Page 125 of One For my Enemy

“Never again, Dima.” Her fingers toyed with the buttons of his shirt while his found the zipper of her dress. “I thought I was weak for you, Dima, but I was wrong. I’m Marya Antonova,” she told him, meeting his eye, “and I am loved by Dimitri Fedorov, and for that, I could never be weak.”

“And I’m the man who possesses Marya Antonova’s heart,” Dimitri agreed, breath quickening as Marya’s hands traversed his chest. “Nothing will ever stop me.”

The kiss between them was a promise; the swearing of an oath. Her lips were sure and supple against his, and he traced the iron notches of her spine, hands fitted around the sharp blades of her shoulders.

“I have money,” she told him, murmuring it as his lips wandered to her neck. “However much you need.”

“I know which men will turn on my father,” Dimitri said, sliding her dress down her arms to let the fabric pool at her feet. “Which ones we can use.”

“Good,” she gasped, pulling him with her as they tumbled back against his bed. “And,” she said, and paused, a little hint of guilt rising in her cheeks, “I also know which ones I’ve already turned against you.”

Dimitri stopped, pulling back to frown at her. “What?”

She shrugged.

“I’m Marya Antonova,” she said. “I’m terrifying. Some things justare.”

He rolled his eyes, pulling them both onto his back.

“How long have you been working against me?” he asked as she slid her hands against his bare torso, tracing over the crevices of him.

“Too long,” she confessed, and kissed him defiantly as proof, tasting like wild euphoria and the sweetness of disaster as he tightened his fingers in her hair.

“Does this mean you’ll help me with Lev?” he asked her, and she paused, lips bitten and cheeks flushed, painted brilliantly from a palette of incandescence.

“One thing at a time, Dima,” she said. “Do you trust me?”

His hands curled around her arms as he considered her. He’d slept for twelve years with the memory of her face, observing the reels of memories of who she’d been, and to look at her now, it was strange how much he realized he’d been mistaken. He’d misremembered her; not the color of her eyes or the shape of her mouth, but the heat of being close to her. The details of her had been accurate, but his memories of her were softer, filled with longing. Now that he held her, though, he remembered the truth: that Marya Antonova was as mighty as a strike of lightning, and as difficult to hold. She was as captivating as fear, as undeniable as hunger, and he had loved her then—and loved her now—for all the tremor and the fury that she was.

He slid her onto her back, shifting down the length of the bed to settle himself between her hips.

“Do I trust you, Masha?” he echoed, fighting a bitter laugh. “More than I should.”

His hands dug into her thighs and she let out a gasp, her fingers twisting in the roots of his hair.

“Good,” she said, and shivered, closing her eyes.

V. 9

(A Koschei Problem.)

Roman had been seeing Sasha Antonova’s ghost all over Manhattan.

In the wake of Dimitri’s rejection and his father’s request for him to lie low, Roman had been doing very little in the vein of business. He’d mostly occupied himself by going for walks around the city, trying to keep out of trouble. Unfortunately, it seemed trouble was continuously finding him.

Roman saw Sasha’s face in reflections of buildings, always turning to find nobody was there. He avoided pools of water after seeing her once in a fountain installation in Central Park, discovering her grey gaze peering over his shoulder with a jolt. Each time he saw her, she had a ghastly pallor, a little smile on her face, and she always said variations of the same thing.

Who did this to me, Roma?

After a few weeks of it, Roman was determined to do something. He stormed over to Brynmor Attaway’s office, bursting through the doors.

“She’s haunting me,” he said without preamble, and Bryn looked up, obviously irritated.

“I’m with a client, Roman,” Bryn said, gesturing to the suited pair sitting opposite him. “You can wait. My apologies,” he added to the others. “Some of my other clients are, as you can see, seriously disturbed.”

“Ah,” said one of the men, obviously uncomfortable, and Roman chewed a grimace, backing out of the office and pacing irritably in front of the door.

Ten minutes later, the two suits walked out, eyeing Roman skeptically as he shoved past them into the office.

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