Prologue
CLAUDIA
It was only when my eyes adjusted to the dimness that I realized it was Dmitry, his immense body blocking out the only escape, the menace pouring from him tangible. I felt it snake across the small interior and wrap around me.
I opened my mouth, but no words came out. I didn’t know what to say. I wasn’t exactly shocked to see him in front of me. I was curious how he got through the property with no one seeing him, though. The Sisters seemed to know what everyone was doing.
But then I reminded myself this was Dmitry. He was probably used to being stealthy as hell.
Neither one of us said anything as he took a step closer. I moved one back, not sure why I was retreating. It wasn’t like there was anywhere to go. It was the fact that I didn’t really want to escape. I liked being in his presence, feeling his big, burly body pressed against mine.
He was hard where I was soft. He smelled spicy and woodsy, whatever cologne he wore subtle and not nearly as arousing as his natural scent.
And then there were his tattoos, ones I could see sneaking above the collar of his shirt and past his cuff links.
Danger and violence certainly had a beautiful face.
“How did you get in here?” It was a stupid question. I knew that as soon as the words left my lips. And I didn’t actually expect an answer.
He didn’t grace me with one. He just kept stalking closer until I found myself pressed against one window, his colossal body looming over mine, my head cocked back so I could look into his face.
The survival part of me whispered that I needed to keep this man in my sights. He was far too dangerous to do otherwise.
“I gave you a day,” he finally said, his gaze raking over my face, then dipping down to my breasts before slowly trailing up my throat to look into my eyes again.
Although I was completely dressed, my skirt falling below my knees, my socks covering my calves, and my blazer buttoned up tight, I felt completely naked under his appraisal.
“A day?” My voice sounded far away and hazy, everything around my vision blurry except for the man standing right before me. “You gave me a day for what?” I asked again when he had yet to respond.
The corner of his mouth kicked up, but it wasn’t a humorous smile. It was as if he’d been waiting for me to ask so he could be bluntly honest with his answer.
“To come to terms with the fact that I’m not letting you go, detka.”
My heart was beating a mile a minute, and I felt beads of sweat line the valley between my breasts and the length of my spine.
I felt electricity moving between us. The surge ignited all over my body to the point the follicles of my hair tingled with awareness. Just having Dmitry so close, not even touching me, was like I’d wrapped my hand around a live wire.
And I welcomed the electric shock it gave me.
“For five fucking years, you wrote me. I had zero interest in you for those first three and saw you as nothing more than Amara’s kid sister.”
Realistically I knew it was good he didn’t see me as anything more. But my heart, I realized now as he stood so close and said these things to me, broke a little that he’d seen me that way.
He took a step closer, and I felt his body heat seeping into me.
“And then you turned eighteen, your letters getting more personal, the pictures you slipped inside so fucking modest and innocent, yet it made my cock harder than the fucking cement that surrounded me. I knew I had to make you mine.”
My head fell back against the glass, making a soft thud that filled the small interior.
“I knew it was wrong to desire you the way I did, to think of the things I did.” He stroked my cheek. “In the middle of the night I’d grip my cock and think about fucking you while I jerked off.” His voice had gone lower, deeper on that last part.
The image of him lying in that prison cell, thinking about me as he found his pleasure, was a heady sensation inside of me.
I canted my hips, seeking something that only he could give me. My breasts rose as if I had no control over my body. The mounds felt so heavy, the peaks so tight as they scraped against the cotton of my bra. I’d never felt such combustible sensations and emotions moving through me.
His enormous body shuddered as he inhaled at the base of my neck again, and then reached out to loosen my blazer, then pop free the first two buttons of my blouse. Dmitry pulled one side of the crisp material down and dragged his tongue over my collarbone.
God, that was hot.
The wet glide along my flesh was more sexual than anything I could have ever imagined.
“Look at me.”
I pried my eyes open, not realizing I’d even closed them. Dmitry’s presence just had that effect on me, where all common sense and rationality flew out the window. Hell, it had probably gone right out the one behind me as soon as he stepped inside the shed and closed us in together.
When I looked up at him, all I saw was fierce need reflected in his gaze. His jaw was tight, with dark scruff covering his cheeks and chin. I found it immensely sexy that this man was reining in his control. Because of me.
And then as if everything happened in slow motion, he sank down. My heart beat overtime, faster than I even thought possible given it already felt like a racehorse lived in my chest cavity.
“W-what are you doing?”
He looked up at me with fire burning in his gaze and let his fingers skate over the back of my legs, up my thighs, and tightened the digits around my pleated skirt.
My inner muscles clenched, shooting a shock wave of unadulterated lust straight to my center.
“Getting a proper taste of you.” His accent was thicker, his voice deeper.
THE PAST
Chapter 1
Claudia
FIFTEEN YEARS OLD
If my father knew what I was doing, he’d slap me across the face so hard I’d have a red mark there for days.
But even knowing I’d be punished if caught, I still snuck down the stairs, following the deep timbre of voices that came from my father’s office.
My sister’s words played in my head, a warning, a scold, whenever I did something that would get me in trouble.
“Claudia, you have a fire in your veins that is going to get you hurt. Listen to Father. Tread lightly with him. I know you live by your own rules, and as much as I love you for it, I’m also worried about you because of the world we live in. If a woman won’t be submissive to the men in our lives…”
Right before I reached the bottom of the stairs, the grandfather clock chimed so loudly I froze, my heart jumping into my throat.
I was sure I’d get spotted. Even if the foyer was shadowy, all the staff had gone for the evening, and my father was in his office.
The clock chimed twelve times, signaling midnight had hit, and as soon as that last bell went off, I quickly descended the rest of the stairs and started making my way down the hallway.
I kept to the wall, my hands running over the textured damask wallpaper my father had imported from Italy. I slipped into the small room beside my father’s office, moved over to the French doors, and quietly opened one of them.
Light spilled out of the open patio doors from the room beside me, and I heard a deep, thickly accented voice fill the night air.