Page 88 of Deadly Knight
She slaps me on my back as we reach Lev’s doorway. “Good. Make it hurt. Give him a few hits for me.”
“Of course. Keep Katya safe.”
I disappear into Lev’s room to shower and change and get the fuck out of the mansion before I stay forever.
Maybe I’ll return in another day or so.
I’ll need my fix of her.
When I wakethe morning after visiting the brothels, I’m certain I’ve lost it, because I’m in the bed and Dimitri’s scent is stronger than it was the day before. Silly, really, considering it’s his room, so it’s easy to explain away, even if I’m also aware the scent has been fading since he left.
But the fact I fell asleep on the floor and woke in the bed? There’s no explaining that one.
When checking with Vanessa if he stopped by, she claims he didn’t and she hasn’t heard from him in days. I’m getting the sense it’s a lie.
Another week passes, and I’m all but crawling the walls at this point. It’s been almost two weeks since being taken from Toronto. That’swaytoo long to be away from my clients, especially when the absence was unexpected and unplanned, which means I’ve put nothing in place for the kids who rely on me. Who the hell knows what my boss thinks of my absence? If Dimitri believes getting me fired will somehow turn this in his favour, he’s very wrong.
On exactly the two-week mark, I slip into my makeshift camping area on his floor and let sleep take me away from the frustration and irritation that I’m not home.
For the first time since arriving in Russia, sleep isn’t an easy one. A nightmare slips into the most vulnerable parts of my brain.
“Let’s play, boys.”
The man’s hand moves between my legs, and my eyes slam shut.Don’t feel, don’t feel, don’t feel.What a stupid thought.
Dimitri watches from the chair he’s tied to, his screams and pleas drowning everything else out. He looks like an animal. Murderous, destructive. He’s ready toexterminatethese men—for me. To save me from the pain.
One man. Two. Three. And then the fourth.
All while the guy I love is forced to watch me be violated over and over, unable to save me. While he talks to me, my mind slips away. Reality is so much harder to cling to.
I love him.
Something warm touches my face, yanking me—saving me—from the nightmare, and I shoot up in bed with a scream in my throat, the horrors in my head, and the panic sending me into an attack. My nails jab my arm, my mind trying to recall the words that’ll ground me.
Safe. Not real. Safe. Not real.
The nails in my arm—real.
The touch on my face—real.
The hands on my thigh—not real. Not anymore.
As soon as my nails pierce skin, the ultimate reminder of where I’m not, a heavy grip latches around both wrists and I’m pulled into a chest, a rumbling noise filling the room. He releases me to stroke over my injuries, the raised skin that was seconds from bleeding again.
Once I stop fighting, he holds me in a way I haven’t been in a long time. In his arms, everything else ceases to matter, even the fact I shouldn’t be encouraging him.
“Dimitri?” My voice feels shaky, leftover from the memories involving a time when my screams were not imaginary.
“I have you,moya dusha. Go back to sleep.”
I almost obey him and pass back out, but pure determination and weeks of frustration compiled with him dropping back into my life has me demanding, “Let me return to Toronto.” Albeit with zero conviction, so the pointed demand is diminished.
He rubs a hand down my back. “Sleep first.”
Dimitri’s age-old knowledge about me brings his hand up to my head, where he massages my scalp in a way that never fails to drag me beneath the surface of consciousness. I fall asleep on the man who once held my heart, my soul…my everything.
It’s my best sleep in ten years.
