He inhaled.
Was he breathing my scent in?
Tingles shot straight to my already straining nipples.
Then he pushed up from his feet, spreading my thighs as far as they’d go.
Time seemed to stop, the toweling baring everything below my waist, and I knew immediately what had caught his attention.
Ducking my head against my shoulder, I waited, my breath halted.
Arkady’s fingertips moved to my inner thighs, and he traced the layers and layers of thin white scars on both legs.
And the newer, redder, swollen lines.
“Who did this to you?” He sounded almost . . . horrified.
I couldn’t get an exact read, but I knew what I felt as he continued to peer at those wounds.
I swallowed down a whole heaping of humiliation before uttering, “No one important.”
3
Arkady
“WHO DID THIS TO you?”
“No one important.” Lucia snapped her thighs closed. “Why the hell would you care anyway?”
The disturbing sight of all those layers of old scars and the fresh red-raw lines on otherwise flawless flesh seared into my mind.
She sat there with her lips clamped tight too, her knuckles turning white as she gripped the counter whereas moments before she’d been on the verge of coming before I even laid a hand on her.
My jaw tightened, and I gave up on that line of questioning. For now. It was clear she had a stubborn streak a mile long.
Tensed throughout her entire body, Lucia only relaxed a little when I closed the towel more securely around her before I finished up with her knee.
The surrounding area had already swelled and turned black and blue, so I handled her as gently as possible. I put a Band-Aid over the cut then stood back up.
Lucia wouldn’t meet my gaze, her eyes sliding to the side.
“Do you understand Kirill had every reason in the world to kill your brother?”
Her head whipped toward me, lioness-like eyes narrowing.
“If you’re so hell-bent on getting revenge, you have no idea what Bastiano was really capable of,” I murmured.
“Nothing you or anyone else could ever say would make me believe my brother—my own flesh and blood—deserved to die,” she hissed. “The only thing I know is we had to cremate Bas because he was so gruesomely mutilated.”
She hopped off the counter with the towel tucked around her. But even covered as much as possible, I couldn’t forget how she looked completely naked. Wet in the shower, she’d been golden all over. Large firm breasts were capped by delicious-looking nipples. She had a nice big ass, the perfect size for a hard spanking.
Hard.
My cock began stiffening again.
She continued to glower at me, and I fought against getting pulled into those brown eyes that glinted with darker specks of bronze.
She wouldn’t listen to the truth about her brother, not from me. And why did I give a shit about what she thought anyway?
She’d probably been brainwashed for years by her family.
“Can I at least go to the bathroom without you hovering over me?” she asked.
Stationing myself at the bathroom door, I turned around but stayed put. “Be my guest.”
“You’re an overbearing asshole, you know that?”
“And you’re a mouthy printsessa, aren’t you?” I glanced over my shoulder. “Let me make it perfectly clear, Lucia. I’m in charge here.”
As soon as I heard the flush, I swung back around, waiting. After she washed and dried her hands, she turned to me.
Some of the starch sagged from her shoulders as she sighed tiredly.
I supposed she’d been through a tremendous amount tonight—planning a murder, getting attacked, kidnapped by the man who’d rescued her . . .
With my gun back in hand, I motioned her into the bedroom. I set her handbag on top of a low console and dimmed the lights before facing her again.
“How old are you, Lucia?”
“I don’t see what difference that makes to you at this point.” Her spellbinding eyes tracked my every move.
“It doesn’t make any difference at all. Simple curiosity.” I slid the towel from my waist, and a blush of color immediately stained her cheeks.
My cock was heavy and half-hard, but if she kept looking at me that way, I’d be fully erect within seconds.
As I reached into my dresser, I shot an amused look at her. “At a loss for words?”
Her gaze roamed to mine, and she licked her lips in what could be described as an indecent manner in any other situation. “I’m twenty-seven.”
“Hmm.” I pulled on a pair of briefs that hugged my rapidly thickening cock and adjusted myself.
An unlikely attraction had begun the moment I’d intervened to save her life. She was not immune to me either. Perhaps that spark of hate she felt could be ignited into something else.
She was legal.
Old enough to know better than to go looking for a Bratva enforcer certainly.
She was a challenge the likes of which I’d never met, and now she was in my possession. My mafia heiress.
“How old are you then?” She asked, keeping one hand tightened on the top knot of the towel.
“Thirty-three.” I dug a T-shirt from the dresser then crossed to place my Sig Sauer on the bedside table in open view of my beautiful captive.
“What are you going to do with me now?” Lucia asked, the faintest glimmer of fear trembling through her voice as open vulnerability descended over her features.
I wouldn’t let her helplessness sway me, and fright was a weapon to be used against an opponent. I remained unmoved by her plight.
“That remains to be seen. Tonight, you’re staying with me, right here.” I brought the T-shirt to her, guiding her face up with my knuckles beneath her chin. “No one knows where you are, do they Lucia?”
“I think you made pretty sure of that, don’t you?”
I grinned deviously and gave her the shirt. “Put this on.”
I only handed her the top to keep me from the temptation of her curvaceous body more than to protect her modesty.
Modesty that was nowhere to be seen when she dropped the towel without further delay, baring herself once more to my slow, thorough perusal.
The danger this woman posed didn’t just come from her family connections.
Her voluptuous figure had my mouth watering and my mind faltering.
I was well aware how easily females manipulated the superior gender through their sexual wiles.
That will not work on me.
Finally, the shirt covered her from neck to mid-thigh, and I exhaled shallowly.
“I’m going to get that icepack for your face.” I palmed my gun and brought the boleadoras with me too as I headed for the door. “Don’t do anything stupid because I’ll be right back.”
After retrieving the icepack and cleaning off the bolas, I returned to my bedroom expecting the woman to have her claws out . . . or even to have broken the bathroom mirror so she could try to stick a shard into my throat.
No such scene greeted me.
Lucia sat on the edge of the bed. Her eyes were downcast as she feigned being docile. She tucked her hands inside her knees and barely glanced my way when I entered.
Interesting.
A mafia printsessa who understood the importance of following a man’s orders.