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“You want to know why I don’t touch you?” I shook my head. “Because if I did, I wouldn’t stop. Not until I’d snuffed out that pretty fire in your eyes.” His gaze flashed. “Don’t shut yourself in a room with me again, Gianna.”
“I’m not one of your admirers. I’m not going to hold my dick and pine over you, just waiting for the day you might choose me. If I fuck you, Gianna, nobody else ever will.”
Like the set of the sun, his eyes filled with darkness. A merciless darkness that wrapped around my soul and pulled. The force of the snap made me fall back a step. He slammed the car door. Stalked toward me. “You’ll never be done with me.”
“If you ran, Gianna . . .” The words were malicious yet somehow as soft and desperate as sex in a war-torn field. He pressed his lips to my ear. “I would find you.”
“Say something in Russian.” “Ty samaya krasivaya zhenshchina kotoruyu ya kogda-libo videl.” “What did you say?” “You’re annoying.”
She was so goddamn beautiful I couldn’t even stand to look at her some days. Because I didn’t know what to do with her—to make her scream my name or to punish her for making me feel this way.
“I’ve already made it Facebook official. I won’t change it back, Christian. The amount of jealousy coming in has brought me closer to world domination than I’ve ever been.”
Gianna and I exchanged a look before I stepped onto the elevator. Hers said, Stay out of my business. Before I could stop it, mine said, I’ve been inside that little body and I’ll goddamn say who can touch it.
Maybe I was courting the devil, though no one had ever warned me the devil would feel so good.
“We have a saying in Russia. S volkámi zhit’, po-vólch’i vyt’. Say it.” I butchered it. A corner of his lips lifted, but he walked me through it until it sounded somewhat intelligible. “It means, to live with wolves, you have to howl like a wolf.”
“What do I taste like?” His eyes drifted back up to mine. They were so deep and serious they held me captive. His next two words tugged at my heart, even though I didn’t know the meaning. “Kak moya.”
“Remember that the next time you offer me your body, malyshka,” he bit out. “Because next time, I’ll take it. Regardless if there are still tears on your face. Fuck, I won’t care if you cry the whole way through it.”
“I’ve thought about you so much you’re mine now.” It was a growl that lowered into a threat. “You’re lucky you didn’t let him touch you, Gianna, because I really don’t like it when people touch my things.”
“Moya zvezdochka.” He murmured the two rough words against my lips. I stilled. Those words . . . I’d heard them before. More than once.
“I’m glad to see you remember, malyshka, because there is nothing I have ever forgotten about you.”
“Voy kak volk, malyshka.” Howl like a wolf. Her soft eyes flicked to me. They burned a small hole in my chest. “Voy kak volk,” she whispered. She’d said it right. And I suddenly knew I was going to keep her.
How could I say every strand was mine any clearer than washing it every goddamn night?
Gianna would have to make a decision to marry eventually, and I was selfish enough to make her choose me. Because there wasn’t an ounce of me that could let her become someone else’s.
When you’re obsessed with something for so long and finally obtain it? It feels like coming home to God. And nobody gives up their fucking spot in Heaven.
The next day, he came home, paused, then picked up the “Russian for Dummies” book sitting on the coffee table. He raised a brow at me. I returned the look from my spot on the couch. “How else am I going to eavesdrop on all your phone calls, malysh?” It was the male form of the endearment he called me. A half-smile pulled on his lips as he dropped the book back on the table.
“Would you visit my grave if I died?” His eyes grew dark. “I’d die before you were ever in a grave, malyshka.” I loved his possessive side. And I loved his dark side, too.
“People will think we’re together.” His eyes hardened. “You sleep in my bed every goddamn night, Gianna.” “You’re not even Catholic!” “I’m whatever you are.”
“I’ll be outside, malyshka,” he said in my ear. And then he turned my face and kissed me on the lips. It was short and sweet but possessive, letting everyone know Christian Allister was screwing me nine ways to Sunday.
Love is an obsession. Some would even say . . . the maddest obsession.”
“Go ahead.” My voice was dark. “Might save us both some time if you line her prospects up in a row right now.”
“How about because I love you, Gianna? Because I think I have since the moment I saw you? Because if you weren’t in this world anymore, I would find a way to take myself out of it?”
