“Yes, no one else’s…” I don’t know what I’m saying, but with his fingers touching my clit, I don’t care. Everything about this feels surreal, like some kind of a sex dream. I can feel Lucas’s muscled body surrounding me as his cock pumps into me, and the volcanic heat grows, burning away all thought and reason. Dazed, I cry out as the sensations crest, and then I’m coming, my inner muscles clamping around his hard shaft.
Lucas groans too, and I feel his big body tensing and shuddering behind me. The warmth of his seed floods me, and my sex spasms with aftershocks, sparks of residual pleasure sizzling along my nerve endings.
Breathing hard, I close my eyes, feeling his chest rise and fall against my back as his cock slowly softens inside me. I know I should get up and clean up, or at least reach for a tissue, but I’m too relaxed, too drained by the pleasure. I don’t want to do anything but lie in Lucas’s arms. He seems to be equally unwilling to move, and my lids grow heavy as my thoughts begin to drift. All my fears and worries feel unreal, distant from this moment and from us. In some faraway world, we’re enemies and he’s my captor, but I’m no longer in that brutal place.
I’m here, warm and safe in my lover’s embrace.
The veil of darkness wraps around me, and as I sink deeper into the haze of dreams, I hear him say softly, “I’m sorry, Yulia. Do you hate me?”
“Never,” I whisper to my dream Lucas. “I love you. I’m yours.”
And as sleep drags me under, I feel him kiss my temple and hold me tighter, as if afraid to let me go.
31
Lucas
Yulia’s breathing takes on the steady rhythm of sleep, but I’m wide awake, my heart pounding heavily in my chest. Did she mean it? Did she know what she was saying?
Did she know it was me she was saying it to?
I want to shake her awake and demand answers, but I resist the impulse. I don’t know what I would do if Yulia told me it was Misha she was dreaming about. The mere thought of it burns me like acid. If I found out she meant the words for him…
No. I can’t go there. I don’t want Yulia looking at me like I’m a monster again.
Tightening my arm around her ribcage, I brush my lips across her temple and close my eyes, trying to relax. It was most likely a slip of the tongue, something she mumbled by accident, but even if there’s some truth to her words, why should I care? Sex is what I want from her, sex and a certain basic companionship.
Just because I want Yulia doesn’t mean I need her love.
Forcing my breathing to slow, I will sleep to come, but the thought that she might love me is like a splinter in my brain. No matter how hard I try, I can’t seem to let it go—or to suppress the warm sensation that accompanies the idea.
It’s an illogical reaction on my part. I know better than anyone how meaningless those words are. My parents used “I love you” as a platitude, as something to say to each other and to me at social functions. It was part of the glossy façade they presented to the public, and I’ve always known not to take them at face value. Same with the women I’ve slept with: more than one of them had used the words casually, throwing them out like one might say “hello” and “goodbye.” There’s absolutely no reason for me to latch onto this one mumbled phrase from Yulia—a phrase that might not have even been meant for me.
Unless it had been meant for me. Is that possible? It wouldn’t be casual for Yulia, that much I’m sure of. Given the circumstances, if she did fall in love with me, she’d resist letting me know for as long as possible—which means she probably didn’t realize what she was saying.
Fuck. Clearly, I can’t let the matter rest. If Yulia loves me, I need to know, so I can stop obsessing about it.
Sitting up, I lean over her and turn on the bedside lamp.
She doesn’t so much as twitch at my movements. Her lips are slightly parted, and her lashes form dark crescents on her pale cheeks. With her face relaxed in sleep, she looks impossibly young—an innocent worn out by my harsh demands.
I watch her for a few moments, then reach for the light and turn it off. Lying down, I mold my body against her slender form from the back and breathe in the sweet, peach-tinted scent of her hair.
Soon, I promise myself as I close my eyes. When I return from Chicago, I’ll question her and find out the truth.
My captive’s not going anywhere, and two weeks is not that long to wait.
* * *
The chirping of my phone alarm drags me out of deep sleep. Suppressing the urge to crush the offending object, I reach for the nightstand on my right and turn off the alarm. Yawning, I take out the key I keep in that drawer and turn back to face Yulia—who woke up from my movements this time and is regarding me with a sleepy, half-lidded gaze.
“Hi, beautiful.” Unable to resist, I unlock the handcuffs and pull her into my lap. She’s soft and pliant, her skin deliciously warm as I hold her against me, and I have to fight the urge to throw her down for one last fuck. “I have to go,” I murmur instead, kissing the top of her head. There are so many things I want to say to her, so many questions I want to ask about last night, but I settle for saying, “Be good with Diego and Eduardo, okay?”
She tenses slightly, but I feel her nod against my chest.
“Yulia, about last night…” I slide my fingers into her hair and gently pull on it, needing to see her face, but she refuses to meet my gaze, her eyes trained somewhere on my chin.
I sigh and decide to let it go. Now is not the time to get into what Yulia may or may not have said to me when she was half-asleep. “I’ll miss you,” I say softly instead.
Her lips tighten, her gaze dropping even lower, and I remind myself to be patient. I can wait two weeks. Brushing another kiss over the crown of her head, I reluctantly shift her off my lap and get up, doing my best to keep my eyes off her naked curves.
Diego and Eduardo will be here in ten minutes, and I still need to shower and get dressed.
32
Yulia
“Yulia, you’ve already met Diego, and this is Eduardo,” Lucas says, gesturing toward two young guards. “They’ll be watching you in my absence.”
I prop my hip against the kitchen table and nod at the two dark-haired men, keeping my expression carefully neutral. Diego is taller than Eduardo, but they’re both muscular and in good shape. Handsome in their own way, though I much prefer Lucas’s fierce, Viking-raider looks.
“Hello,” I say, figuring I have nothing to lose by playing nice.
“Hi, Yulia.” Diego grins at me, showing even white teeth. “I have to say, you look much… cleaner today.”
His grin is contagious, and I find myself smiling back at him. “Showers have been known to do that,” I say wryly, and he laughs out loud, throwing his head back. Eduardo chuckles too, but when I sneak a glance at Lucas, I see that his face is dark, his eyebrows pulled together into a frown.
Is he jealous of the guards he himself chose?
“You remember my instructions, right?” Lucas snaps, glaring at the two men, and I realize that he’s indeed displeased with them. “All of them?”
“Yes, of course,” Eduardo says quickly. Diego’s grin disappears, and both guards stand up straighter. “You have nothing to worry about,” the shorter man adds.
“Good.” Lucas gives them a hard look before turning to me. “I’ll see you in two weeks, okay?” he says in a softer tone, and I nod, trying to avoid meeting his pale gaze.
I have a terrible suspicion my dream last night might not have been entirely in my imagination.
Lucas pauses for a second, as if he wants to say something, but then he just turns and leaves, walking out of the kitchen. A few seconds later, I hear the front door close.
My captor is gone.
“So,” Diego says cheerfully, bringing my attention back to him. He’s grinning again, his arms crossed over his broad chest. “What’s for breakfast?”
* * *
I make an omelet for myself and the two guards, being careful not to do anything suspicious. They may seem friendly, but I don’t mistake their smiles for anything but an amicable mask.
Nice guys don’t work for illegal arms dealers, and these two have a good reason to hate me—if they know about my role in the plane crash, that is.
“So, Yulia,” Eduardo says, gobbling down his omelet with evident gusto, “how did you learn to cook like this? Is that a Russian thing?”
“I’m Ukrainian, not Russian,” I say. Though the difference in my hometown region is slight, I prefer to think of myself as belonging to the country of my employers. “And yes, it’s somewhat of an Eastern European ‘thing.’ Many people there still regard cooking as a necessary skill for a woman.”
“Oh, it’s necessary, all right.” Diego forks the last bite of his omelet into his mouth and glances longingly at the empty frying pan. “Should be mandatory, as far as I’m concerned.”
“Sure. Just like cleaning, laundry, and taking care of the kids, right?” I give the two men a syrupy-sweet smile.
“If a woman looked like you, I’d do the laundry,” Eduardo says with apparent seriousness. “But cleaning… I guess help with that would be nice.”