Page 20 of Deception

“It gets me hard when you fight, Red.”

With a harder jostle and a pained growl, the girl yanks herself free. Her hair is in wild disarray as she heaves, glowering at me.

“Fuck you!”

“You win and you can do that too,” I chuckle, taking her hand in mine and squeezing tighter with every attempt she makes to pull free.

When we reach my quarters, I sit her on the couch opposite the fireplace, then lock the bedroom door before I change out of my suit into shorts and a T-shirt. By the time I return to the sitting area, she’s standing by the balcony doors, staring out at the tree she was hanging from not too long ago.

Walking past her, I head towards the window close to the fireplace, where the chess table sits beside the floor-to-ceiling bookshelf.

Once I’ve set up a fresh game, I pour us both a drink as I tell her, “Come now, pet, time to play.”

She doesn’t argue; on the contrary, she meanders over with her shoulders pulled back. Taking the drink I offer her, the girl drinks it all down in one before sitting in the chair opposite mine. There’s a glint in her eyes as she makes the first move and then makes a point of drinking down my vodka as well.

“You’ll want to take it easy.” Win or lose, this night is far from over. “You’re going to want a clear head.”

8

LUCY

The dark king topples, rolling around the chequered board as I glance up at Tomasz. The silence buzzes around us with the crackling from the fire zapping at my pores. An electric current hums through me as I hold his amused stare. He’s completely unfazed, as though the actual game is about to begin.

It should be all the warning I need to make me wary of what’s coming, but my curiosity gets the better of me. I don’t like that he believes he still has the upper hand. He’s cocky and so sure of himself. I hate him so fucking much that I want to gouge his flesh from his bones with my bare hands. Especially when he looks at me like this—an almost smirk ghosting his lips and shining in his eyes, gradually blooming into a shit-eating grin, like the cat that got the cream.

“Shakh i mat,” I state.

With a nod, Tomasz echoes in English, “Checkmate…you win.”

Every muscle in my body coils tight as he stands, shoving his hands into the pockets of his shorts as he saunters to the bedroom door without a backwards glance. His demeanour has always been sharp and dangerous. Even beneath the suits he wears, his body is obviously strong. But as he walks away from me, his black T-shirt pulls taut over his shoulders, rippling over his back with every flex of his muscles.

My heart is already hammering in anticipation of what he’s doing. He said he would release me if I won. As he unlocks the door, freedom beckons me. I want it so goddamn much that I can barely breathe at the thought that it’s so close.

“What are you waiting for?” he asks, spinning to look at me as he opens the door.

I stand, all too aware of the way his eyes roam over my body, pausing on my chest. Instinctively, my hand splays over my breasts. I can’t help the way my fingertips stroke over the hollow of my throat, searching for my lucky penny while I trace the length of his body with my gaze.

Crossing his ankles, Tomasz leans back into the edge of the door. His throat bobs as he continues watching me, his stare edged with contempt as I close the distance between us. My body aches with every step while I take in muscle-roped thighs and legs.

Tomasz is tall. He’s broad, and he’s strong, and in his shadow, I feel as small as he sees me.

Little Red.

The echo of his voice rolls through me, the gravel heating my insides as my skin hums with the intensity of his stare raking over me. Much like gravity was on his side when he had me hung on the tree, the air around me pulls me closer as he straightens and his eyes find mine.

Hot palms ghost the back of my hands at my sides. My stomach knots tight at the same time as my legs press together, the pounding of my heart battering my ribs and punching the air from my lungs.

“Krasnyy…” he drawls, leaning closer so that his vodka-sweetened breath kisses my lips and fizzes over my cheeks. “Red…”

Rolling his lip into his mouth, he inhales deeply, so deep that he might as well be robbing the air from my lungs as the tip of his nose traces the slope of mine with a barely there touch.

I’m burning. So hot and so fucking, torturously slow as his body grazes mine, that all I can do is gasp him in. Deeper and deeper, until the expensive musk of his cologne with the smoky tinge of tobacco courses through my veins.

I hate him so fucking much, and yet, I can’t pull away. There’s a draw between us that keeps me chained to his darkness. It calls to me in a way that makes me hunger for his touch and his rage. It makes me yearn for the power pulsing inside him, coursing through his veins. I want to revel in the violence that blazes in his eyes.

Every day that’s gone by since he left me in that godforsaken bed with nothing but the walls and painted ceiling for company, I have gone stir-crazy in the silence. He imprisoned me in a gilded cage with nothing but my fading memories and my useless hope. And I have hankered for his return so desperately that it was him that ruled over my every thought and hope. He stalked my sanity with his absence, and now that he’s here, and that we’re this close, the prospect of walking away is agonising.

“Run,” he rasps between gritted teeth even as his groin presses to my belly, the feel of his hardened cock making me shudder.

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