Champagne Venom (Orlov Bratva, #1)(138)

With those words alone, I can feel the heat pooling between my legs. I can feel the desire melting my skin until every nerve ending sizzles.

I want him so badly that I’m tempted to forget about all the reasons I moved down to this room in the first place.

He slips off one strap of my dress and cups my naked breast, squeezing my nipple gently. A low, guttural growl escapes his lips as he bends his head down and presses his mouth to my neck. I should push him off. I will push him. Just as soon as I…

“Rose looks nothing like you,” he assures me. And there’s so much conviction in his words that I find myself leaning into them. Trusting them, even when every cell in my body is screaming at me to do the exact opposite. “Because what you don’t realize is that I know every inch of you, Paige, and there isn’t a single person in the world who comes close. She doesn’t have a birthmark on her neck, right here.” He kisses the spot and strokes it with one soft, teasing fingertip. “She doesn’t have a perfect spray of freckles on her shoulder, right here.” Another kiss. Another touch. Leaning back, he presses his forehead against mine so his face is all I can see. “She doesn’t have the gentle lift at the corners of her eyes that you get when you smile, or the swish in your hips when you’re dancing to a song in your head and you think no one is watching you. She’s a pale imitation. You are the original, Paige Orlov.

You are perfect. And you fucking belong to me.”

I feel my whole soul shudder at his words.

For a man who claims not to be capable of falling in love, sometimes, he gives a pretty good imitation of it.

But I can’t let myself hope.

I know if he kisses me, my crumbling willpower will be completely destroyed. There will be no salvaging it. I’m fighting a lose-lose war in my head as his lips edge closer, and closer, and closer.

Push him away…

Forgive him…

Shove him off and slam the door in his face…

Take him to bed and show him how much he’s come to mean to you…

A second before his lips touch mine, I push him off me and bolt across the room as if my life depended on it.

“No,” I gasp. “I can’t do this. I won’t. Separate lives, Misha. That’s what we agreed on.”

“That’s not what I want, Paige,” he says, his silver eyes trying to split through my resolve. “That’s never what I wanted.”

My attempt at a response is drowned out by a sob. I swallow it down and try again. “I’ve already made the mistake of loving a man who didn’t think I was worth marrying, and look how that turned out. I’m already married to you, too, so that’s my fault for falling for the same trick twice. But I won’t make the mistake of loving you, Misha. It’s too hard. And in the end, it’ll just leave me alone and empty.”

He takes a step towards me, but I stop him with a raised hand. “Misha, please…”

I expect him to ignore me. In fact, I’m hoping he does ignore me. Because that will prove that he wants me enough. That he cares about me enough. That’ll prove that he’s willing to fight for me.

After everything we’ve been through, I need him to fight for me.

Give me another miracle, Clara.

And for a moment, I believe she does. For the length of one endless second, I’m so sure that he’s going to see the war in my eyes, say To hell with this indecision, and lunge forward to take me in his arms and show me that everything is going to be okay from now on.

But when I see the darkness creep into Misha’s eyes, I know there won’t be a miracle for us tonight.

He gives me only a curt nod and walks out of the room.

Without him in it, it’s never felt emptier.

I sigh and my shoulders slump. I guess some miracles are too big to ask for.





106

MISHA

“So you’re saying you really don’t know what Petyr’s plans are?” I ask conversationally.

It’s been a few hours, and I’m tempted to believe the man Konstantin brought to me in the wake of the Ivanov Vors meeting. If he didn’t crack after I beat him bloody or after I tasered him into unconsciousness then waterboarded him back to reality, then maybe he really doesn’t know a thing.

He’s been awake for almost an hour now. Still, nothing.

“L-listen…” the man pants, breathless even though he hasn’t moved in several long minutes. “I d-don’t fuckin’ know nothin’, okay? I’m just—”

“You’re just his right hand. His fucking Vor,” I snarl. “Lying is not going to help you now, Fedor. You know where the bodies are buried, quite literally. Now is the time to talk.”

“Why should I?” he hisses, spit flying from his bloody mouth. “You’ll kill me anyway.”

“Almost certainly. But at least if you give me what I need, I’ll make it quick and painless.”

“Fuck you.”

I answer by punching him in the stomach. One or two ribs crack like popsicle sticks. He sucks in a breath and then coughs up more blood.

“Listen to me carefully, motherfucker. We have your brother in the cell next door. If he beats you to the punch and gives us the information you’re refusing to yield, you’re less than worthless to me. Think about that.”