Page 61 of Captured By the Bratva

I arched a brow. “Oh, you spend time molding clay too?” I teased. He was far too serious of a man to seem like an artist. He didn’t even seem like a person who’d lighten up enough to have a hobby of any kind.

“No. People.” He lifted his gaze to me, and I almost shivered under the smolder in his dark eyes. “I like to feel a woman come alive under my hands, restrained by my bindings.”

Oh, hell.I swallowed, my mouth dry at his naughty talk.

“I like to shape and mold the shyest and most stubborn woman to come alive and welcome a little brutality to really soar.”

I licked my lips, too intimidated to face him and hear such wanton desires. If he wasn’t talking about me, then I’d have tocurl my lip with anger and jealousy. But if he was taunting me, I wasn’t sure I could withstand the teasing.

“But we’re not talking about me.” He sighed, crossing his arms. “We were talking about art. Your sculptures. Paintings.”

I smiled, amused by his abrupt attempt to focus on something else. Like he couldn’t take the heat as well.

But why resist it? Why not just give in?I wanted to, so badly. But I was too shy to be that open and admit that I wanted him to encourage me to come alive under his rough touch.

“This is what you enjoy?” he asked, almost sarcastic.

I nodded, glancing up at him. “Yeah. I do.”

“Making something out of a blob.”

I hated the teasing tone he said that with. I’d been so eager, wishing he’d be genuinely interested about something I held dear, about something that would show him who I was. My passion. My calling.

But I had to check myself and remember he had made a point in the car. Weweredifferent. He dealt with life-or-death situations and decided on heavier, graver choices than this. He never eased up to be the kind of person to debate about which tools to use or how to style something to be thought-provoking and aesthetic.

That was what art was about.

That was what inspired me to improve.

But he doesn’t care. He can’t.

Just like Dom. Ivan didn’t care about my artwork and what it meant to me.

He’d only come here mildly intrigued, looking for a clue or connection about my past that somehow mattered to his future of killing Steven.

“You’d never be mine.”

He’d stated that with deep conviction on the ride here, and I felt like a fool a thousand times over not to understand it, to resist it and wish otherwise.

23

IVAN

Icouldn’t look away.

Becca sat there comfortable and confident, at ease with a natural-born grace. She belonged there, in her element and relaxed behind that spinning wheel.

And I refused to miss a second of it.

It was a huge step to approach after trying to distance myself while she was in my custody. Staying busy and away from her hadn’t helped this obsession with her. It had only fueled my desire.

Giving in and seeking her out was a big change in my treatment toward her. Alek expected me to talk to her again and try to ferret out more information about Steven. But I was here with a different perspective.

I was a moron to ever try to stay away from her in the hopes that my intrigue and lust for her would fade.

And all those weeks were nothing but wasted time I could have spent talking with her, fucking her, falling even further.

No wonder Alek and Nik were unashamed to show how much Mila and Amy mattered to them.

---