The Darkest Temptation (Made, #3)

by Danielle Lori

I leaned into the thumb running across my cheek and blinked soft eyes up to his. “How come you’ve never kissed me?” “Because I want to live more,” he deadpanned.

Papa: Happy birthday, angel. Sorry I missed it. Business as usual. We’ll celebrate when I get home. Another message came in. Papa: Have fun tomorrow. Carter is good for you. I put my phone back in my pocket and replaced my earrings with synthetic blue diamonds. I imagined them glittering like the Heart of the Ocean as the sea dragged me down, forever suspending me in gasping breaths, pearl necklaces, and the lonely sounds of the ocean. It was what convinced me. Tomorrow, I’d be in Russia.

Passing Ivan’s bedroom door, I stilled when a very feminine moan sounded on the other side. Ivan wasn’t a Don Juan, but neither was he celibate. Sometimes, during my papa’s absences, I’d come down to breakfast to find a half-naked woman in our kitchen. It never really bothered me—my childhood crush had faded long ago—but now, a flare of rejection started in my chest.

It went silent for a moment, and then his imploring tone became cold, hard fact. “You want the truth for once? Fine. If you want to play games and do not tell me where you are, Mila . . . I’m a dead man.”

And just before the dizziness caught me in its grasp and dragged me under, I thought he was handsome. Handsome in the way rough palms muffle screams, the way people bow to kings, and most of all . . . the way an angel falls from grace.

He was cool and calculated, from how he moved to how his gaze settled on mine, though something so alive played in his eyes. Eyes I could now see weren’t black, as I originally presumed, but a very, very dark blue. Darker than the heart-shaped stones in my ears.

I stared at his lips, at the thin scar on the bottom one and the two rough words pouring out of them like vodka over ice. I wondered how he got the scar. I wondered if his voice tasted like vodka too; if it would burn my throat and warm my stomach. I felt . . . weird. My thoughts seemed to have no filter, ping-ponging against my skull like a game of pinball.

I opened my mouth to explain myself, but all that came out was, “You’re very Russian.” He drew a thumb across the scar on his bottom lip. “You’re very American.”

I didn’t know what was wrong with me, but I couldn’t stop myself from touching him, from drawing an index finger down the tattooed raven. The whispered words were pushed from my depths by an irresistible force. “Darkness there, and nothing more . . .”

Sometimes, it was the little things that made us who we were.

But before his dark silhouette disappeared from view, I remembered what “moy kotyonok” meant. My kitten.

The fact I put any weight into what she told me should be alarming, but I’d never been able to let her words go. I wanted more than tepid caresses and French conjugations. I wanted more than Sperry loafers and soft hands. What I wanted was someone like this man, with Russian on his tongue and tattoos on his fingers. He bit his cigar between his teeth and winked at me.

It wasn’t how I thought I would spend my first night in Moscow, and I shivered at the idea of how badly it could have gone . . . If not for a nautical star necklace. A restaurant. And a man wearing black with secrets in his eyes.

I only stared at the hand he offered, his gaze came my way. My shallow breath misted in front of my face as I slid my hand into his. Ivory and tan skin. French-tipped nails and tattoos. Soft and rough. The difference flared in slow motion. Dark eyes, slightly narrowed, dropped to our hands before he helped me to step off the curb and into the car.

In the comfortable yet electric silence, my attention caught on his fingers tapping the armrest, the black raven so close to my own unblemished hand. I had a feeling he understood what I said to him last night, and it was only confirmed when he spoke a single word now. “Nevermore.” Ronan pulled his gaze to me and winked.

“I’ll be disappointed if they don’t all die,” I announced to the mess onstage. A corner of his mouth quirked. “I thought you would be the kind of girl to hope for a happily ever after.” My happily ever after came on the lips of a mad fortune-teller, and sadly, I gave up on fairy tales and superstition long ago. Eyes settling on the stage, I pulled my star pendant back and forth, the heated lull of vodka in my belly softening my words. “I believe in happily-for-nows. They’re . . . real. Unique.” Dropping my necklace, I glanced at him, warmth and lightness pervading every cell in me. “I like unique.”

I was either drunker than I thought, or Liza kept glancing my way between her lines. She was gorgeous, with long black hair and exotic looks. It took a moment to realize she wasn’t looking at me but at Ronan.

“The boy in that picture in your office, I bet he cares about you.” There was something between them—two dirty, homeless boys on the street—that screamed loyalty. “And who cares about you?” I didn’t hesitate. “My papa.” I knew it was true. No matter the secrets he withheld from me and the anxieties of abandonment, I knew he loved me.

Ronan found something unpleasant in my response. “You have a soft heart.” I didn’t say anything because, as annoying as it could sometimes be, it was true. “Don’t,” he said, as if I could simply change it. “The soft ones are easier to break.”

He was saying something from one step behind, but I couldn’t hear a word. My heart pounded in my throat, blood rushed to the surface of my skin, and then, I did it. I turned around and kissed him, mid-sentence. It was slightly off-center. Unpracticed. Our teeth clinked. I pulled back to see his eyes sparkling with dry amusement as he wiped the side of his mouth with a thumb. But I was too hot, too high on the small contact of our lips to be embarrassed about what an utter failure that was.

His voice resonated warmth, a thoughtful rumble so close to my mouth I could taste it. “I have always loved coming in first.” Then his lips touched mine, softly, only a whisper. Like I was too young, too innocent to handle anything else. A rage of heat dropped to my core at the lightest brush of his mouth on mine. I needed more. So much more.

I rolled my hips and arched closer against him, feeling incredible heat beyond his expensive black suit, and then I licked the inside of his mouth. Like a reflex, he sucked on my tongue. Heat, tiny pricks of heat, consumed me from the inside out.

He pulled back to roughly say, “Ty dazhe na vkus sladkaya.”

I moaned into his mouth and rocked against his leg, needing more friction. The empty pressure between my thighs built and built, and I kissed him without finesse, humming desperately into his mouth. “Fuck,” he rasped against my lips. “Are you going to come on me, kotyonok?” His accented voice grated abrasively as sand. I couldn’t say anything if I wanted to. He pressed his leg harder against me. I put my face into his neck, biting down when the orgasm whipped through me—a sweltering inferno that knocked the breath from my lungs. In its aftermath, I shivered against him.

I still couldn’t believe how quickly the kiss had escalated, that I orgasmed in a public hallway from only the press of his thigh. I would like to think it was the cyclone of teenage hormones and lust I suppressed, but I knew it was because we had chemistry.

“I’m twenty, by the way, not nineteen.” He looked amused by the admission, like I was a child announcing I was now eight while proudly displaying a hand and three fingers. “Are you?” I swallowed. “My birthday was a few days ago.” “I’m thirty-two, kotyonok.” Oh.

I learned his last name was Markov, and he had a brother who lived in New York City with a pregnant wife and young daughter. Ronan sounded sentimental when he spoke of them, and I fell a little further into his hands. Soon, he’d be able to mold me like putty.

His gaze narrowed with intense focus. “He might buy you fancy things, but you are nothing but another useless whore to him. Remember that.” My smile dropped.

After a silent and strained car ride, Ronan walked me up to my room. When we reached my door, I turned to him—breathless, waiting. His gaze settled like a heavy weight on my skin, heating me from the inside out. Transparency filled the gap between my white faux fur and his pressed black Armani suit. Longing, soft breaths, and cartoon hearts.

“And you,” I added softly. “I like you.” He watched me for a heavy second, then his eyes darkened. “Do you get off on embarrassing yourself?” A flush crept up my neck, and the hot feeling of vulnerability twisted the next words from my mouth. “You should know what I get off on.”

“There’s nothing here. Trust me, Mila, if there are happily-for-nows, I’ll never be yours.” He said my name like I was young, stupid, like I was too immature to recognize something as simple as attraction. If he was aiming for a nerve, he hit it. Bitterness singed my lungs until it escaped in one harsh accusation. “I may be naïve, but I know a liar when I see one.”

Pleasure rushed to my core, and I hummed against his neck. “Pomni.” His lips pressed against my ear. “Ti eto prosila.”

His thumb slipped under the strap of my thong, tugging it down a little. “Snimi eto dlya menya.” I didn’t know what he said or if he even meant to say it in Russian, but then he pressed his lips to my ear to translate the command. “Take it off for me.”

ran my fingers over his erection, relishing the thick, hard feel of him. My hand moved of its own volition to feel every inch while my lips and teeth teased a line down his neck. Soon, he hissed out a breath and gripped my wrist to stop me. “I can’t do much more of this unless we’re going to fuck.” Oh. Hesitation flickered to life.

The fact he wouldn’t admit he felt this connection too. My pride wouldn’t allow him to have everything of me without giving a piece of himself in return.

I wasn’t naïve enough to believe I could hold Ronan’s attention for more than a week. The thought of never seeing him again already ached like a hot coal in my chest. How bad would it be if I gave him my virginity? I had to go home. It was the only lasting thing I had.

Albert was loyal to a fault; he’d taken bullets for me. But I’d realized since Mila set foot in Moscow, I couldn’t trust any of my men with her. The first fuckup was only ordered to scare her toward my door, not take one look at her and decide to rape her. My moral compass may be pointed south, but something felt . . . inappropriate about abducting a bruised teenage girl with a concussion. I prided myself on being a fair man, so, naturally, her attacker was floating in the Moskva without a single tooth or finger to be identified.

The unfortunate truth was, I forgot the kid’s name when I had my fingers deep inside Mila. Maybe she was poisonous. I’d had my fair share of beautiful women and then some, but this one . . . It was like her body was designed just for me.

Her breathing grew a little shallow, and my chest tightened with the thought I’d injected her with too much etorphine. I slapped her face. She flinched like her sleep was disturbed, and the uncomfortable sensation faded. I didn’t care about this girl. I just didn’t like killing women. Though, after my brother and I did nothing but watch while our mother choked on her own vomit, it wasn’t exactly an oddity. Some women deserved death. Especially my mother. And Mila’s for that matter.

I didn’t think he had any love in him, but he must care for his daughter if he raised her in secrecy in America. Once he conceded, she’d be free to crawl home. Until then . . . “Moy kotyonok.” I ran a thumb across her parted lips. “I told you this city would eat you alive.” I just didn’t tell her I owned Moscow and everything in it.

I yanked against the ropes, but a soft moan brought my gaze to the TV on the dresser. I stared at the scene playing in front of my eyes, revulsion rising in my throat. The moan on the screen came from me while I sat naked on Ronan’s lap, grinding on his hand. He recorded us.

I liked Ronan. I cared. And he was only using me.

This man wasn’t the one I came to know the past week. I realized now that “generous” man was nothing but a lie. Only someone sick could touch me, caress me, knowing all along I was just a pawn in whatever twisted game this was. I was so stupid. A stupid, naïve girl who’d walked right into a monster’s arms.

He was no longer a conundrum wearing Versace, indifferent to the blood on his pants and my vomit on his hand. He was a monster dressed like a gentleman.

What was the word for Russian mafia? Bratva.

Ronan remained silent, a contemplative and tumultuous glint in his eyes as he watched me. “What, no gloating? Unlike you, D’yavol.” My stomach dropped, and my lips parted in awareness. Ronan chuckled at my expression. “Don’t look at me like I made it up. I prefer a woman screaming my Christian name when I’m buried deep inside her.”

“Is your papa as demented as you?” I asked tonelessly. He looked at me, amused. “Not sure. Never met him. But if it makes you feel better, my mother was just as sadistic as yours.”

I was staring through him. He noticed, and the strain in the air tightened my lungs—then released, settling to the floor as calm and languid as still water. I exhaled when the unexpected brush of his thumb skimmed across my cheek. It slid over my lips and pulled the bottom one down slightly. A soft caress, heavy with possession. “Don’t tell me I’ve broken my pet already,” he said thoughtfully. All of the emotion locked tight by years of obedience rose to the surface, and my eyes flashed. “Go to hell.” He smiled. “Sleep tight, kotyonok.”

A dark-haired woman stood in the doorway wearing skinny jeans and a frayed T-shirt over the slight curve of her pregnant belly. She held a toddler on her hip who wore an oversized Possessed band T-shirt as a dress and knitted thigh-high socks. And I swore, she was watching me with a hint of judgement in her eyes. For an uneasy moment, I thought the woman could be Ronan’s girlfriend and daughter. But then she spoke. “Please tell me this is some kind of kinky role-play.” I didn’t know what to say, but my expression must have told her everything she needed to know. She sighed and muttered, “In-laws.”

The woman hefted the girl higher on her hip, her voice dry as she nodded toward me. “Christian, look at what your brother has done.”