Bargains and Betrayals (18 page)

“Until you started showing an interest in me there were very few guys trying to ram their tongues down my throat. I was fine like that,” I pointed out, bending to spit again. “Now it seems I’m getting some funky oral exam by every guy I meet. Gross!”

Pietr chuckled, gently prying both the cup and toothbrush from my trembling hands to set them on the sink. He turned me to face him. “Why can’t you accept that guys wanting you is because of
you?
Not me. You’re beautiful, Jess.”

I snorted.

“Even when you do that,” he whispered, pulling me close to nuzzle his face into my hair. He sucked my scent into his lungs with a rattling breath and my knees trembled.

“Stop,” I whispered, breathless.

“What?” He glanced at his hands and, closing his eyes, ran his fingers lightly down my back. Pausing at my waist he fumbled and pulled me closer.

The raw power of his body heated the length of mine. I shook my head to clear it and although I didn’t want to, I said, “Stop,” and pulled back to look up at him.

His eyes opened, now a shade of near violet, the red and the blue warring passionately. He touched my cheek with a trembling hand and I clutched his wrist, grabbing his attention.

“We promised my dad he had nothing to worry about leaving us here together.”

His hand pulled free of mine and moved down the side of my face, along my neck, his eyes following its path. Both his hand and his gaze paused at the same spot, just above my left breast. He looked up at me. “Does this worry you?” he whispered, his voice husky.

I smacked his hand away and watched his eyes flare. “Yes. You and I made a promise. A
promise
, Pietr.”

He groaned, a sound halfway between pain and pleasure. His eyes half-lidded, he reached for me again. “Jess.”

I stepped away, backing into the sink.

“People break promises every day.”

“No,” I insisted. “Not you, Pietr.”

He took a single step forward.

I’d never realized how big he could seem, how powerful and imposing. I stepped back, but had no place to go.

His hand rested heavily again on the same spot, below my collarbone but above my breast. He froze a minute, mesmerized, one finger following the raised outline of my bra strap just beneath my top.

“How could you forget?” he wondered, his hand retracing its agonizingly slow path to my face just before he tenderly pushed a strand of hair back from my eyes, tucking it behind my ear. “I promised I wouldn’t let them take you. That afternoon at the barn,” he clarified, as if I didn’t know. “But they did. I’ve broken promises. Even to you.”

“They would have killed you. You didn’t
let
them take me—you were standing up to go another round.
I
let them take me. I negated your promise.”

He blinked at me.

“Do you understand?
You
didn’t break the promise, Pietr. You’ve never broken a promise that I know of.” I moved closer to him and this time I was the one to reach out. “Although I get the feeling a lot of people have broken promises to you.”

He looked down. “Jess, I—”

“Stop torturing yourself. You’re a good guy.” Grabbing his shoulders I gave him a little shake. “You’ve always done everything right by me. You’ve done everything I ask, even when I asked for stupid, stupid things.”

“I have,” he agreed. “And you did.”

I ignored how willingly he agreed and went on. “So relax. You don’t need to push. I love you.”

His eyes squeezed shut at the words. “I don’t know if you should say that.…”

“What?” My hands on either side of his face, I turned him to look at me. “I love you. You wanted to hear it. Now
listen
to it, because I’ve never meant anything as much as I mean this. I love you, Pietr Rusakova.”

I waited, watching him watching me, his eyes flashing through the color spectrum as if his brain was trying to make sense of the words I’d spliced together. And I held my breath.

“It’s your turn,” I finally sputtered. “Unless you don’t…” My throat tightened.

His eyes widened. “I do. I do love you, Jess. Why would you even wonder?” he marveled, reaching out and gathering me to him. “I don’t take a breath without thinking of you. I can’t sleep. I barely eat.… I do more stupid, reckless things than ever. If that’s not love…” He stroked my head. “I love you, Jess. And,” he pushed me back suddenly, “you’re making me crazy.”

He ran his hand through his hair, muttering something in Russian. “I’m seventeen in human years and older as an oborot. I’m in my prime and…” He muttered something else and although I didn’t understand the words, I recognized the frustration.

Very clearly.

“I’m sorry, Jess.” He shrugged like that would soften the reality. “I want you. Like…”

“You think I don’t want you?”

His lips tightened into a thin, pale line.

“I do.
Ugh
. Boy, do I. But not here. Not in this place. We deserve the right place. The right time. Don’t you agree?”

“I don’t know if I’m so picky.” He laughed, rubbing at his forehead.

I tilted my head and looked at him.

“But for you, Jess—anything.”

“Pietr. We’re here. Together. Safe. We love each other. That’s so much already. A little more time. I know what it means to ask that.”

He nodded and the end of his lips twisted up into a slow smile. “Okay,” he agreed. But I noticed a strain shadowing his normally bright eyes. He sighed, straightened, and stretched, brushing past me to reach for the shower’s faucet.

“Shower?” I asked.

He nodded, mute. He swung his head to the side, looked at me darkly, and cranked the faucet as far as it’d go to the right.

Cold
.

“A little more time,” he said with a sigh.

Laughing, I left the bathroom, leaving Pietr to his privacy.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Jessie

It wasn’t long before Pietr was out of the shower, back in his shirt, socks, and jeans and sitting cross-legged at the foot of my bed, hair damp and spiked in all directions in a wild tousle. I loved the soft wild pine forest scent that naturally marked Pietr, but I realized I loved him even more fresh from the shower. I’d probably be turning the faucet to cold at this rate, too.

“Feeling better?” I asked.

“
Da
.” He shook his head, spraying water at me, a devilish look lighting his eyes.

I smacked him playfully and suddenly found myself pinned to the bed, Pietr’s wet head mopping across my face. “Hey!” I yelped, struggling and giggling until I finally held his face in my hands.

He grinned wickedly at me as he rested just above me, propped on his elbows and knees.

“You pain,” I muttered, kissing him once before shoving him away. Something I couldn’t have done if he hadn’t let me.

He fell beside me on the narrow bed, bouncing my heart into my throat, and curling one of his lean and powerful arms under his head so he could peer at me more easily. “Talk to me, Jess.”

I rolled to face him. “Whatcha’ wanna talk about?”

His eyes ran the length of my body and I blushed.

“Expectations.”

“Oh. Like…” I was suddenly an absolute idiot. “Oh. You want to talk about
sex?
” I squeaked out the last word.

“I don’t ever want to disappoint you, Jess.”

“You won’t,” I assured him.

“Uh, statistically speaking…”

“Down, boy.
What
were you doing while I wasn’t around?”

He sputtered. “I read some statistics.…” He covered his eyes with his other arm and peeked out at me.

I laughed. “What did the statistics say?”

“Chances are … you’ll be disappointed,” he confessed, flopping onto his stomach on the bed.

I snorted.
My alpha
. “And you didn’t read anything that said it’ll be perfect?”

He turned his head to look at me and blinked. Pietr, with his defenses down, just tore at my heart.

I pointed to my face. “Well, read
this
, Pietr Andreiovich Rusakova. It will be perfect because it will be us. You. Me. Because we love each other and are being smart.”

“
Da
?”

“
Da
,” I assured. “Because I believe in us more than I believe in anything. Go to sleep. We’re getting out of here as soon as Dad picks up the lawyer.”

Pietr shifted beside me.

“Where are you going?”

“To bed,” he said, confused.

I pushed on his shoulder. “You’re already there. Sleep. Nobody ever bothers to check on us until breakfast,” I yawned. “I’m off to take a shower,” I said, carefully picking my way over him and off the bed.

I felt his eyes on me the whole way to the bathroom, curious and hungry.

Jessie

In the middle of the night I curled in the bed, resting my head on Pietr’s warm chest. He stiffened beneath my touch, his breath catching, and suddenly I heard his heart race forward, beating frantically. “Shhh,” I soothed, snuggling closer with a sigh.

He put a tentative arm around me. “Jess,” he murmured sleepily.

“Mmhmm.”

His heart rate slowed and his arm became a warm weight across my shoulders.

I drifted off.

I started awake to the sensation of eyes on me. “Oh,” I whispered. “Pietr.”

His eyes, bright and red as warning, blinked at me in the thin light radiating from two beams that cut the room in two, the scant moonlight meeting the light from the small window in the hall and leaving a strange splotch of white, like spilled milk, on the concrete floor.

His breathing hitched at the sound of his name.

“Jess,” he whispered. He grabbed my hand and ran it down his shirt, groaning at my hesitant touch. When my hand paused at the top of his jeans his grip on me tightened, his hand trembling around mine. His eyes slitted so I only glimpsed the thinnest glare of red, he mumbled, “I need…”

“What, Pietr?” But I knew, my body responding with a heat of my own even with the cool night air like a narrow wall between us.

He sat bolt upright, dropping my hand. “I need to sleep on the floor,” he snapped, dragging in a breath. “Sorry,” he muttered as he clambered off the bed, the mattress squeaking in protest. “Mad at myself. Not you.”

I stayed perfectly still until I heard him settle onto the cold concrete slab with a rumbling sigh of self-loathing. My body electrified by his proximity, and at war with the promise we’d made, I pulled the pillow from beneath my head, pressed it tightly to my face, and screamed.

Pietr didn’t say a word.

He understood.

Jessie

“Mmm.” Pietr adjusted his position, balanced on the edge of my bed, careful to keep a distance between us, though he’d crawled up onto the bed at some point in the night while I dozed.

“Tomorrow you’re getting out of here, one way or the other. And when we’re ready to leave, if things go badly, you need to trust I can handle the guards.” He must have seen my eyes fill with panic because he reached out and took my hand, carefully spreading my fingers and examining each one. “Trust me, Jess.”

“Pietr,” I protested, wrapping my fingers around his. “Things are—
wrong
—here.”

“You’re getting out tomorrow,” Pietr said. “Unless they’re making werewolves in the cellar or storing bodies in the basement, I don’t care about anything else going on here—other than you getting out.”

Very slowly I touched my finger to the tip of my nose and tapped it twice. “Almost. They’re trying to
cure
werewolves.”

He blinked, realizing what my signal implied. “Werewolves? Bodies in the…? Crrrap, Jess! What sort of town do you live in?”

“A typical hot dog- and hamburger-eating, football- and baseball-loving, werewolf-wanting small-town American sorta town.” I took a breath. “Where everyone thinks they know everything about everyone else. So, just as typically, no one knows anything about what’s
really
going on.”

“It doesn’t matter,” he insisted. “You can tell me all about it later. We have a schedule to keep. Things are happening. Fast. Everything’s finally lining up.” He sighed. “Tomorrow you’re out of here. Trust me.”

“I can’t stop thinking about that day.…” My voice faded into a whine and he looked down, a muscle in his jaw jumping.

“Things will be different this time,” he assured me. “I know what they are—monsters.” He nodded bleakly. “Something that shouldn’t exist. Like me.”

I squeezed his hand. “If I had a gun … I want to be able to take care of myself. I used to handle things pretty well.”

“Even if you had a gun—and you’re an amazing shot—” he added, “it would barely matter to your guards.”

“So you’ll
kill
Fred and Jeremy…?”

“
Nyet
. They aren’t technically alive.”

“Right. Zombies.”

He shrugged at the word. “That research was also done during the Cold War.”

I leaned toward him. “People researched how to make zombies during the Cold War? Weren’t there enough problems without making new ones?”

He snorted. “Alexi says they researched reanimation of dead tissue as early as the forties. Rat brains reacted like they were still alive for eight minutes after true death,” he explained. “That was done with simple electronics and a clumsy understanding of the brain.” He held my gaze.

“Imagine what’s being done now. Oh. Wait, I don’t have to,” I said grimly. “So their tattoos mean…”

“
Life
. In Hebrew. Someone had a sense of humor designing the electronics that keep them moving. Here.” He tugged me close, bold again. “Think of the tattoos as key parts of tiny circuit boards. The circuitry runs through most of their bodies at a subdermal level, deep enough to trigger muscle control and some sense of coordination. They don’t feel anything, so they don’t get hurt.”

“They’re like high-tech strings pulling on oversized puppets,” I realized, rolling over to curl my back into his chest and stomach. My toes crept between the bottom of his pants legs and the top of his socks, tickling the hair on his legs. He twitched, stiffening at the contact. “For people without ink of our own we sure are learning a lot about tattoos.”