Sordid (38 page)

He liked to be in charge, so I had to push. “Don’t make me wait another second.”

Luka clamped his hands on my waist and moved us together, throwing me onto my back on the bench seat. The force was so great when I slammed into it, my head bounced against the upholstery and it knocked the air from my lungs.

Even though it was mid-afternoon, the tinted windows made the interior dim, and his intense eyes glittered in the low light. “You want it rough?”

“Yes,” I hissed. Once more I sank my teeth into his flesh, biting him just beneath his jaw. I dove my hands inside his suit jacket, sliding them between the silk lining and his dress shirt. “I shouldn’t have to repeat myself.”

He drew back so I could stare up at him. His face was hard, all vicious lines and aggressive eyes. Was I pushing him too far? I was reckless and wild.

Luka rose up on his knees and latched one hand on the back of the seat to steady himself as the limo eased through a turn. His other hand tangled up under my skirt and jerked my panties down while I raised my hips to allow it. He pulled so hard, the fabric dragged painfully across my skin. I kicked it the rest of the way, and he threw them to the floor.

Lust mixed with danger, and hung thick in the back of the vehicle. When he leaned down, I grabbed the collar of his jacket and peeled it off of him, desire and anticipation making me clumsy. The ache for him was a thousand knives stabbing me. I couldn’t think over it.

He let me work his jacket off, but that was it. When I reached for his belt with both hands, he grabbed them and pinned them above my head, holding them against the cool glass of the window. He’d done it so his other hand could shove my legs apart and two fingers pushed so deep inside me, I gasped with a hint of pain.

“You want this?” His tone demanded an answer. Luka never asked permission before.

Warmth flowed from his hand, burning up my core and snaking out through my veins. I squirmed on his fingers and bucked my hips. “Yes,” I babbled. “Yes, yes. I need it.”

I needed him to do bad things to me. Make me deserve what had happened.

When he worked a third finger inside, I cried out, but the discomfort was welcomed. The fire crackled and burned hotter, warming the empty void I’d become.

“Quiet,” he hissed. Maybe he was worried the limo driver would hear me. Luka’s gaze focused in and his expression was vicious. He was exactly how I wanted him to be. His fingers pumped in and out, and I grew slicker with each thrust, showing him how much I liked it, even if my moans sounded otherwise.

He had to release me to undo his pants, and I used the opportunity to launch my own attack. I slapped him again, surprising him with the action, and snarled it out. “Hurry up.”

His eyebrow went through the ceiling and anger swelled in his eyes. As soon as he had his pants shoved down over his hips and his cock out, his palm sealed over my lips. His other hand rubbed my clit in hurried strokes, taking me close to the edge, only for his fingers to come down hard in a strike directly across my aching center. The slap of his hand against my damp skin was a loud snap.

I cried out against his hand, and stared at him wide-eyed. He was a beautiful demon, made just for me. I scratched my nails down his neck, leaving bright pink track marks in my wake. Marking him as mine. The hand on my mouth shifted, so he could clench it around my neck, tight as a vise, collaring me beneath his warm fingers.

“You know what you do to me?” he growled. “You make me so fucking hard.”

He stabbed himself between my legs, taking me in one enormous thrust and impaling me on his cock. The sensation of him inside me tore my mind from my body, and I went wild. I thrashed against him like a rabid animal, all teeth and claws. It felt
amazing
. For the first time in a week, I was alive. Filled with hunger and need, instead of endless sadness.

Luka fucked me like a savage. He grunted with his merciless thrusts, pounding into me, and I moaned, although it was choked off. His grip was intense and pressed hard against the pulse banging in my neck. He drove down into me, pushing me into the seat where a seatbelt dug into my back, but I didn’t give a fuck. The fire consuming us was too powerful to fight, so instead I locked my ankles behind his back and held him to me.

Luka kept me right on the edge of orgasm, not allowing me to go over, so in frustration I reached down and touched myself. If he wouldn’t get me there, I would. When he realized what I was doing, he looked scary. My hand was shoved away, and he tapped me hard on the face. Just with the ends of his fingertips, but enough to make my breath halt in my lungs.

“Whose pussy is this?” he demanded. “You’ll come when I say so.”

His soft, corrective slap had shocked me, but I loved it. I was going to explode. “Please,” I rasped. “Fuck, Luka.
Please
.”

“I’ll never let you go again,” he said between enormous pants for air. “We belong together. Repeat it.”

“We belong together,” I agreed.

“Because I own you.” His lips pressed to mine. We’d gone at it like people on the brink of insanity, and when we reached the top of the precipice, he flung us over with a final push. “And you own me.”

Pleasure detonated. I screamed as I came, making the limo driver slam on the brakes, sending us tumbling, but Luka held on. He braced an arm on the floor to stop us, and as the powerful orgasm swept through me, he began to reach his end, too.

“I love you,” I whispered through his loud moans, and gripped him ferociously as he shuddered and pulsed inside me.

“Fuck, I love you,” he said, when he seemed to have regained the ability to speak. He lifted his head and smoothed a hand over my cheek. “Are you all right?”

The limo had stopped moving, and we could hear the driver getting out, probably preparing to check on me. Was I all right? “No,” I said lightly, stroking a hand over Luka’s thick hair. “Not yet, but I will be.”

He stared into my eyes, and I knew he understood exactly how I meant it.

Chapter

Twenty-Seven

I went back to school
the following week as Luka had asked me to, and he’d been right. The normalcy helped to combat the unfamiliar life I’d been thrust into. I spent my days in class trying to catch up, and at night he helped distract me during the difficult first few weeks.

There were setbacks.

One night, the realization that my great-grandmother’s crystal bowl had been destroyed had sent me into a deep depression. The only photos I had of my family were what I’d saved in my phone or online, so Luka reached out to my extended family and Jonathon’s school to try to get me copies of everything possible.

And there were days when I had to remind myself they were really gone. Jonathon wouldn’t graduate from high school. My parents wouldn’t be there to see me walk across a stage and receive my college degree. Sometimes the pain was so acute I couldn’t breathe, and I begged Luka to give me a different type of pain.

Which he did.

Other days, I coped. I survived by leaning on him. He arranged for a team to shift through the wreckage of my house and bring us whatever might be of value to me, sentimental or otherwise.

It was an early Saturday morning when a knock on our bedroom door roused Luka and me awake.

“Addison,” Vasilije said.

I glanced at Luka with sleepy eyes. Vasilije and I hadn’t said much toward each other since I returned to the house. He’d given me a sincere apology about the incident before I’d left, and then a heartfelt condolence, but most of the time I didn’t see him. He was hardly ever home. So why was he asking for me and not his brother?

“Yes?”

“Can you come downstairs?” His voice was loud so I could hear through the door. “My father needs a word.”

It was barely light outside, and his father was here? I froze as panic pumped through my veins. Luka’s expression mirrored my suspicion, and we both climbed out of bed, pulling on clothes. “Yeah, just a second.”

We trailed behind Vasilije down the stairs to the first floor, but he kept moving. It wasn’t until he reached for the basement door that Luka’s warm hand wrapped around my arm and jerked me to a stop.

“Wait a minute, what’s going on?” His voice was uncharacteristically tight. Luka was nervous?

Vasilije’s expression was stoic. “Dad’s downstairs.”

“No. We’re not going down there.”

His brother’s eyebrow rose. “Dad didn’t say shit about you. He needs to talk to her.”

“No,” Luka repeated, firm. He glared at his younger brother.

Vasilije’s face soured. “Jesus, calm down. I promise, he just wants to talk to her. And he wasn’t asking Addison to come down, he’s telling her.”

I’d never had a reason to go into the basement. It was unfinished storage, or so I’d been told, and I worried about discovering something down there I didn’t want to find. Luka’s tension confirmed my suspicion. Whatever was downstairs was related to the Markovics’ true business. But I needed to know, didn’t I? I nodded, signaling I’d go.

Luka seemed unsettled as he turned the doorknob and motioned for Vasilije to lead the way. He filed down the stairs next, taking my hand in his, so he could enter the basement first.

The stairs were bare wood, and the stone colored walls and poor lighting made the stairwell feel like a cave. It wasn’t much better when we reached the bottom. It was windowless. Pipes snaked overhead and the cement floor sloped gently toward a drain at the center of the room.

I could smell the metallic scent of blood before I spotted it.

Dimitrije Markovic stood in slacks and a white dress shirt with the sleeves haphazardly rolled back, and red spots dotted his bare forearms and shirt front. The blood came from the crumpled heap of a man lying on the floor. Nearby, a bloody metal baseball bat leaned upright against the wall.

My grip on Luka tightened as my body went on red alert. Had Dimitrije brought me down here to help this man, knowing I wanted to become a doctor? His gaze spotted me beside Luka, and in contrast to the first time I’d seen him, Luka’s father seemed pleased to see me beside his son.

The man on the floor groaned with agony, and Dimitrije glanced down. Disgust swept over his face. “Maybe I should burn you alive, like you did to this poor girl’s family.”

My knees threatened to give out.

Holy shit, was what Dimitrije said true? Was the man lying at his feet responsible for the fire? The police hadn’t found the source of ignition or any evidence, but ruled the fire as starting under suspicious circumstances. I’d had to lie when they’d questioned me, asking if I knew of anyone that could have been involved, and it was the only time Luka hadn’t been by my side when dealing with my family’s death.

“What you don’t realize,” Dimitrije said, continuing to talk to the puddle of flesh moaning on the ground, “is this girl is
my son’s
.” His powerful tone was absolute. “It makes her part of my family, and I put my family above anything else. You’ve started a fucking war.”

The man rolled onto his back and gazed up at the ceiling while he tried to pull his puffy, mangled face into a grotesque smile. “Good,” he croaked. He laughed, but it was cut short when he coughed and a mouthful of blood erupted from him.

“Ivan?” Luka asked. His gaze swung from the man up to find his father, who confirmed it with a grim nod. “Why?”

“Because it was an easy first strike,” Dimitrije answered. “They want us to retaliate. They thought we’d be too focused on that to notice they were moving a huge shipment over in Cicero.” His mouth lifted in an evil smile. “We
let
it happen. I had someone slip a welcoming present inside.”

Ivan coughed, giving a sharp noise of surprise.

Dimitrije put his foot in the injured man’s chest. “Who’s going to be there when that crate’s opened, huh? I heard the boss is in town.”

“Changes nothing,” Ivan choked out. “The Russians have more. More men and more guns. More power.”

“Shut the fuck up.” Dimitrije kicked him in the ribs, forcing him to roll away from the blow. He gurgled blood and drooled it on the cement. I shuffled backward. It wasn’t the sight of blood or Ivan’s traumatized face that made my stomach turn. I was unaccustomed to violence.

“Addison.” My name on Dimitrije’s lips was a command for attention I knew I had to obey, but it was nearly impossible. “I didn’t trust you when Luka brought you into my home, but you’ve proven your commitment to him. To my family.”