His broad shoulders blocked my view of anything else as I removed my clothes with jerky motions. When everything lay in a puddle at my feet, I stood defiantly before him.
Let him stare.
He’d been attracted to me. I’d felt his erection earlier. I wasn’t above using my body to distract him. I’d do anything to get my hands on his gun so I could kill him.
His face hardened as a muscle clenched at the back of his jaw. His nostrils flared as if he were an animal scenting me.
I tossed my hair over one shoulder and propped my hands at my waist. My breasts bounced, nipples peaking again beneath his bold stare.
“Have you seen enough?” My voice emerged, honey sweet.
He swallowed roughly and said even more gruffly, “Da.”
Then he pointed. “Shower.”
What a joy to be bossed around by a monosyllabic asshole. Not.
Turning, I hit the taps, and hot water immediately sprayed from the multiple showerheads. In any other situation, I’d have sighed in relief at the prospect of a long, relaxing shower after such a taxing night, but not now. Not like this.
Nevertheless, I stepped beneath the shower. At this end of the wet bathroom, there was no door, not that it would’ve mattered anyway because, after I wet my hair and opened my eyes, I saw my captor stepping inside with me.
Breath halted in my throat.
“I won’t let you rape me,” I hissed.
One side of his mouth curled up as water ran in streams down his chiseled, naked form. “I am not a man who needs to rape to get what he wants.”
My gaze swam briefly down his torso to his groin. Heat made me clench my thighs when I saw the long hard girth of his engorged cock.
A blush heating my cheeks, I spun my back to him.
I didn’t want to look at him anymore. Didn’t want to admit he was a perfect male specimen, perhaps even more so because of the scars and tats.
Not used to a man such as this, I couldn’t contain the strange wellspring of desire he elicited without even trying.
Things might’ve been different if he weren’t my sworn enemy, but right then I couldn’t forgive my body for its betrayal.
When Arkady’s fingers combed through the wet tresses of my hair, I jolted forward in surprise. He brought me up short by wrapping a length of tendrils around his wrist.
He yanked, and a hot zing pulsed right down to my pussy.
He didn’t say a word as I settled back against his body, lulled into strange complicity. He massaged heavenly scented shampoo through my hair, the suds pouring down my back to my bottom and below.
Chills coalesced, pinpointed at secret points on my body, when he rinsed me then worked conditioner through my hair.
I didn’t understand the spell he put me under.
I didn’t like it.
Arkady reached around me and, as he moved, his cock slapped against my upper ass. The hard, hot, heavy brand pulled a gasp from between my lips and, just as quickly, the forbidden pressure was gone. He turned off the shower, and I shot out of the enclosure as if the very fires of hell licked at my heels.
I felt caged when he stepped from the shower with predatory grace—sleek, wet . . . hard.
Hard everywhere.
My cursory glance halted when I once again found myself magnetized by his tall stature, his dizzying muscles, his thick cock rising like a staff of flesh capped by a swollen crown.
Glancing hastily away, I gathered a towel and set about briskly drying myself.
“Satisfied now?” Bitterness invested my voice.
Then I winced when I inadvertently swiped across the cut on my knee that had gashed my pants open earlier.
“Nyet.” Arkady looped a towel around his waist, leaving dazzling dewdrops of water dripping down his chest. “Sit.”
He gestured me to the edge of the long vanity.
When I didn’t immediately obey, he lifted me up then sat me down unceremoniously. My pussy settled directly against the warm stone, another bolt of heat firing through my body despite the pain that made my knee hurt and my head ache.
With precise efficiency, Arkady gathered first aid supplies and organized them beside me.
“This will sting.” He ripped open an alcohol pad to begin dabbing at the cut on my face.
I hissed at his first touch before gritting my teeth together. At least the stinging pain took my mind off the hulking hot form of him in front of me—all flexing sinews and knotting muscles with only the towels between us.
I gathered the plush toweling even more closely, tucking it above my breasts with a tight twist.
He chuckled.
I glared.
He infuriated me and, even while he tended my wounds, I wondered when the death blow would come. My nerves pinged all over the place as if someone had fired off bottle rockets beneath my skin, the minor reprieve of the hot shower vanishing beneath frantic worry about what he planned to do to me.
Then he touched gentle fingertips to the wound at my temple. “It’s not too deep.”
He blew across the sting of the alcohol, a calming touch like his hand at my neck had strangely become. “No need for stitches.”
He tilted my face to his. “Will get you an icepack after I look at your leg.”
I scoffed.
An icepack?
Before he decided to slit my neck open or after?
I didn’t believe for an instant I’d get out of this scot-free. Maybe he patched me up to sell me back to my father . . . other than death, that seemed most likely.
With my head tended to, he propped both hands beside my hips and delved into my eyes. “Who else was involved in your hairbrained scheme tonight, Lucia?”
Oh.
He didn’t believe I’d concocted the plan to kill Kirill on my own. Finally, something that could work in my favor.
Leaning forward, I put on a diamond-bright smile. “What if I said I have an entire troupe of brothers just waiting to tear all your hearts out? What would you do then?”
A twisted grin traced across his lips. “I would say you’re full of shit.”
Stronzo.
Before I had a chance to kick the smug bastard, he dropped down to look at my leg. In the next instant, my breath halted because he spread the towel open almost to my waist, and the injury wasn’t the only thing he was looking at.
My pussy was practically on full display, and I knew I was dewy down there whether I’d wanted to be turned on or not.
I could only imagine what Arkady viewed when he hesitated for a moment with his large hands resting on my legs.
A low growl of male dominance followed, and I was struck not only by the utter helplessness of my situation but also the controlled restraint he’d shown so far. There was no denying he was a man who could simply take what he wanted, and I was on absolute display for him.
Vulnerable.
I’d never felt so vulnerable in all my life.
I watched as his head bent closer to me, and his hands moved higher on my legs, his fingers trailing like wisps of fire across my flesh.
He anchored my hips, and his shoulders wedged me wide open.
Again, I felt helpless, heated. More aroused than should’ve been possible.
Would this torture ever end?
I only breathed again—a loud exhale—when he gathered more swabs and cleaned up the gash on my knee.
Fingers curling over the edge of the counter, I bent my head to see him nearly nestled between my legs. As if sensing my regard, he glanced up. His irises morphed into that deep azure blue before he dipped his head and his lips opened.