Page 27 of Little Blue

I might have a fifty-day security with my apartment. The same is not the case with my job. When I don’t show up at all next week, I can kiss my cushy reception job with the free coffee, goodbye.

The idea of losing my job stings. Even though I more than likely faced a loss soon, anyway, considering the fact I’d rejected my boss.

Regardless, I’m determined to show Ilya just how much he doesn’t want me as his wife, or in his life.

Crazy man. I come with more baggage than a commercial plane.

Before leaving me to get dressed, Ilya had given me instructions on how to get to the kitchen. I know that I need to turn right at the base of the stairs, but from where I stand, I can see that left is the main entrance of the house. There’s a console table next to the intricately carved wood double doors that probably has a set of keys or two.

Maybe if I nabbed myself a set, I could steal one of the cars and…

“Bad idea, Little Blue.”

I flinch at the familiar rumble, my head swinging to the right. Ilya leans against a wall where he hadn’t been leaning before. He looks like a devil, and just as tempting. Dark wood wainscoting spans the wall behind him, somehow adding to the ominous feel of the man. His blue eyes are fixed on me, daring me, I think, to run.

“Why?” I manage to push the word past the lump in my throat.

“There are men stationed outside. Men who have yet to meet you. Men with guns who are under orders to shoot first and ask questions later,” he explains simply, as though such insanity is normal.

But none of this horror is normal. None of it.

He adds, “That’s not to mention the dogs.”

I blink. “Dogs? Men with guns.” I shake my head at a loss. “Who are you?”

He pushes off the wall, and even though he’s just walking toward me, as any man might—it feels more dangerous from him. Lethal. That primal instinct flares. The urge to flee that’s been ingrained into me by a lifetime of scurrying around, hiding, and praying a predator bigger and badder than those I’d already encountered wouldn’t develop a taste for little miss me.

I almost snicker. Look what good all that scurrying, hiding, and praying did for me.

The biggest, baddest predator, found me after all. And, boy, did he develop a taste.

Ilya stops in front of me, towering over me as he does. Really, the man is big.

No, he’s not just big. He’s massive. If this were ancient Greece, they’d have carved his likeness into marble and stone and claimed him a god. He’s that beautiful. That darkly captivating.

“The kitchen is this way, Little Blue.”

I dig my heels in when he pushes one big hand into the small of my back. I repeat, “Who are you?”

“My name is Ilya Volkov.”

“You have men with guns—and dogs that—that, what? Do they have guns, too?” I’m being facetious. Of course, I know dogs don’t carry guns.

But he smirks. “Teeth.” He snaps his at me. I think he might be trying to be funny when he adds low, “Great for tearing into flesh.”

“Who are you?” I demand again, although quieter this time. My horror and fear has rendered my voice almost powerless. I rear back only as far as his hand on my back allows, trying not to allow the fear I feel to paint my face as I stutter, “A man—a normal man doesn’t have men with guns and dogs with—flesh tearing teeth.”

He lets that smirk linger on his lips. “You don’t know much about dogs, do you?”

I think he’s teasing me.

My face scrunches. “Are you teasing me?”

“I wouldn’t dare.” The pressure of his hand at my back grows more insistent, until I’m stepping forward in the direction, he clearly wants me to travel.

Still, I continue my interrogation, not that it’s getting me anywhere. “How did I get here?”

“I told you yesterday.”

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