His heart ached at the kindness in her voice as she said, “Dimitri, you don’t have to try with me. Just be yourself. I like you for who you are.”
She was so trusting, and it hurt him somewhere deep inside his chest when he thought of Rya having to live in his violent, cold world. “I am killer. I am thief. I am ruthless man. That is who I am.”
“That’s not all you are,” she replied in a low voice as she continued to stroke his stomach. “You’re also honorable, kind, smart, funny, and you make me feel cherished. I’d say you’re doing pretty good for a first date.”
Her words pleased him immensely, and he wasn’t sure how to deal with the onslaught of forbidden emotions so he changed the subject. “Now why was losing your virginity embarrassing for you?
“Please don’t make me tell you.”
“Why? Is no big deal.”
“Fine, if it’s no big deal then how did you lose your virginity?”
“To a whore my father hired when I was thirteen to teach me how to fuck.”
Her shocked gasp and the feel of her fingernails digging into his stomach alerted him that he probably should have kept that information to himself. They were from such different worlds; things which were normal to him were totally foreign to her. But he didn’t want to lie to her. They didn’t have the rest of their lives to learn about each other, only an all too limited number of hours.
The fact that she’d managed to overlook his soiled past and see beyond the darkness of his soul still astonished him. Most women would have run screaming after reading the first line about the infamous Novikov blood which flowed through his veins. More importantly, while Rya had been pissed and scared, she was either brave enough, or compassionate enough, or both to still listen to what he had to say. She amazed him, and the bone-deep craving to keep her as his own tore at him.
Her soft voice, tinged with sorrow, filled his head. “You were only thirteen? That’s terrible.”
He shrugged, liking the way she was stroking his stomach in a soothing gesture. “For you that may be young, but by thirteen I’d already killed my first man.”
“What?”
He passed a slow moving car and let out a soft breath. “He was a bad man, Rya, a monster. I was with one of my father’s kryshas, Levka, a man who is enforcer and protector for my father’s business. One of our whores had gone missing and Levka was charged to find out what happened to her. He was very smart man, had a—what you call it— a knowing, a sixth sense about people. I do not think my father actually thought we would find anything, but we did. The whore had been kidnapped by a doctor who would take prostitutes, drug addicts, basically the dregs of society and harvest their organs to be sold on black market.”
“Oh my God.”
Her horrified whisper hurt his heart. “I am sorry, I did not mean to shock you.”
Cursing himself for being an idiot, he gunned the motorcycle, needing to feel the speed, to escape his demons.
Rya hugged him tight. “I’m glad he’s dead. I hate that you had to kill him, but I’m glad he’s dead.”
He turned her words over in his mind, finding it hard to believe that Rya would wish death on anyone. “You do not think I should have turned over to authorities?”
“No. I don’t know how it is in Russia, but in America, people slip through the cracks of the law all the time while others get locked up for absolute bullshit. My mom got two years for being caught driving with a bag of weed, while this drunk asshole a couple towns over did a hit-and-run with his truck on my dad. The guy in the truck totally blew a stop sign and struck my dad on his motorcycle, killing him, but because of some bullshit the drunk driver’s expensive lawyer pulled out of his ass the guy got away with just a fine.” She gave a laugh that wasn’t at all pleasant. “But we took care of him.”
He wished he could see her face right now, see if what he thought she was saying was indeed the truth. “What do you mean?”
“Sorry, can’t talk about it. Club business.” He couldn’t help but chuckle and she made an irritated noise. “What’s so funny?”
“You are very loyal to your Club. I find it amusing that you are—how you say—open book, but when it comes to them nothing is said. Maybe amusing not right word. It makes me proud that you are faithful to them.”
She laughed and dipped her hands lower so they rested on the belt of his pants, her thumb stroking the line of hair that led down to his aching cock. “This is kind of surreal, you know that, don’t you?”
“How so?”