She had stayed. Knowing it was past time to leave, she stayed. For him.
“Tell me of Arequipa,” Dmitry whispered at her shoulder.
She woke in his arms, on her back, he on his stomach, one of his legs blanketing both of hers, his arm a delightful weight across her body. It seemed he sought to secure her to him as if he knew she was leaving soon. She had watched him sleep, the light of a full moon caressing the sculpted planes of his face.
He was the most handsome man she’d ever seen. Everything about him was so perfect as to be chimera. Even his snores endeared the man to her. As she watched him now, his blue eyes went dark, his smile sexual. She tsked him and he rose, pulling her back against his chest and seating her between his legs.
He stroked her all over—there was not a piece of her that had not been marked by Dmitry Asinimov. Both inside and out.
“What is there to tell?” she asked, her stomach tightening and her mind shutting down.
“I would hear it all, Bone. I would know what made you who you are,” he said in her ear.
“Why? I do not understand.”
“So I can fight the demons with you.”
She sighed and the arm around her middle flexed. “Do not let me be important to you, Asinimov. It’s the truth that I will bring nothing pain.”
“That is not all you bring,” he reminded her with a wicked stroke of his tongue up her neck. “Now tell me.”
“You are ever the healer are you not? My sisters told me how you dressed their wounds and cared for them when they were at their weakest. But I am not weak, Dmitry, and I find myself not wanting to hurt you.”
“I trained several years ago as a medic in Russia’s version of basic training. I cannot do much but yes, seeing a woman in pain flips all my switches. I abhor any woman’s pain…but yours makes me violent,” he admitted.
She grabbed his hand and pulled it to her mouth. She licked the knuckles, distraught to find them split, as if he’d recently hit something. He had leveraged no solid punches against her the day before yesterday. “What happened?”
“I hit a wall,” he answered ruefully. “Now tell me what made Bone so hard.”
“You will not let this go?”
“I will not.”
She pushed from his arms and walked to the window.
“Do you want a blanket?” he asked.
She barked out a laugh. “Does my body offend you?”
His brows rose. “What? No! It is perfection. But I worry about you being cold. You and your sisters are always naked.”
Shock ran through her, cooling her blood even as it sparked the rage in her. “You have seen my sisters nude?” Why did she care?
He nodded and a small smile played on his lips. “That angers you?”
“I—” She cut the words off. She would not admit these things to him so she didn’t say anything.
He started to stand and Bone whirled on him then. “Stay there. If you’d hear about my time in Arequipa it is best you stay there, away from me.”
He nodded. “I did not mean to tease you.”
She inclined her head and said no more, just turned to the night outside the window and stared at the moon. There was no peace in her memories. None. And after what she’d experienced in the bed with him it seemed a violation to bring up the past.
But he would never stop, it was written on his face, and it was best he understood what he was dealing with. Perhaps then he would realize it didn’t matter if he knew what formed her—she was what she was.
Killer.
“I’ve told you how I came to be with Joseph. My parents attempted to trade my life for theirs and in the end I was the one to walk away.” She met his gaze in the window, the small amount of light from the bathroom throwing him in relief. “I consider them my first kills.”
His face hardened and he almost reached for her.
Do not, her heart begged.
Let him come, screamed her soul.
Already the lust for a fight was brewing inside her.
“He had come for me. It is said my aba was a very good killer; well-versed in many different martial arts. My aba was incessant when he took a life—he liked to torture and maim until he’d extracted as much information as he could from his enemy. Joseph had hired him on several occasions and in the end, my father made a grave mistake. He took money for a hit he didn’t perform.”
“Who was the contract for?” Dmitry asked into her silence.
“My mother. You see they may not have cared one whit about me but their love for each other knew no bounds.”
Dmitry cursed, the sound low but reaching her ears and stoking the fires inside her.
“They tried to hide, but there was nowhere to run. Joseph delighted in telling me as I got older how easily they gave me up. He also told me of his hopes that my father’s genes had taken hold much deeper than my mothers. He felt she was weak. ‘No mother who offers up her child is worth shit on the bottom of my shoes,’ he said.”
She turned and stared. He did not flinch from her gaze.
“He was right, yes?”