“Good girl,” he whispers, letting me get every drop, and then he strokes my hair, his touch as gentle as I’ve ever felt. I should’ve found his approval humiliating, but I revel in the small tenderness, soaking it up with desperate need. I feel tired, so tired that all I want to do is stay like this, with him stroking my hair as I drift off into nothingness.
All too soon, he helps me to my feet, and I open my eyes when the water spray starts hitting me in the chest instead of my face. Lucas doesn’t speak, but when he pours body wash into his palm and applies it to my skin, his touch is still gentle and soothing.
“Lean back,” he murmurs, stepping behind me, and I lean on him, resting my head against his strong shoulder as he washes my front, his big hands soaping my breasts, belly, and the tender place between my legs. He’s taking care of me, I realize dreamily, my mind beginning to drift as I close my eyes to enjoy the attention.
All too soon, I’m clean, and he steps back, directing the spray at me to rinse me off. I sway slightly, my legs barely able to hold me up as Lucas turns off the water and guides me out of the shower.
“Come, let’s get you into bed. You’re about to fall over.” He wraps a thick towel around me and picks me up, carrying me out of the bathroom. “You need sleep.”
He brings me to the bedroom and lowers me to the bed.
I blink at him, my thoughts slow and sluggish. He’s not going to tie me up on the floor next to the bed?
“You’re going to sleep with me,” he says, answering my unspoken question. I blink at him again, too tired to analyze what all of this means, but he’s already taking a pair of handcuffs out of his nightstand drawer.
Before I can wonder about his intentions, he snaps one handcuff around my left wrist and attaches the second one to his own. Then he lies down, stretching out behind me, and curves his body around mine from the back, draping his cuffed left arm over my side.
“Sleep,” he whispers in my ear, and I comply, sinking into the warm comfort of oblivion.
2
Lucas
Yulia’s breathing evens out almost immediately, her body turning boneless as she falls asleep in my embrace. Her hair is wet from the shower, the moisture seeping into my pillow, but it doesn’t bother me.
I’m too focused on the woman in my arms.
She smells like my body wash and herself, a unique, delicate scent that still somehow reminds me of peaches. Her slender body is soft and warm, the curve of her ass cushioning my groin. My body hums with contentment as I lie there, but my mind refuses to relax.
I fucked her.
I fucked her, and it was once again the best sex I’ve ever had, surpassing even that time with her in Moscow. When I entered her, the intensity of the sensations took my breath away. It didn’t feel like sex—it felt like coming home.
Even now, remembering what it was like to slide into her tight, warm depths makes my cock twitch and my chest ache with something indefinable. I don’t want this with her, whatever “this” is. It should’ve been so simple: fuck her, get her out of my system, and then punish her, extracting information from her in the process. She killed men I’d worked and trained with for years.
She nearly killed me.
The idea that I can feel anything but hatred and lust for Yulia infuriates me. It took everything I had to ignore the softness in her gaze and treat her like the prisoner she is—to fuck her roughly instead of making love to her. I knew I was hurting her—I felt her struggling as I drove mercilessly into her—but I couldn’t let her know how she affects me.
I couldn’t give in to this insane weakness.
Except I did exactly that when she sucked my cock without a hint of protest, milking me with her mouth like she couldn’t get enough. She gave me pleasure after I treated her like a whore, and that damnable need came over me again.
The need to hold her and protect her.
She knelt in front of me, her wet, spiky lashes fanning across her pale cheeks as she swallowed every drop of my cum, and I wanted to cradle her, to take her in my arms and make her promises I should never keep. I settled for washing her, but I couldn’t bring myself to tie her up and make her sleep on the floor—just like I couldn’t bring myself to truly hurt her earlier.
What a fucking mess. She’s been here less than twenty-four hours, and the fury that’s burned inside me for two months is already beginning to cool, her vulnerability getting to me like nothing else. I shouldn’t care that she’s weak and starved, that her body is a shadow of its former self and her blue eyes are ringed with exhaustion. It shouldn’t matter to me that she was recruited at eleven and sent to work as a spy in Moscow at sixteen.
None of those facts should make a difference to me, but they do.
Fucking hell.
I close my eyes, telling myself that whatever it is I’m feeling is temporary, that it will pass once I’ve had my fill of her.
I tell myself this even though I know I’m lying.
It’s not going to be that simple, and I should’ve known it.
* * *
A strange noise startles me out of deep sleep. My eyes spring open, all traces of sleepiness gone as adrenaline rockets through me. I tense, preparing for a fight, and then I recall that I’m not alone.
There’s a woman lying in my arms, her left wrist handcuffed to mine.
I exhale slowly, realizing the noise came from her. She shifts restlessly, and I hear it again.
A soft whimper that ends as a choked cry.
“Yulia.” I place my left hand on her shoulder, bringing her arm up with it. “Yulia, wake up.”
She twists, struggling with sudden ferocity, and I realize she’s not awake yet. She’s half-crying, half-gasping, and yanking at the handcuffs with all her strength.
Son of a bitch.
I grab her left wrist to stop her from hurting us both and roll on top of her, using my weight to immobilize her. “Calm down,” I whisper in her ear. “It’s just a dream.”
I expect her to stop struggling then, to wake up and realize what’s going on, but that’s not what happens.
She turns into a wild animal instead.
3
Yulia
“It’s your fault, bitch. It’s all your fault.”
A heavy body presses me into the floor, cruel hands tearing at my clothes, and then there’s pain, brutal, searing pain as he thrusts into me, telling me that it’s my punishment, that I deserve to pay.
“Don’t!” I scream, fighting, but I can’t move, can’t breathe underneath him. “Stop, please stop!”
“Calm down,” he whispers in my ear in English. “Just calm the fuck down.”
The incongruity of Kirill speaking English jolts me for a second, but I’m in too much of a panic to analyze it fully. The pain of the violation and the shame are like a vise crushing my chest. I’m suffocating, spinning into the cold darkness, and all I can do is fight, scream and fight.
“Yulia. Fuck, stop that!” His voice is deeper than I remembered, and he’s speaking English again. Why is he doing that? We’re not in training right now. The oddity nags at me, and I realize it’s not the only thing that’s strange.
He’s not wearing cologne either.
Confused, I still underneath him and realize I’m not actually in pain.
He’s on top of me, but he’s not hurting me.
Reality shifts and realigns, and I remember.
Kirill was seven years ago. I’m not in Kiev—I’m in Colombia, captive of another man who wants to punish me for what I’ve done.
“Yulia.” Lucas’s quiet voice is near my ear. “Can I let you go?”
“Yes,” I whisper into the pillow. My muscles are trembling from overexertion, and my breathing is labored, as if I’ve been running. I must’ve been fighting Lucas instead of the phantom in my nightmare. “I’m fine now. Really.”
Lucas rolls off me, and I feel a tug on my left wrist, where the handcuffs still join us. My skin underneath the metal is stinging and raw. I must’ve been yanking on the shackle during the fight.
He stretches away from me, and a second later, a soft light comes on, illuminating the room. The sight of the clean white walls serves as additional proof that I was dreaming and Kirill is nowhere near me.
Lucas reaches into the nightstand and extracts a key to unlock the handcuffs. When he puts the key back in the drawer, I automatically note its location, though my teeth are already beginning to chatter. I haven’t had a nightmare this strong and realistic in years, and I’ve forgotten how bad it can be.
Lucas turns to face me. “Yulia.” His gaze is somber as he reaches for me. “What happened?”
I let him draw me into his lap, so I can feel the heat of his body on my frozen skin. I can’t stop trembling, the shadow of the nightmare still hovering over me. “I—” My voice cracks. “I had a bad dream.”
“No.” He tilts my chin up with one hand, forcing me to look him in the eyes. “Tell me why you had this dream. What happened to you?”
I clamp my lips shut, fighting an illogical urge to obey that quiet command. Something about the way he’s holding me—almost like a parent comforting a child—makes me want to confide in him, tell him things I’ve only shared with the agency therapist.
“What happened?” Lucas presses, his tone softening, and I feel a swell of longing, a desire for the connection I imagined between us before. Except maybe I didn’t imagine it. Maybe there’s something there.