Velvet Devil: A Russian Mafia Romance (57)

“I knew Maxim was up to something,” I tell her unabashedly. “I knew he was busy plotting. I’ve had tails on him for years, but he’d managed to conceal you from me. Then one day, he relaxed a little. Got cocky. One of my men snapped a shot of you leaving his penthouse in London. And the moment I saw your face, I knew what he was planning on doing. I knew I had to get you away from him.”

She stares at me with disbelief. “I’m not yours to save, Isaak.”

“Or did you not want to be saved at all?” I ask.

Her eyes go wide with anger. “Meaning what?” she demands. “Because I’m not happy being your fucking captive, I must be desperate to go back to Maxim?”

“I didn’t say that.”

“You implied it,” she snaps. “Has it crossed your mind that maybe I don’t want to be with any man that lies to me?”

“I haven’t lied to you.”

“You haven’t been honest,” she retorts.

“Have you?”

She snaps around, quickly losing her composure. “I don’t owe you any honesty,” she hisses. “My life is none of your business.”

“It is now. I’ve made it my business.”

She glares at me as though she’s not sure how to respond to that. Then she tries to storm around me to leave the library. I block her.

“Get out of my way,” she says.

“No.”

She puts her palm on my chest and attempts to push her way past me. But it does absolutely nothing. A moment later, she drops her hand as though it’s been burned.

“I want to go up to my room.”

“You can go when I say you can.”

I know I’m not exactly showing her my best self, right now. But fuck… The woman knows exactly how to enrage me.

“You have no right,” she seethes. “No right at all to keep me here.”

“I am Bratva. It’s not about what we have a right to. It’s about what we take.”

She scurries backwards and looks around frantically, searching for an alternative way out of here. The curling stairs at the eastern edge of the library lead up to the second tier of books. There’s an exit up that way, but she doesn’t know that. She just heads for the stairs in desperation.

I take two huge steps and cut off her path. “You can try to run,” I tell her icily. “You might even get away from me. But I’m not the only one who was looking for you, Camila.”

She freezes in shock. “Who’s looking for me?”

“The cops for one,” I tell her. “And Maxim, for another.”

Her reaction is difficult to read. I can’t tell if she’s relieved or anxious. Her eyes dart from side to side as though she’s trying to figure out her options.

“He’s… he’s searching for me?”

“He doesn’t have to search. He knows you’re with me. What he’s trying to figure out is how to get to you.”

She looks down silently. A lock of blonde hair falls across her face.

“Is that what you want?” I press. “You want him to come here and save you?”

“Fuck you,” she growls.

She brushes past me again and tries to go up the stairs. She manages to get one foot on the first step before I seize her arm in my grasp.

“I’m not fucking done with you.”

“Well, I’m done with you!” she spits in my face.

“Are you?”

“Yes,” she growls from the step, eye level with me. “Yes, I fucking am. And you know what? I do want Maxim to come here and save me. Save me from you.”

“Is that right? So you want him?”

“Yes,” she practically spits in my face.

I’ve got one arm locked around her waist. Her hands are at my chest, trying to shove me off her. But it’s no use. I’m not letting go until I’m good and ready.

God only knows when the fuck that will be.

“Liar.”

“I’m not lying.”

“You are. You’re lying to yourself. You claim to want Maxim, and maybe a part of you does. But you want me more.”

Her eyes go wide. There’s anger aplenty there. Resentment.

But the desire looms at the forefront, betraying her words.

Her pupils are dilated wide, and I’m willing to bet that, underneath that skirt, her panties are soaking wet.

“You egotistical bastard,” she growls. “Let me go.”

“Not until I prove it,” I say. “Not until I make you see what you’re choosing to ignore.”

With a sweep of my heel, I take her legs out from under her. I cushion her fall to the stairs, but it knocks the wind from her lungs nonetheless.

“Stop, Isaak… st-…”

But she’s breathless. Despite her words, her tone conveys longing. Need. Lust.

The lying little kiska just needs to be shown the truth.

I knock her legs apart. Her skirt rides up. She tries to push me back by the shoulders, but her shove is weak and my head is already delving between her thighs.

I push my face into her, licking her pussy over her panties.

I was right—she’s soaking fucking wet.

“Isaak,” she moans. “Don’t… don’t…”