My Russian Nightmare (9 page)

He squeezes his eyes up tight for a moment, and I worry that he doesn’t want me. I wonder if he’s thinking of
her,
whoever she is that he’s in love with, and I consider for a moment I might be making a huge mistake. I want Dante, but I want to know he’s here with me, wanting me just as much as I want him. Then his eyes open and meet mine, and those beautiful dark eyes are hooded with desire.

My fears, my worries, they’re gone, washed away. Dante doesn’t say anything, he just sits back on his haunches as he unbuttons my jeans and shimmies them down my legs. Once they’re off, his fingers slide up my skin and hook into my panties.

He inches them down, and my heart slams against my chest even harder. I’m sure he can hear it because he stops every few inches to look back up at my face. My face feels so red hot I think my skin is going to blister.

“You’re even more beautiful than I imagined. And believe me, I’ve imagined this moment for more years than I should’ve.”

This time it’s not his touch but his words that make my body tingle. Those beautiful words resonate in my brain and reverberate in my heart. They affect every part of my body, inside and out. I no longer have any doubt. No second thoughts. He is the man I want to be with, the man I’m meant to be with.

Lying completely naked, he climbs on top of me. His mouth covers mine, his tongue demanding its way inside while his knee rubs against my bare pussy. I’m surprised at how much I like the feeling of something so thick and firm on that part of my body. His weight shifts a bit and he slips a finger between my folds. His teeth nip hard on my bottom lip while his finger finds my entrance and presses inside me.

“Relax,” he coos. “We need to loosen you up.”

I suck in another deep breath as he adds a second finger and presses his thumb on my pulsing clit. His fingers pump in and out of me, his thumb circling around my epicenter of nerves sending shocks of pleasure to my brain. I moan and gasp for air. Every sensation is growing in intensity, becoming overwhelming. I clasp onto his shoulders because I need to hold him, to squeeze something.

I feel it building inside me, the feeling my friends at school can’t get enough of. It’s like I’m on the tallest building in the world, about to parachute off. I can’t wait to jump, to let it all go and free fall like I don’t have a care in the world. I want to feel my stomach separate from my body, to feel that release that will free me from every thought, every fear, everything that’s not part of the exhilaration of the moment.

“Dante!” I call his name as waves of pleasure pulse through my body. I’m not sure I can ride them without falling off. It’s so intense, it’s almost painful. His fingers don’t stop. I don’t want them to. Not until it’s over. I hold him tighter, my nails digging into his skin, until I can breathe again.

“Are you okay, my kukla?” he whispers into my ear before kissing my cheek.

Too nervous and embarrassed to speak, I nod.

“Are you ready for me?”

“I’ve been ready for you my whole life.”

He’s out of his jeans and boxers before I finish speaking. I take a good look at his naked body. I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything more perfect: bulges and creases of lean muscle everywhere.

On top of me once again, I know this time, I’m going to be forever changed. He’s going to be part of me, and I’ve never wanted anything more in my life. He’s about to brand me, to make me his forever. It’s a formality. He’s already stolen the part of my heart I’ve kept locked away from the world since he left. It’s his. Now my whole heart belongs to him.

Wrapped up in the moment, I don’t stop to ask about a condom. I don’t care. I just want him. I want to know what it’s like to share this type of intimacy with someone that’s already so much a part of me. I feel the head of his member press into me and wince from the pain.

“Should I stop?”

“No,” I whisper.

“It won’t hurt so much once you get used to me being inside you.” He kisses me before locking his eyes on mine.

Dante continues to press in deeper, bit by glorious bit, until he’s in as deep as he can go. He moves slowly at first, sliding in and out. It still hurts, but it doesn’t take long before I forget the pain and focus on the intense pleasure of each stroke.

His loving stare doesn’t waver, except for when his mouth teases mine with deep, long kisses. I’ve never felt so connected to anyone before, not even Dante. The rest of the world ceases to exist. It’s just him and me.

His thrusts come faster and harder, and once again I’m feeling pain and find myself holding him tight, digging my nails and mouth into his skin to stifle my cries. Just when I think I’m too sore, that it’s not going to happen, I feel myself clench and pulse around him. I can’t contain my screams as I allow myself to fall into a pool of pleasure unlike any I’ve ever known.

“Dante!” It’s so natural for his name to come off my lips. “Yes! Dante!”

That’s all it takes before he grunts and his thrusts slow down as he twitches and throbs, filling me with his essence.

Once he catches his breath, Dante smoothes my sweat-dampened hair away from my face. I open my lips to speak, but before I can say anything, he kisses me.

“Are you okay?” he asks
without moving or separating himself from me.

I nod. “Why didn’t you pull out?”

“I don’t know,” he says, darting his eyes away from me before initiating another long, sweet kiss that keeps my heart thumping wildly. “I wanted to touch you deep inside, to be as much a part of you as possible.”

“You already are.” 

“You don’t understand. Shit, this is hard,” he says, stroking my cheek. “I love you, Kiera.”

“What?” I heard wrong. Or I imagined it. All I know is he sure as hell didn’t say it.

We just shared the most mind-blowing experience. At least it was for me. I don’t know if that’s because it was with Dante or because it was my first time. Either way, he did what I asked. He made it special and gave me a sweet memory I’ll treasure.

What I wouldn’t give to end it with a declaration of love, but it’s not true. It can’t be. And believing otherwise is bad. Dangerous. I can’t be fooled into forgetting what brought us together. He, along with Ivan and Yuri, kidnapped me from the hospital while visiting my brother. They’re holding me against my will.

All of them.

Dante can’t love me. I’m hearing what I want to hear. It’s part of the fantasy. It has to be. We were much too young when he left to have fallen in love. Besides, he hasn’t seen me since he was ten. If he truly did love me, he wouldn’t have let this happen. He would’ve found me as soon as he got back to the States or once he found Sammy. Nothing would’ve kept him away. No, I misheard. Misunderstood.

“I love you,” he repeats.

I stare at him a moment, unsure of what to do or say. The scary part is that I want to believe him. But if I do, I’ll think I’m safe, and one thing I’m sure of is as long as I’m locked away in this room, I’m not safe.

“You’re in love with someone else. You admitted that before, you can’t just pretend you never said it. Besides, you barely even know me anymore.”

“I know you.” He cups my face and peppers kisses down the side of my neck. “I’ve been in the background watching you when you talk to Sammy over video. I hear him talk to you on the phone. I’ve been watching you for years and waiting for the right time. I’ve fallen so hard for you.”

“This doesn’t make any sense.” My stomach turns. I don’t want to believe him.

“Of course it does.” He meets my lips once more. “You’re the same sweet girl I was torn away from as a child. Even then I loved you, but it was a different love. Innocent.”

“No.” I try to wriggle away from him. “You’re lying. If you’ve been watching me, why didn’t you ever say anything? Why didn’t you ever visit me?”

“I wanted to keep you safe for as long as possible. Besides, Sammy said you didn’t remember me. But I’ve been here, in the background, waiting for you. Waiting for this moment.”

I push at his chest. I need him to get off me. What we shared was amazing, but telling me he loves me? That’s just screwing with my emotions. Manipulating me. He doesn’t need to play head games like this.

“Don’t lie to me.”

“I’m not.” His voice is stern. “Kiera, you’re the reason I came back here. You’re the reason for everything I’ve done in my life. Good and bad.”

I narrow my eyes at him. If he wants to play this game, then he has to be all in. “If you’re telling me the truth, then I need to know all of it. Tell me why I’m here. Tell me why Sammy was beaten so bad. Tell me everything!”

Chapter 9

“I don’t know where to start,” Dante says, running a towel over his wet hair. “I guess it’s best if I tell you about my mother.”

I feel a tinge of guilt for not asking about her. She’d always been kind to me and looked out for Sammy and I like we were her own when they were here, and since finding out who Dante really is, I’ve not even thought about her.

He wraps the towel around me and pats dry my still-damp skin from the shower he insisted we take together before talking.

“She was a lot like you,” he says, using the towel to pull me in for a kiss on the lips. “Young, beautiful, and orphaned. She came from a very poor family. Back then you were either in power or you were poor. And everyone in power had a price. Her mother had some sort of cancer. She needed treatment, but it was very expensive.”

“I thought you didn’t have to pay for healthcare there.”

He shakes his head. “You’re thinking like an American.” He must have read the look on my face. I don’t like or appreciate that comment. “There’s no such thing as free, Kiera. True, anyone could go to the hospital, but if you needed to see the doctor, or get medication, or even clean sheets on your bed, you had to pay for it in the form of a bribe. Still do.”

“A bribe? I thought—”

“I told you, everyone has a price, it’s a matter of figuring out what it is and how to pay it that’s the real challenge. Her father didn’t want to watch his wife die,” he explains, handing me a pair of clean underwear and his t-shirt to put on.

I pull the shirt down so that it rests at the top of my thighs.

“You look so sexy in my shirt.” With his hands on my hips, he pulls me close, leans down, and whispers in my ear. “I’m already getting hard.”

“What happened to your grandmother?” I ask, refocusing him.

“One day after work, my grandfather got drunk with a bunch of his friends and decided to get his hands on some money. He needed the equivalent of fifty thousand US dollars. Liquored up with courage, he and a friend decided to mug a very well-to-do man. It wasn’t hard to tell who had money and who didn’t. Those that had it showed it. They lived high on the hog.”

“The rich people flaunted it?”

He nods as he pulls his jeans up and buttons them. “Yeah. This way you knew your place. It’s a very different life than what you know here. Different even than what it’s like there today. Turns out the reason the man had money is because he was the son of Vladimir Kasalov, the head of the KGB at the time.”

“KGB? They were a big deal, right?”

He snickers. “You could say that. They’re sort of like the CIA.”

I already know this part of the story doesn’t have a happy ending. But now I know it’s not only sad, it’s violent and extreme.

“It didn’t take long before he found out who was stupid enough to mug him. The next night, my grandfather and his wife were pulled out of bed in the middle of the night, brought outside, and shot in the head execution-style while my mother watched.”

I cover my mouth with my hand and feel my eyes water. Knowing Svetlana, or as I knew her, Miss Sveta, and how nice she was, my heart breaks for what she witnessed.

“Your poor mother.”

“They took her and destroyed everything in the house. She was left with nothing, left with nowhere to go.”

“She had no other family?”

“No one was going to fight for her. Her grandparents were poor, and they weren’t stupid. They didn’t want a bullet in their heads as well.”

“What happened to her?” I ask, even though I have a pretty good idea.

He sits on the bed, leans against the headboard, and swings his legs up before pulling me onto his lap and wrapping his arms tight around me. “The same thing they plan to do to you. She was set up in a whorehouse.”

It’s hard to swallow. I’m not sure I want to hear any more because this feels way to personal to be shared with someone you haven’t seen or spoken to in more than a decade. Even someone you care about.

“I’m sorry. You don’t have to tell me anymore,” I say, placing my hand on the side of his face.

Dante turns and kisses my palm.

“I do. When you know everything, you might not want any part of me.”

“I doubt that.”

He sighs. “Please, Kiera. You wanted to know. You need to know.”

I nod and trace my fingers over the letters and designs inked on his shoulder and chest while he continues.

“My father is married to Oxanna Kasalov. They married when he was twenty and she was eighteen. An arranged marriage. I don’t know if he ever loved her, but they’d been married for a few years and just had a son when my father was put in charge of the house my mother worked in. He was moving up in the ranks and took over for Ivan Kasalov as the manager.”

“Ivan?” I swallow hard, “The old man?”

Dante strokes my hair and nods in affirmation.

“So he’s sort of your step-uncle?”

“Sort of. But if you ask him, he’ll never admit to it. I’m an outcast, a dirty stain on the family.”

“No.” I reach my hand up to his cheek. He takes it, intertwines our fingers together, and drops it down into my lap. I look at our joined hands and think about how many years we lost together and how strong the bond between us still is in spite of the lost time.

“My father’s job was to oversee the operation, make sure the customers, mostly political bigwigs and diplomats, paid up and left happy.”

“And if they weren’t happy?”

“Then it was his job to punish the woman the customer was with and offer a resolution.”

“Punish. As in beat them?”

He sucks his lips into his mouth between his teeth and gives me a long, hard stare before answering. “Yes. Beat them. Kill them when necessary.”

I shiver in his arms, and Dante pulls me closer.

That’s why he said he’s not good enough for me. He’s punishing himself for the sins of his father. He’s not like his father. He’s good, like his mother.

“You’re not like that.”

He looks away, off into the distance, and then continues, ignoring what I just said. “A regular got off on beating the women he was with. Actually, a lot of them did. Still do. But this guy, he’d been given several warnings for getting too rough and leaving marks. He requested my mother. My father had already taken a liking to her, so he was a little more tuned in than he would’ve been with someone else. When he heard her screaming from two floors above, he didn’t hesitate to rush up there and fuck the guy up.”

I can tell talking about this bothers him. His whole body is tensed up. “Was she seriously hurt?”

He nods. “She could barely move. She had a concussion and internal bleeding. The man blamed it on my mother, said she was trying to fight him off. I think that’s why he wanted her. He got off on that. Of course, Vlad agreed my mother was at fault. He wanted her taken care of to teach the other girls a lesson as well, so nothing like this would happen again.”

I gasp in shock. “He wanted your father to kill her?” What a fucked-up way for his parents to come together.

“He couldn’t do it. Instead he nursed her back to health and fell in love with her.”

“Did he get in trouble for ignoring orders?”

“In the end, he convinced Vlad that she was too valuable. He kept the money rolling in and increased the profits after taking over for Ivan, so no one complained. Except the man my father beat, but that was his job, to make sure no one defaced their property.”

My skin is covered with goose bumps. “That’s how they see me, isn’t it? As their property.”

Dante doesn’t answer. He groans, and I know I’m right. That’s why he’s telling me the story. Somehow, some way, my brother did something to make these men believe they have the right to do with me as they please.

“When she recovered, my father kept her off limits to everyone but him. He had her cooking and cleaning after the others to earn her keep. A few months later, she was pregnant. He knew it was his and that they were going to force his hand because of who he was married to. If he didn’t get rid of her, Ivan would. She’d been too much trouble already. He told them she got out of line one day, that she was insubordinate and he needed to teach her a lesson. He claimed to have dumped her in the ocean for the sharks to eat. No one was going to look for her. No one was going to prosecute him even if they did find a body.”

“That’s how you ended up here when you were little?”

He nods again, pressing his lips into a thin line before finishing his story.

“My father sent us to the States while she was pregnant. We moved around a lot my first seven years, going to a new city every six months. Usually my father would come move us. His cover was that he came to meet with the captains here. This way, if anything should ever happen to Ivan, they already knew and respected him.”

“Did anyone catch on that your father wasn’t really here on business?”

Dante smirks. “He made sure to make an impact on the organization when he came. Either with the guys that worked for them, or by getting more people of influence on the payroll. It was like good cop / bad cop. My father, since he wasn’t here too often, was the good cop. Ivan was the bad cop. It ran the opposite back in Russia.”

“Oh. I thought he came to see you.”

“He did. But he couldn’t risk blowing his cover, or my mother and I would be dead. He’d risked too much to keep us safe. Even though he provided for us, those were the only times we got to see or speak to him. He always knew where we were, but contact was too risky. If Ivan found out my mother was alive, he wouldn’t think twice about killing her. If he found out about me…” He shakes his head. “That’s a different story.”

My heart breaks for the boy I knew as a child and the man I should be running from but am falling head over heels for instead. I lean in and press my lips against his. Dante closes his eyes and his fingers comb through my hair. I know whatever happens, I want Dante in my life. Forever.

“I’m afraid I’m going to wake up and this is all going to be a dream,” he says, reaching under my hair, pulling my face toward his. “I’ve waited so long to hold you, and now I can’t get enough of you.”

“Then why didn’t you come to me sooner? Why not pick up the phone?”

He answers with a long, deep kiss before he breaks away.

“When we moved into your town, she thought we were in the clear. Seven years had passed and no one suspected. It was great. We didn’t have to hide in the shadows anymore. We could have a normal life. She got herself a job working at the diner, and I finally had friends. You and Sammy.”

“They found you?”

“Eventually. One of the men in our organization went from my father’s side to Ivan’. I guess my father had him keeping an eye on us, but he hated working for Ivan and eventually left for another family. Ivan put a hit on him. When the guy heard about this, he came begging Ivan for forgiveness on his hands and knees. He offered my mother and I up in a trade for his own life.”

“Ivan accepted?”

Dante shakes his head. “He shot the guy in the head, then searched for us non-stop. My father didn’t know any of this, so he didn’t cover his tracks well enough to not be followed when he visited. They didn’t make contact or ask for anything at first. They waited a long time and tried to come in under the radar to get what they wanted.”

“They tried to kidnap your mother again?”

He shakes his head, and his eyes, his terrified eyes welled up. “No. Not her.”

“You? Oh my goodness, how awful!” I run my hands through his hair and down his stubble-covered cheeks. “I had no idea. I’m so happy they didn’t snatch you away.”

Dante bites his lip and
takes a deep breath before answering. “They didn’t want me. They wanted retribution for what she did, for losing out on money because she was working here instead of on her back for them. They wanted her to pay for me, for the fact that I existed. It didn’t take a genius to figure out whose son I am. Ivan wanted to punish everyone involved.”

“Then what, or who, were they after?”

His face pales, his eyes piercing through me. I know I’m not going to like what’s coming. But knowing it and hearing the words are two very different things. When he speaks, my blood runs cold.

“You, Kiera. They wanted you.”