“Oh.” I almost smile but think better of it. Yulia looks ready to deck me, and given her restored health, she might land a blow or two before I subdue her. Keeping my expression carefully neutral, I say in a reasonable tone, “Why shouldn’t I have told him? He deserves to know the truth. You know that part of his anger is because he feels deceived, right? Nobody likes to be manipulated.”
Yulia’s teeth snap together. “He’s fourteen. He’s still a child. You don’t tell children about brutal rape—especially children with his kind of background. Kirill was his trainer. Misha admired him—”
“Yes, exactly.” I catch her wrists as a preemptive defense measure. “Your brother kept talking about the bastard and all the things he taught him. Do you think that was good for him? Healthy? How do you think Michael would’ve felt when he found out that you let him respect your rapist? And he would’ve found out, believe me. Truth has a way of coming out.”
Yulia’s wrists are stiff in my grasp, but she doesn’t kick me or try to get away. I take it as a sign that I’m getting through to her and say, “Also, he’s not a child. Not really. You know your brother already slept with a girl, right?”
“What?” Yulia’s mouth drops open.
“Yes, he told Diego about it.” I use her shock to pull her closer, molding her lower body against my hardening cock. “The trainees went out to a club a few months ago, and he hooked up with an older girl there. He’s crazy proud of it, like any teenage boy would be.”
Her throat works. “But—”
“Don’t worry. He used protection. Diego asked.”
And before Yulia can recover from that, I lower my head and kiss her, enjoying the way she struggles before melting against me.
It takes a long time before we sit down to dinner that evening, but I don’t regret a minute of the delay.
* * *
As our new life together continues, I find myself increasingly obsessed with all things Yulia. Everything about her fascinates me: the way she hums under her breath when she’s cooking, how she stretches in the morning, the purring moan that escapes her lips when I kiss her neck. Her body has filled out again, her sickly pallor fading, and one look at her golden beauty is all it takes to get me hard these days. I fuck her every chance I get, and it’s not enough. I want her constantly, with a need that consumes me. Every time I take her, it’s the best feeling ever, yet I’m still left craving more.
Sometimes I think I’ll go to my grave wanting her.
If it were just a sexual itch, I might’ve been able to handle it. But my hunger runs deeper. I want to know everything about her, every tiny detail of her life. I don’t like thinking of my past, so I’ve never had much interest in that of other people, but with Yulia, my curiosity knows no bounds.
“You know, you never told me your real name,” I say as we’re eating lunch one day. “Your last name, I mean.”
“Oh.” She blinks. “Why do you care about that?”
“Because I do.” I put down my fork and stare at her intently. “You have no one to protect anymore, so please, tell me, baby.”
She hesitates, then says, “It’s Molotova. I was born Yulia Borisovna Molotova.”
Molotova. I make a mental note of that. I haven’t forgotten what she told me about the headmistress of her orphanage, and I intend to use this information to track the woman down. I debate disclosing this to Yulia, but I’m not sure how she’d react, so I decide to keep quiet for now.
Changing the topic, I ask, “Have you ever killed anyone? Not in a fight or as self-defense, but outright.”
To my surprise, Yulia nods. “Yes, once,” she murmurs, looking down at her plate.
“When?” I reach across the table to cover her slender hand with my palm. “How did it happen?”
“It was during training, as the last part of the program,” she says, her gaze veiled as she looks up at me. “None of us were supposed to be assassins, but they wanted to make sure we’d be able to pull the trigger if it came to that.”
“So what did they do? Have you kill someone?”
“In a way.” She wets her lips. “They brought in a dying homeless man. He had Stage Four liver cancer. He only had a few days to live at best, and he was in terrible pain. They shot him full of drugs, and then, instead of a paper target, they strung him up. Our goal was to make a killing shot.”
“So all of you shot at this one guy?”
“Yes.” Yulia’s fingers twitch under my palm. “We used marked bullets, and he was autopsied afterwards to see whose bullets hit the target. A couple of trainees couldn’t bring themselves to shoot.”
“But you could.”
“Yes.” She pulls her hand out of my grasp but doesn’t look away. “The autopsy revealed that three bullets hit his heart.”
“Was yours one of them?” I ask, leaning back.
“No.” Her gaze is unflinching. “Mine was found in his brain.”
* * *
That night, Yulia clings to me with a passion bordering on desperation, and I realize my questioning brought back some bad memories. I know I should leave her alone, let her live in the present the way she clearly wants to do, but the questions keep gnawing at me, and I finally give in.
“Have you ever slept with a man of your own initiative?” I ask as we lie tangled together after a long bout of sex. By all rights, I should be sinking into sleep, but my body hums with energy and my thoughts keep returning to this topic.
Yulia stiffens in my arms. Turning over, she pulls back to look at me. “What do you mean? I was only forced that one time—”
“I mean, did you ever date anyone who wasn’t an assignment?” I say, placing my hand on her hip. “Go to bars, clubs? Hook up with a guy just for fun?” I’d intended the question to be a casual one, but as I say the words, I realize that Yulia with another man will never be a casual topic for me.
I want to commit murder at the mere thought that someone who wasn’t me touched her.
Yulia’s gaze lights with comprehension. “No,” she says softly. “I never dated. It wouldn’t have been fair to the guy.”
“So there was a guy?” My jealousy sharpens. “Someone you wanted?”
“What?” To my relief, she seems startled by the notion. “No, there was no one. I just meant that I was always on assignment, so I would’ve been a terrible girlfriend.”
“So not even a casual hook-up?” I press.
“No.” She bites her lip. “I didn’t see the point. I had classes and school assignments on top of my job, and I didn’t have much free time.”
“So you’re telling me that other than your three assigned lovers and myself, you’ve never been with anyone else?”
Her face tightens. “You’re forgetting Kirill.”
“I’m not forgetting him.” The fact that we still haven’t found him or his body is like a festering splinter under my skin. Suppressing the flare of rage, I say evenly, “He was your assailant, not your lover.”
“In that case, yes.” Yulia’s blue eyes are clear and guileless as she looks at me. “I’ve had four lovers, including you.”
I stare at her, hardly able to believe my ears. My seductive spy—the beautiful girl who used her body to get information—has slept with fewer men than an average college student.
“What about you?” she parries, propping herself up on one elbow. “How many women have you slept with?” The look in her eyes is a mirror image of my earlier jealousy.
“Probably not as many as you think,” I say, pleased by her possessiveness. “But definitely more than four. Like your brother, I started fairly young, and… well, I wasn’t much of a relationship guy back then.”
Her eyes narrow. “Really? And you are now?”
“I’m in a relationship with you, am I not?” I say, my cock stirring at the sight of her nipple peeking out from under the blanket. “So yeah, I’d say so.”
Yulia opens her mouth to reply, but I’m already pulling the blanket away. Rolling on top of her, I push her legs apart with my knees and grip my cock, positioning it against her opening. She’s slick from our earlier session, so I thrust in, invading her silky tightness with no preliminaries. She doesn’t seem to mind, her arms and legs wrapping around me to hold me close, and I begin to fuck her in earnest, taking her hard and fast. It takes only a few minutes before my orgasm starts to build, and I force myself to slow down, wanting to prolong the moment.
“Tell me you love me,” I demand, stroking deep into her body. “I want to hear you say it.”
“I love you, Lucas,” she breathes in my ear, her legs squeezing my hips. Her pussy is like a hot, slippery glove around my dick, and my balls pull tight against my body as I feel her spasms begin. We detonate together, and in that moment, I feel as if we’re one, as if our ragged halves have fused, forming one unbroken whole. Our lungs work in tandem, our breaths intermingle, and when I raise my head and see Yulia looking at me, something hot and dense expands inside my chest.