Ultimate Vengeance (Wanted Men Book 4) (22 page)

“What?” he asked suspiciously.

She held herself still and felt her cheeks begin to heat. “Nothing.”

“That didn’t sound like nothing,” he insisted.

That’s because it hadn’t been nothing. It had been something. Something so amazing. The perfect way his mouth had fit over her, the way he’d used just the right amount of suction even while his tongue had done its magic. Then the way he would rear up and enter her just before she came apart…

She shook her head and forced herself not to push her thighs together to quell the ache that had sprung up. What was
wrong
with her?

“Sacha…”

“You said you wanted to talk,” she forced out. “So talk.”

With his lips tightening, he took her arm again and led the way into a much smaller room than the one they’d be eating dinner in—if they ever got around to it. It was silent and shadowed with only one chandelier lit, and that was in the far corner. They came to a stop next to an uncovered table and two stacks of chairs.

She jumped when the door closed. Looking back, she saw Markus standing guard on the other side of the glass. Anton was now next to him.

“You remember Markus? And Anton you met yesterday.”

She nodded and attempted to extract her arm. Alekzander wouldn’t release her. It was one thing to feel muddled when near him. But when he touched her, she became lost. As wrong as it was, as humiliating as it was, he touched her, and she craved more. She didn’t want him merely gripping her arm. She wanted him to draw her in, caress her back, his hands to travel down. She wanted him to cup her ass cheeks and drag her against him the way he used to do.

She’d been such a different person with him. So open. So free.

So physical.

I miss who I was then.

“You’re going to stand here and allow me to touch you now.”

She took a step back as self-preservation kicked in.

He followed and made it so she couldn’t take another. “I won’t go too far. I just need to feel you as I talk.”

Warning bells clanged in her head. “I do not want—”

“Shh. Enough with the lies. I can see in your eyes exactly what you want. But then you start thinking again.”

He bent and lightly skimmed his nose across her cheek as he inhaled deeply. His lips touched her jaw and a small sound of desperation escaped her. She leaned back, half-heartedly trying to pull away, but at the same time gripping his tuxedo jacket at his waist so she couldn’t get very far. She wanted to pull him in and rub all over him. At the same time, she felt the need to shove him away so hard. She wanted to have the strength to put him through the wall. To break him. The way he’d broken her.

In the end, her head aching with confusion, she pushed him away and accepted the cold that enveloped her. “I am afraid I cannot play the mindless bimbo for you. Maybe the woman whose key is in your pocket will satisfy your craving for obedience.”

His confusion was apparent as his arms fell to his sides. “What are you talking about?”

His indulgent tone scraped her nerves raw. “The blonde woman who would make Barbie sit in front of a mirror and cry. I saw you accept her key minutes before you forced me to dance with you.”

“Sydney? Maks was in the middle of something, so he asked her to bring me the key to my truck. She’s the distraction I was telling you he found. The one with the kids.”

Surprise was followed by the warmest sense of relief Sacha had ever experienced. “
She
carried a child in that body?” she blurted before she could stop herself. How unfair! “Oh. Oh, dear.” The things she’d said to him on the dancefloor came back to her. The beautiful things he’d said to her. “I was so rude to you. I am sorry. I thought she was another of your girlfriends.”

He winced. “I don’t have girlfriends, Sacha. I told you, it wasn’t real. I actually paid that girl the night you saw me. I paid her a thousand fucking dollars to play the part of my lover. I touched her only enough to make it look convincing. But none of it was real. I did not have sex with her.”

Her remorse died, and before she threw it into his face, she placed her evening bag on the table. “I do not believe you when you tell me that. Would you like to know why? Because I
saw
you. I
saw
your hand on the skin of her bare thigh as you held her. I
saw
how she was enjoying your body. She was not faking that. I
heard
her. I
still
hear her, Alekzander. Why would you lie when you know I was right there?
I was there! You looked at me, and you did nothing as I stood there and bled to death!
” she screamed.

As the echo of her voice faded, her panting breaths filled her ears as surely as tears filled her eyes. She blinked them away as he shook his head, his face tortured.

“I am so fucking sorry.” His whisper was more powerful than if he’d matched her shout. “For all of it. Goddammit, I’ll never be able to verbalize the scope of my regret. Not if I had a million years.” His hands were out, his tone imploring.

She looked at the way his dark blond hair fell over his forehead. At the silver streaks interspersed in the iridescent blue of his eyes that appeared bruised, as if he no longer slept well. At the shape and softness of his firm lips. Her hands itched to touch him and she wanted to cut them off. She was drowning in agony, and she still wanted to reach for him. To draw comfort even while she offered it.

When he shoved a hand through his hair to push it back—a pointless habit he’d always had—revealing his face in all its beauty. She died that much more.

He appeared to brace himself before saying, “You have to know that Sergei lost Renee and Evan the day before I ruined you and me. I didn’t tell you when they were first taken because I didn’t want to frighten you. The assumption was, we’d get them back and things would be fine. It didn’t work out that way.”

He was doing it again. Openly speaking about “that” part of his life. There had been countless references made, code words, silent, meaningful looks exchanged between him and his uncle. But never a direct, open statement about a particular situation.

With goosebumps flowing down from her nape, she absently went to reach for her bag to silence the vibration of her phone. Alekzander gave her a severe look meant to pin her in place. It worked.

“I was with Sergei when he got the call from a member of the Baikov organization.”

She locked her knees when that jerked the strength from her muscles. She had no trouble remembering the rivalry between the Bratvas. She’d been warned time and again the Baikov family wasn’t to be trusted. Not the women, children, and especially not the men.

“Never have I seen a man so tortured. And it never left; that expression in his eyes remained the entire time we pulled shit together and tried to get his wife and son back from those cocksuckers. When we failed, I reacted.”

Just that suddenly, Sacha didn’t want to know anymore. She pictured Sergei’s wife; a cheerful brunette. And his son; a quiet, intelligent boy. Since they’d come from Russia only a few years before her, there had been an instant connection. But because they’d lived outside the city, Sacha and Renee hadn’t spent as much time together as they’d have liked. But Sacha had still missed them when things had fallen apart.

“We failed to get to them in time, and they were brutalized and sent back to Sergei in pieces. I remember sitting in his kitchen and Reynard coming in with delivery boxes. I’ll never forget it. UPS.” His voice grew rough. “Those sonsofbitches sent them back by UPS. Hearing the sounds he made— Sacha, I stood there and watched my cousin’s hysterics as he scrambled to put his family back together again. He eventually fell to the ground, holding their hands—”

He stopped and coughed, his eyes squeezing shut as he turned away to scrape his palm over his face. He was quiet for a long moment, and then a harsh laugh pushed from his throat. He came back around to look at her.

“I couldn’t risk you. I wouldn’t. I came home afterward, I loved you as hard as I fucking could for one more night, and then I got you the hell away from me. I couldn’t get rid of you fast enough. I didn’t think any further than wanting to keep you safe from something like that ever happening to you.”

On legs that felt like rubber, Sacha stood in the shadowy room, silently crying over the tragedy even as a cowering sliver of hope worked itself free of the tangled mess in her heart. It wanted to break through the sadness his story caused but couldn’t. The horror of it was just too great.

“
Why
did you not tell me?” she eventually asked. “Renee was my friend. And Evan… I did not even know they were gone.”

He shrugged, the action helpless. “I didn’t think,” he repeated. “I just reacted in the worst possible way. But I did
not
have sex with that fucking woman. I couldn’t have. Not with anyone but you. I swear on my uncle’s life, I’ve never looked beyond you, Sacha.”

She stepped forward and reached up to cup his cheeks, everything in her wanting to soothe the pain radiating from him. A low-level buzz shot through her at the first voluntary contact she’d had with him in so long.

As the day’s growth along his jaw prickled her palms, something cracked and a small beam of light filtered into her dark world. “I am so sorry for you. If it is suitable, please give Sergei my most heartfelt condolences. To your uncle, as well.”

He closed his eyes and said something too quietly for her to hear. Then louder, “Thank fuck you believe me.”

She balked.
Should
she believe him? She wouldn’t have thought to only minutes ago. But he’d swayed her with his sincerity. She’d never understood how he could have done what he’d done to them, and his explanation simply made so much sense to her. This was more in keeping with the “them” she’d known.

Was she being naïve because she so desperately wanted to believe their love had been real?
She made to remove her hands, but he covered them with his before she could.

“No. Stay. Please.”

“I…I did believe you, yes,” she murmured, giving in because she couldn’t bring herself to move away. “But now that you say that.” She gulped and nervously licked her lips when she saw his attention settle on them. “Are you lying to me, Alekzander?”

“No, angel. I’m not lying. You don’t know what it did to me to drive you away like that. I never should have done it. I hurt you…let you walk out of my office…you left our home…my life. And it killed me. It fucking killed me to let you go because you’re mine.”

Joy tried to break free as her fingertips traced over his cheeks. She was touching him again.

“I will admit that I
would
lie my ass off to get to you.” His gaze was all over her face. “But I’m not. Not about this. From the moment you came into my life…” He paused and cursed. “From the moment you came into my life, it’s been you, and will always be you. I’m not here tonight asking for your forgiveness…” He paused again. “Not asking, I’m demanding. I
need
you to forgive me for being such a fucking coward. For not accepting how far I would go to protect you. For not realizing there isn’t a line I wouldn’t cross if it meant keeping you safe.”

His image blurred, and she blinked quickly to clear it. She wasn’t sure what was more beautiful; the things he was saying, the low rumble of his voice, or the shape his lips took when he said
you
. It looked as if he were puckering for a—

“Sacha?”

Her gaze flipped up from his mouth. “Yes?”

That groove in his cheek made an appearance, but it was gone before she could fully appreciate it. “Goddammit, I want your mouth so badly.” He distractingly ran his knuckle over the curve of her chin.

“You do?”
Take it.

He nodded and opened his hand to whisper the tips of his fingers down the side of her neck. “Give it to me. Then maybe I’ll be able to think. I’ll happily beg if that will please you.”

She had the strongest urge to smile but swallowed hard instead. Her insides melted when he traced the movement with the pad of his thumb. Her head spun as the familiar sensations that came with his touch invaded her.

“So soft.” His face was closer to hers than it had been a moment ago. “At your own pace. I’ll wait for you.”

So…sweet. And, God, but he smelled divine. She inhaled apples and a mouthwatering scent that was his alone.

How was she supposed to resist this when he’d just exonerated himself?

“You smell of apples,” she murmured.

He brought his forehead to rest on hers, and his mouth opened, his exhalations sounding labored all of a sudden. “Had one on the way over. You shouldn’t have picked up on that.”

“Green?” She couldn’t have said how many apple cores she’d found around their apartment. She’d joined him in the shower once, and he’d had to set a half-eaten Granny Smith in the soap dish to free up his hands.

“Red,” he rasped. “Like your mouth. That I want. Now.”

I need this. I need this from him. Just a little bit of him.

Before her brain could send out the order, she was moving in, her hands going inside his jacket, hesitantly spreading over his ribs.