slowly, I lower my forehead to hers, begging, “Say it again.”

She gives me more. “You’re not a good man, but in your way, you’ve been good to me. I don’t know how or when it happened, but I fell in love with you.”

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