Page 51 of Broken Sins (Volkov Bratva 3)

Milaya

“Get up.”

“No thanks.”

“It wasn’t a question.”

I crack open an eye. Leo is leaning against the doorjamb. He is wearing a long-sleeved white linen shirt with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows, exposing strong forearms and a smattering of dark hair. The top three buttons are undone too, so I can see the outline of his chest muscles. His head is cocked at a listless angle, almost like he’s bored with having to come fetch me for whatever nightmare the brothers have planned next.

“Are you going to make me throw you over my shoulder like a sack of potatoes?” he drawls.

I can’t help but notice that he has such a pretty mouth. Sinfully twisted, with a smile that oscillates between wry and cruel. It must drive women crazy. Even here and now, when he’s my warden and torturer, I want him to smile at me. I want him to want me.

What a wild thought. Maybe I really am becoming unhinged.

“I’d prefer if you didn’t.”

“Then get up.”

“Why?”

“You’re being invited to dinner.”

I laugh and curl back up in the folds of the blanket. “Now I know you’re just screwing with me. Why bother?”

He clicks his tongue in irritation. “I’m not going to eat cold food because you decided to pitch a little fit. Get up and come with me. Or would you rather stay in a musty cell for the rest of your life?”

I eye him warily. There’s a catch coming somewhere soon. I have been in this place long enough to know that the other shoe is always about to drop. But he’s tapping his toe impatiently against the steel door and checking his watch like he has somewhere important to be.

I weigh my options. I can continue refusing to cooperate, and likely suffer as a result. Or I can just go along with him and hold out hope that maybe there really is dinner at the end of the rainbow.

What choice do I have?

“Fine,” I say, rising. I tug the blanket firmly around me and shoot him a glare. “But it better be steak. I’ve been craving steak.”

Leo laughs sardonically. “You have very little influence in the matter, darling.” He turns and leave. I follow him, watching the muscles of his shoulders ripple beneath the thin fabric of his shirt as we go.

The stairs are every bit as long as I remember them being. My thighs are burning by the time we get halfway up.

“Wait,” I plead, panting. “I need a second.”

He glances back at me over his shoulder. His lips stray towards condescending. “Not such an athlete, are we?”

“You’ve been feeding me gruel or nothing at all for nearly a week now. I wouldn’t say I’m exactly in peak condition.”

He’s on me in a flash, before I even realize what’s happening. One hand grips my throat as he turns my head from side to side, examining me like a prize horse at auction. The other hand snakes between the folds of the blanket and cups me between my legs.

I gasp out loud. His fingers are cool but not uncomfortably so. He doesn’t slide his finger into me the way the monster of desire in my core suddenly wants him to do. Instead, he just keeps his right hand on my jaw and his left palm pressed flush against my center.

His face fills my field of vision. Up close, he is just as beautiful as he is from farther away. Flashing blue eyes, cruelly sharp chin, the proud Bianci nose that all his brothers share.

And those lips. Luscious, almost feminine were it not for the coarse, haughty, disdainful way they let words slip between them.

“I’d say you are in perfectly fine condition, darling,” he hisses in a voice that makes the hair on the back of my neck stand on end. “Good enough to eat, you might say.”

“Stop …” It is halfway between a word and a whimpering exhale.

“Oh no,” he murmurs, “I don’t think you truly want that, do you?” His palm between my slick thighs shimmies from side to side, just slightly but enough to make me squirm in his grasp.

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