The man smirked, his thick, sumptuous mouth begging to be kissed, though I banished the desire immediately. To look was a sin, but to act upon it was a death sentence.
“Ivan wouldn’t dare touch me,” he said with confidence that would give even my husband pause.
“Ivan’s not scared of anyone.” I shook my head, pulse pounding as the man took a step towards me. “Not even Eduard. So why would he be scared of you?”
Maybe I should have connected the dots.
Maybe I should have smelled the years of blood and sweat upon this man’s body.
The strong hands built for the Bratva life, and the dark gleam in his eye that said he’d done many a bad deed.
Yet, in this moment, all I saw were his dark eyes full of promise. And his body, chiseled from the hardest stone and waiting to be touched by my soft fingers, called to me. He was a succubus, intoxicating and tempting, and he’d get me killed.
The Bratva King’s son. The prince. The heir apparent.
Maybe he would be an easier death than jumping off the building.
The man’s expression shifted, his lip curling in a near-snarl and his eyes narrowing. “Ivan would do well to be fearful of my father. A powerful businessman like Ivan does not hold a candle to the Bratva King.”
“You’re…” I stumbled on my words, realization flashing through my brain like rapid gunfire. I should have known. It was so obvious now. His bravado. The cut of his figure. The set of his eyes on either side of his nose. The resemblance was uncanny, though the son was twice the size of the father, they were equally dangerous. I had jumped from the viper’s den straight into a pit of them. “Eduard is your father? You’re Alexander Vasiliev?” My heart fell into my stomach. This was bad. So very bad. I licked my lips nervously, my throat suddenly dry and scratchy.
Ivan’s anger was nothing next to the man who wanted me dead and buried alongside my mother and father. And his son…how did his son feel about me? About the daughter of traitors. Traitors who would have turned his family over to the FBI. This whole thing had been a ploy. An entrapment of sorts, I realized with horror.
“Get away from me,” I moved from the wall and tried to walk past him, but his arm lifted suddenly and I flinched. But instead of striking me, his palm came to rest on the trellis wall beside me, stopping me from leaving. We stood frozen, our bodies creating the shape of a ‘t’ in the hidden place away from prying arms. I tried to back up, but his other arm moved quickly to cage me. I was trapped in the middle, his muscles popping and veins blinking as he held me prisoner. “Please, just let me go. I’m sorry. I never meant to cause harm or offense. I don’t want to risk your father's anger. Who he is… who you are…”
Alexander leaned in close, his mouth stopping near my ear. As his lips moved, they brushed against my skin. It tickled, tantalized, and despite my fear it made me bite my lower lip and wish that his mouth would move to other places.
“Who I am is royalty, Marisha. Everyone wants me and what I have.” His right hand moved against the trellis, his arm angling down and coming closer to my body so that his forearm pressed gently against my breasts as he continued to keep me at bay. My nipples hardened under the touch and I begged them to stop, begged them not to betray my own forbidden desires.
“I’m not everyone,” I breathed out, trying to sound fierce, but instead sounding like a weak, wounded animal.
“No,” Alexander’s other hand left the wall and snaked against my back. His fingers trailed gently down my spine. “You’re certainly not.”
I couldn’t help myself, I shivered, my eyelids fluttering and my breath catching in my throat. His face was still so close to my own. If I turned my head, kissing would be an inevitability. Our lips would be too close to resist.
Without warning, the prince to the Vasiliev empire grabbed my shoulders with both hands and quickly turned me to face him. He walked forward, forcing me to press against the ivy and trellis once again. The wood pressed into my back, the scent of flowers overwhelming my senses. Though it was the scent of him that made me weak at the knees.
“You’re hurting me,” I whispered, his touch reminding me of Ivan gripping my shoulders at home, warning me against defying him. “I don’t want to be touched this way.” I stared up into his eyes, and his expression was unreadable. “Please,” I added, knowing I was begging in a childish, pathetic way, but it was all I knew to do in that moment.
I could not fight.
Though even if I could, I would be little more than a bait dog against the Bratva warrior prince.
Something about my ‘please’ changed the light in Alexander Vasiliev’s eyes though. If anything, the gorgeous orbs set into his tanned sharp face grew brighter, fiercer. His nostrils flared and he sucked in his lower lip, his gaze dropping to my mouth.
I pressed my palms against his chest and pushed gently. “Let me go.”
It was the wrong thing to say.
“I don’t want to release you, Marisha.” His grip lightened, but he did not let me go. He leaned in, face lowering towards mine, and there was nowhere to escape to. “I’m not sure I ever want to release you,” he rumbled.
This was insanity.
A moment’s loss of good sense that would send me to the gallows.
But what did I care?
Not long ago, I’d been prepared to jump to my death.
And, god, this death was so much easier to bear than splattering against the pavement below.
My breath caught in my throat as he stared down into my face, his pupils dilated. He seemed to be thinking, though of what I’m not sure, yet before I could ask him to release me once more, he leaned down and pressed his mouth against mine. His lips were smooth as silk and tasted like bourbon. His tongue pushed between my teeth, purposeful, thick, wet, demanding. I sagged against him even as I fought him, the allure of being wanted and not just owned seducing me.
This was the son of the man who’d killed my parents.
Who would likely have me sentenced to death.
I was a traitor to my parents’ memory, to my husband and to myself.
And I’d never wanted a man more, never wanted to be wooed and fucked more, than I did in those seconds of kissing.
I pressed harder against his body, balling my hands into fists as I groaned, my tongue moving with his.
Ivan would kill me.
Ivan would kill us both, despite who Alexander was, but I would be the first to die and become a bloody lesson for all. Panic doused me like water from a bucket, bringing me to my senses, and I pushed through the haze of desire.
“Stop it. Stop it!”
His lips were unyielding, commanding. They were used to having their way. Alexander would have what he wanted, and in those moments he wanted me. He wanted me to submit. But I’d been submitting for so long. I wouldn’t let another man strip me of my dignity, no matter how undeniably sexy he was. No matter how much my body ached to continue.
“I said stop it, dammit!” I pulled back my fists and slammed them into his chest as hard as I possibly could. I wished I was stronger, wished Alexander was slighter of build and not so much a wall of muscle. But nonetheless, he pulled away from me, eyes wide with surprise. He was unused to facing resistance from a woman. And he’d certainly never been hit by one before. Given the look in his eyes, I wished I could rewind time and erase the action immediately.