Page 27 of The Payback

“Strip. Show me what you wore for me today,” he commands, sucking all the air out of the room with his mere presence and the seduction in his tone.

“Oh, no, thank you,” I say indifferently. “Besides, it’s not white anymore.” I gesture at the blood soaking through the dress and seeping into the lace underneath.

His hands trail up my sides, and a shiver rocks through me. I’m so fucking turned on, and something about that at this moment feels so, so wrong. There’s a dead man not four feet away from us, and the only thing I feel is the wetness gathering on the scrap of stained lace covering my pussy.

CHAPTERELEVEN

Dimitri

“Do not test me, Elsa,”I breathe against the shell of her ear as I pull her tighter against me.

She struggles to get away, but my hands on her hips prevent her from gaining more than a centimetre.

“Dimitri, let me go,” she says as she twists her body, grinding her sweet ass against me.

She’s a trained agent. If she wanted to get away, she could. This is a game for both of us; she loves it as much as I do.

“Now, now, wife.” I keep her bound to me with one arm around her stomach. Finding the zipper of the dress at her nape, I’m tempted to take the knife from the sink, bloodied and filthy as it is, and cut this dress too.

I’m a traditionalist at heart, but I want to feel her body shiver under my touch right now, not a blade.

I pull back an inch and take the metal tab between two fingers, bringing it down to the end of the track at the top of her ass. I pull too hard and shred the material at the base of the zipper, the sound splitting through the silence. The only other noise is the faint, steadily slowing drip of blood from the Irishman. That will stop soon enough.

Trailing a finger down her spine, I stop when I reach her bra and pull on the material, letting it snap against her flesh—Elsa’s breath stutters when it strikes. Goosebumps rise along her back and arms while the skin under the band blooms pink.

Elsa’s fingernails cut bloody crescents into my forearm as she grips me, panting like she’s just run a four-minute mile.

“Please,” she begs.

“What are you begging for, Elsa? For me to stop or give you more?” I ask.

“I-I—”

I wait patiently, refusing to help her put her thoughts into words. I’m not giving her the out she’s looking for. It takes courage to admit what you want, especially when it’s something you shouldn’t. She can own up to how she feels about this or suffer in silence.

“I don’t know,” she whispers after the seconds stretch endlessly. Disappointment fills me that she doesn’t vocalise her wants as I do. But with how she’s grinding against me, it’s clear she’s only playing at being timid.

I’m eager to peel back the layers and get to know the real her. I’m irrationally selfish in wanting to know everything about her when it’s just us—when she doesn’t have to pretend.

“Lies. Your body gives you away,” I say against her ear, biting the lobe with my front teeth. “I think you know exactly what you want.”

Inhaling deeply, I catch her cherry blossom scent, letting her perfume tickle my nose. She gasps as I run my nose along the column of her neck, never getting enough of her.

If she won’t tell me what she wants, we can discuss what she learned from Anastasia. Apparently, I have the patience of a saint and the desire to torture myself like the devil.

“What did you and Ana talk about?” I ask.

Her head rears back, almost bashing into my nose as she’s startled by the abrupt subject change. I trace a fingertip along her jaw, tilting her head towards me, and it works to focus her attention as effectively as a hand around her throat has in the past.

“What was so important that you disobeyed orders and put yourself—what’s mine—at risk?”

She struggles again. “I. Am. Not. Yours,” she grits out, enunciating each word slowly and clearly, as if I’m too stupid to understand. It’s notmewho doesn’t get it. It’s not even her that doesn’t get it. Shegetsit; she just won’t admit it yet.

“But in this life, you are. What did you talk about?” I repeat.

She sighs, rolling her eyes and shoving against me. “Neither of us was comfortable in the tearoom, so she agreed when I suggested we bail. She took me to a bar a few blocks away, and the change in locale put her at ease. I learned nothing new, but it made her begin to trust me because we connected over the folly of men. As the daughter of your uncle and the wife of one of your guards, she knows everything happening around her.”

My eyebrows raise in surprise, and she scoffs as if I’m being obtuse.

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