Heir to a Dark Inheritance (11 page)

She wanted to give it. Wanted to tell him everything would be okay. She wanted to…

What she wanted to do, what she really wanted, was to touch him. Because he understood the physical. He understood touch and sex. It was how he connected. She wanted to cut through the confusion and give him something familiar. And at the same time, she didn’t want to be familiar. Didn’t want to be just another body.

She wanted to reach him. To help him.

If she was really honest—really, really honest—she just wanted to touch him.

But she wasn’t going to be honest, because honesty might stop her. And she didn’t want to stop.

This could be okay. If she kept it separate from emotion, like he did. Kept it separate from marriage, then it might be okay.

She took a step toward him and put her fingertips on his chest, on the start of his tattoo, the one over his heart. The one he’d gotten before he’d risked his life to rescue his friend, the man he thought of as a brother.

His hand shot up and caught her arm, held it away from
his body. “Be careful,” he bit out. “Because I swear if you touch me again, I will have you naked and in my bed before you can protest.”

“I’m not going to protest so you won’t be able to test the theory.” She said it with a lot more boldness than she felt, but she realized that she’d made the decision the moment she’d taken a step toward him.

She wanted him again. If they left it at the night at the opera, it would never truly be over. It had been too fast. Too intense. A memory that was scorched around the edges, covering it all in the hazy smoke of fantasy. There was no way it had been as good as she remembered. No way it had been so all-consuming, so soul-destroying.

She lifted her other hand and cupped his cheek, sliding her thumb over the rough shadow of stubble that covered his jaw. “I want you,” she said.

“Really?” he bit out. “Because I seem to recall you running from me as though I had forced you the last time you begged me to touch you. I wasn’t a fan of that.”

“I’m not going to run this time,” she said, her voice trembling. Even as she said it, she wasn’t sure she could keep her promise.

Because the closer she got to Alik, the less hazy her memory became. The longer she left her palm on his face, against the heat of his skin, the more he burned into her. And she was shaking, terrified that being with him again would reduce her entirely to ash. She was shaking, afraid of what she felt. Of what she intended to do.

But she couldn’t turn back, either.

“Promise,” he said, leaning in, his lips skimming her cheek. He nipped her ear, lightly, leaving behind a light sting that he soothed with the tip of his tongue. “Promise me,” he repeated.

“I promise,” she said.

“Tell me you want me.”

“I want you, Alik.”

It was enough for him. It must have been. He pulled her up against his chest, kissing her hard, deep. She wrapped her arms around his neck and held him to her, kissing him back, matching his desperation, his hunger.

The beast he woke up inside of her was something she’d never known about before. The desire, the need, from a part of her she hadn’t been aware existed.

She knew about desire, she knew about pleasure, but this…this was new. This need that verged on pain, this hunger that bordered on insanity. She felt like he was air, like having him was essential, something she couldn’t live without.

It made it impossible for her to think. And that thoughtlessness was bliss.

“Bedroom,” she panted as he kissed down her throat, his teeth scraping her collarbone.

“Mine or yours.”

“Whichever is closer.”

“Yours,” he said, picking her up and carrying her down the hall. She wrapped her arms around his neck, awed by his strength, which, she was sure, was the reason he’d done it. That and to make her feel tiny and feminine. Both had worked.

He pushed the bedroom door open and set her down, then slammed it shut behind them. He flicked the light on, a wicked grin on his face.

“What?” she asked. “Why did you turn the lights on?”

“Didn’t you say that you’ve had sex with the lights on?”

“Yes, but…” Just not quite so purposefully.

“I want to see you,” he said, pushing his pants down his narrow hips. “It’s a priority this time around.”

Her jaw slackened a little bit when he was naked in front of her. Completely. She’d seen most of him, but not all of him at one time. He was utter masculine perfection, hard-cut lines of muscle, deep scars that were marring his skin, a map of
his life, marks that had been inflicted on him by those who had meant him harm.

And the ink on his skin, marks he’d chosen for himself.

“They say men are visual,” she said, “but I’m feeling pretty visual myself right now.”

“As am I,” he said, skipping over the compliment. “Show yourself to me.”

Her breath shortened, became labored. It was such a strange way to put it. Evidence of the fact that English wasn’t his first language. But it meant more this way, too. She was showing herself to him.

A part of herself she had never seen or known about. A part no one had ever seen or known about. Deeper. More sensual. The only question was if she was brave enough. Not simply to uncover it for him, but to reveal it to herself.

Maybe if she’d had a choice, she wouldn’t have done it. But there was no choice. This thing, this desire, it was bigger than she was. And tonight, it won over everything else. Over reserve, over fear.

She slowly peeled her top over her head, leaving her breasts bare for him. She shivered, nerves and the chill in the air raising goose bumps on her skin, arousal making her nipples pucker.

She pushed her pants down her legs, and her panties with them. “Just for you,” she said. And she meant it. This part of her, this woman who would make love in a box at the opera, she was just for Alik. Somehow, he made her different.

Later, she would worry about it. She might even regret it. But not now.

“I am a lucky man.” He crossed to her, cupping her cheek, the gesture tender, at odds with the heat and intent burning in his eyes.

She wrapped her arms around his neck and pulled his body against hers, pulled him in for a kiss. Skin to skin. She needed
it. Needed him, his touch. Needed him to push her past the point of reason, past the point of thought.

He’d done it before, with such ease, and she needed it again.

He gripped her thighs and lifted her so that her legs were wrapped around his waist and he was supporting all of her weight. It brought the heart of her against the hard ridge of his erection, sending a spark of pleasure through her, deep and all-consuming.

And she was there. Beyond thought. Beyond anything other than feeling.

He kissed her neck, whispered things in her ear. Husky, dark words. Some she understood, some she didn’t, but the intent didn’t need translation.

“Take me,” she whispered, broken, needy. Alik would fix her. He would answer the ache inside of her body. The one that went deeper than the physical.

He lay down on the bed, bringing her down on top of him. She started to adjust her position, to take him inside of her body. His hands tightened at her hips. “Stop.”

“What?” she panted.

“Condom.”

“Where?” she asked.

“Drawer.”

“Oh.” She hadn’t looked in her nightstand drawer since arriving in Paris. And there they were. She might feel weird about it later, might feel bad that Alik had protection everywhere, because clearly he was the sort of man who did what he wished when the mood hit. But for now, she was just grateful.

She handed the protection to him and he applied it, then she moved back where she’d been and lowered herself onto him. Slowly, as slowly as she could manage, enjoying the tease. Enjoying the pained look on his face.

She liked that she had the power to torture him. To make him sweat and shake. It made her feel strong. It made her feel
beautiful. Like a woman. A woman who was enough for the man she was with. A man who felt no inhibition, no issues with himself or who he was, or his ability to satisfy her.

Being with Alik was like waking up. Like bursting through the surface of the water after being under for too long. She hadn’t even realized she was suffocating.

He gripped her hips tightly, thrust up inside of her. Her head fell back and she put her hands on his shoulders, rode him, found the rhythm that worked for both of them.

She looked down at Alik’s face, the intensity, the focus. She bent down and kissed his mouth, sliding her tongue against his and he stiffened beneath her, shuddering out his orgasm. He swore and turned her over, reversing their positions and then pressing a kiss to her breasts, sucking on a nipple deep inside his mouth, continuing down her body.

He gripped her legs and hooked them over his shoulders, gripping her buttocks tight in his palms and pulling her up to his mouth, burying his face between her thighs before she had a chance to catch her breath.

“Alik…” She shuddered, his tongue tracing a streak of fire over her damp flesh.

He pushed two fingers inside of her, working them in time with his lips and tongue, pushing her higher, farther than she imagined possible.

Nothing had ever felt this good. Ever. Alik knew her body, knew just what she needed. Knew when she needed more, knew when to bring her down just so he could push her back to the edge again.

He kept it going until she was sure she would die from the pleasure. She opened her mouth to beg him to stop, to beg him to end it and let her come, but the words died on her lips, incoherent moans taking their place.

Still holding her lower body tightly with one hand, he took his other hand and reached up, pinched her nipple lightly between his thumb and forefinger while continuing his sensual
torture with his mouth and she broke completely, shattering into a thousand, glimmering pieces. She wasn’t sure she would ever be whole again, and she wasn’t sure she cared.

She was lost in the pleasure, in the release that kept coming, wave after wave, so big, so intense she didn’t know if she could withstand it. He kept tasting her, kept sliding his tongue over her damp skin until she shook, until her body was racked by tiny tremors, aftershocks of the release that had undone her completely.

And when it was over, Alik was there. And she wanted to run. But she’d promised she wouldn’t. So she lay there instead, shaking.

Alik rose up and kissed her lips, his skin damp with sweat and her own arousal. He sat on the edge of the bed, his expression flat. “I don’t know what happened,” he said.

“You don’t…”

“Usually I am more considerate than that. I lost my control for a moment. It won’t happen again. Good night, Jada.” He sat straight for a moment, indecision flashing across his face, then he leaned in and kissed her again. “I’ll see you in the morning.”

He got up and walked out of the room.

Jada hadn’t run. But Alik had.

A
LIK DID HIS BEST TO WASH
the impression of Jada from his skin with a cold shower. When that didn’t work, he went for a run, hoping the rain and a bit of physical punishment would take care of things for him.

It didn’t. By the time he collapsed in his bed, the sky was turning gray, the sun rising up behind the clouds.

He growled and got back out of bed, stalking down to the kitchen. His cook had just gotten in. He gave terse orders in French for her to prepare breakfast to be served out on the patio again. He wanted to eat out there like they’d done yesterday morning. Like they’d done before Jada had stripped his skin from his bones, left him feeling raw and exposed.

It was because he’d come before she had. That had to be it. He hadn’t been that quick on the draw since he’d been a teenager. But damned if he could have stopped himself. And that was just far too telling.

He had never considered himself a man who held control in high esteem. He did what he wanted, when he wanted to do it. Some had called him debauched, and they weren’t that far off. There were years of his life that he could barely remember, and it wasn’t for any good or honorable reason.

Now he wondered how much of himself he’d truly kept bound up. How much of that sense of emotionless came from control. How much he had inflicted on himself. Because what
had happened with Jada disturbed him, and it was beyond a simple matter of male pride.

“I thought I heard you growling down here.” He turned and saw Jada behind him, in the clothes she’d been wearing the night before. Clothes she’d stripped off for his pleasure.

“I am not growling.”

“You most certainly were. I could hear a rumbling coming from down here and no distinct words.”

“I didn’t sleep well last night.”

“Join the club.”

She was angry, he could tell. Not shooting sparks at him with her eyes, but definitely angry.

“Where is Leena?”

“Sleeping. Like a sane person. It’s barely five o’clock.”

“And why are you up?”

“The same reason you are, I imagine.”

“We aren’t going to have a heart-to-heart, Jada. Something like that requires both parties have a heart.”

She stalked forward and fisted his T-shirt in her hands, tugging hard. And he followed the direction of the pull. She pressed her mouth to his, took his lower lip between her teeth and nipped him lightly. Then she released him.

“You can’t run from that, Alik. I tried it already, remember?”

“Yes, Jada, I remember. And I don’t run. I’ve withstood artillery fire…I’m hardly backing down from a woman who barely comes up to the center of my chest.”

“Yeah, yeah. I keep hearing about all that. Big Bad Alik Vasin. But you ran last night.”

“I don’t spend the night with women I…” The look on her face forced him to swallow the last crude word he’d been about to say. “I’m not the kind of guy who cuddles after.”

“Fine,” she said, so clearly not fine it was almost comical. “But it would be nice if you stayed for more than five seconds. I know I’m not your wife. Well, I am, but you know what I
mean. We aren’t in love. The vows we took…we didn’t mean them. I know that. I know someday you’re going to get tired of me and go back to doing what it is you do with women.” She took a deep breath. “I’m not your real wife. I’m also not some bimbo you picked up at a club.”

“I know that.”

“I don’t think you do,” she said. “Because you treated me like one last night. You left so fast it made my head spin. I’m not experienced at this. I’ve only been with one other man and not until after I married him.”

“You are married to me,” he said, “whether or not you love me.”

She sighed. “I suppose. But the point is, this whole sexual thing…I’m not sure what to do with it. I’m not sure how I feel and the last thing I need is for you to confirm what I’m afraid is true.”

“And that is?”

“Am I…is something wrong with me that I want this? That I don’t care if I love you, or if I even like you?”

“Sex doesn’t have to be connected to feelings, princess. In my experience it never has been. Sex is your body.”

“My body wants things that are bad for me. All the time. Take chocolate cake for example,” she said. “I love chocolate cake. With lots of frosting. And I would eat it all the time. I crave it. If I listened to my body I would be eating chocolate cake for breakfast today, but just because I want it doesn’t mean I should have it.”

“But that’s half of what makes it so good,” he said, for his own benefit more than hers.

Maybe that was all it was. Maybe that was part of the excitement of being with her. She was the last woman he should want. She was his wife, but he didn’t intend to make her his actual wife. Being with her like this was complicated and messy and bad.

Perhaps that was why his body responded so enthusiastically to it.

“It’s human nature,” he said. “To want the one thing you shouldn’t have. Forbidden fruit is sweeter.”

“Is that what this is?”

“Would you dislike it so much if it was?”

“I’m confused by it. I’ve always done what I should. I’ve always liked doing the right thing. But…what did it get me, Alik? What did it get me but hurt in the end? If I would have kept playing by the rules I would have lost Leena, too.”

“So play dangerous for a while, Jada. Play with me.” This he could do…this was easy. It certainly wasn’t anything new or different. A little bit of harmless sex. He’d overreacted. He could see that now.

“What about when it ends? It might be difficult.”

“Would it be any easier to stop now?” he asked.

She shook her head. “No. I don’t want to stop now.”

“You like living a little dangerously, don’t you?”

The color in her cheeks deepened. “Yes.”

“I thought you would.”

He advanced on her, intent on tasting her lips again. Lee-na’s sharp cry, carrying all the way down the stairs, made him stop.

“Sorry,” she said. “I have to get her.”

He wanted to go, too, he realized. But she didn’t need him. And he didn’t want to interrupt her. So he shoved it aside. It wasn’t important.

“I will see that breakfast gets laid out for everyone. A banana, for Leena, am I right?”

“Her favorite.”

He nodded. “Then I will make sure she has it.”

Jada lay back on the bed, utterly spent. She could hardly catch her breath. Alik was a ruthless lover. He made her beg. He made her scream. And she had no complaints.

She wanted to ask him to stay, but she really didn’t want to sound needy. Even though she felt needy. She didn’t want him to know.

He kissed her and she clung to him, still hungry for him. Maybe she could tempt him to stay with the promise of more sex. He certainly wasn’t going to stay and cuddle. He’d made that very clear and he’d kept that promise for six nights running.

Things were certainly hot between them. They were officially having a physical-only affair. She cared for him, yes. As the father of her daughter. But it was nothing truly personal to her.

You are such a liar
.

But, very true to what he’d said at the beginning of their marriage—when had she started to think of it that way?—he seemed to keep sex and what happened during the day completely separate. And that did bother her a little. She was all for separate but he took it to a ridiculous degree.

Except for those moments when their eyes would lock. Over the table at breakfast, when they were passing in the hall, and the fire between them would burn so hot, so bright that it was a miracle they didn’t just sweep everything aside and tear each other’s clothes off.

They saved that passion for the nights. Half the night, anyway. And then Alik left. Went back to his room. To his own space.

“Alik?” She settled beneath the covers, searching for a topic to delay him. “Tell me more about how…how you’re here.”

“You know where babies come from, I assume. You just proved you know it proficiently well, actually.” He arched one brow. “And that you’re also well versed in bedroom activities that don’t make babies.”

“That’s not what I meant,” she said, determined not to be offended by his ridiculousness. He
wanted
her offended. She
knew him well enough to realize that. A week ago, she probably
would
have been offended. For some reason, she just wasn’t now. “You were an orphan in Moscow.”

“Yes,” he said. “In one of the very overcrowded children’s homes. You’ve never seen anything like that, Jada. Cribs in rows with narrow walkways for the workers to get through. Maybe three people trying to manage all those children. Someone is always crying. And when it gets terribly overcrowded, the older children have to go.”

Jada closed her eyes. “Oh no…”

“I was twelve, older than some. Lucky, really. Because while the orphanages are overcrowded and understaffed, they try. They aren’t cruel. It’s not love or affection, but food and shelter go a long way in helping make a child’s life bearable. After that there was nothing. I was lucky, I avoided having to sell my body. I found I had a talent for theft and manipulation. Which, as I told you, caught the attention of the local organized crime family.”

He sat back down on the edge of the bed, still naked. “And for them, I did errands. Small things, delivering packages with unknown contents. And then I would also strategize heists. Big heists. And I thought it was brilliant. Here I was fourteen, fifteen years old and I was the criminal mastermind behind some of Europe’s most notorious burglaries. Not a bad achievement for a kid with nothing. But ultimately, at some point, I had to face the reality that I was doing work for the Mob and to be honest, morally bankrupt bastard that I am, not even I cared much for that.”

“And then what did you do?”

“Disappeared. Which you have to do for a while in my position. I went into Asia. Lived in Singapore, then Japan. Tended bar, ran petty scams, did a lot of things the United States Surgeon General would advise against.”

“And you were in Japan when that man approached you to help a militia strategize a government takeover.”

He nodded slowly. “You listen well.”

“You’re interesting.”

“Is that what you call it? Interesting. Perhaps I am. But I find very little to be proud of in my past. There’s nothing hard about following the money. You don’t have to decide what you think is right or wrong. You sell yourself to the highest bidder. Whoever has the money is right. So simple. So perfect. So very easy.”

“I’m sure you weren’t so bad, Alik.”

“I put missions in motion that cost men their lives and to this day, I don’t know what every cause I stood with was. I only knew they paid me. And I knew that the thrill of danger made me feel alive. It was only when I met Sayid that I got caught up in the rights and freedom of a nation. Attar was under attack by neighboring factions and Sayid hired me to help wipe them out. They were terrible people, Jada, and I saw the kinds of things they were doing. And then I saw Sayid risk himself, his men, everything, to save the life of a woman. And I realized I would not have done the same. Sayid got himself captured, and I was free. I didn’t deserve freedom, not when men of Sayid’s caliber rotted in jail. So I made it my mission to free them. There was no money involved in that. It was the first decision I had ever made in my life that was for someone else, and not for me.”

“You’re a good man, Alik.”

He shook his head. “It took a good man to show me just how far gone I was. But I have changed. Now I’m just a corporate killer.” He shook his head and stood. “And that’s my story, Jada.”

“It’s not over yet. And you did something different here. You turned down working for a corporation that violated your ethics. To appease a conscience I know you have.”

“Whatever I have, whatever I feel…it’s because of Leena.”

“That’s how it should be. It’s the same for me. She…she saved my life.”
And so did you
. The words hovered on the
tip of her tongue, but she held them back. She only looked at him. Because she wasn’t sure if they were true. Alik had torn her from her comfort zone. Taken her from friends, from the life she knew, from everyone who had an expectation of her and left her feeling like she was drifting out at sea. Free. Terrifying.

“Do you want to know what this says?” he asked, lifting his arm and exposing the words written in ink beneath.

“What?”

“Little thieves are hanged. Great thieves escape.” He lowered his arm. “I was a great thief. And I escaped. I was young and cocky, so I had this tattooed on my body to let the world know that it was my greatness that would keep me from getting caught. But you know what? You can’t escape your past. I escaped arrest. I was never killed by an enemy. But my past remains, and I am trapped in it. A creation of it. So you see, no thief escapes, princess. Not even me.”

She touched his bicep, her fingers drifting over the muscle. “Will you punish yourself forever?”
Will you?

Again, she ignored her own thoughts.

“I don’t have to. I don’t seek to punish myself, but you asked what made me, and the simple fact is, it was nothing good that had a hand in my creation. What I am simply is. It’s not me punishing myself, or the world punishing me. But my existence is a consequence for everything that has come before. There’s no changing it.”

She had seen Alik angry. She’d seen him totally out of his depth. She’d seen tenderness, deeply hidden but evident, when he looked at Leena. But she’d never heard him sound hopeless. Tonight, he sounded hopeless. He sounded like he wanted more than what he was.

And it broke her. Because he didn’t see what she did. He didn’t see what he could be. But he did want more. He was changing. And he was capable of change, no matter what he thought.

He turned to go and her heart slammed hard against her breastbone. She craved him. By her side, in her bed, her arms. No matter what he’d done, no matter where he’d been.

This dangerous, difficult, damaged man.

She wanted to reach out, to offer comfort. To take comfort. But she was too raw. She needed distance, too. Needed escape.

So she let him go. Because the alternative was calling him back and further cementing a bond that she couldn’t handle.