Bone Deep(30)

The first man punched her in the side of the head and she rolled, taking the blow and coming to her feet for a split second before she pirouetted in the air and took him down with a single kick to the side of his face. He spun and fell, out cold while the first scrambled away from her, terror on his face as he tried to ward her off with his good hand.

Then Dmitry was there, wrapping her in a bear hug similar to what he’d done of the roof in St. Petersburg. She went limp and the demon inside scratched at her mind.

“Stop,” he urged in a gruff voice.

She hung there in his arms, the rage spiraling. “Fight me, goddamn it!”

“I will not. I cannot do this with you, Bone. Do not ask it of me. You are tearing yourself to pieces,” he said and in his voice was a struggle.

“It is all I know, Asinimov. Please do not do this to me.”

She had never begged for anything from anyone. Not from Minton, not from Joseph, not from anyone, yet she’d just begged Dmitry Asinimov.

“U tebya hrupkie kostochki. Sogneshjsja ti ili slomaeshjsja?” he asked softly.

“I will not break!”

It was a scream from the very heart of her.

“I will not let you but neither will I let you break me,” he whispered and then he put her down, stepped away, and walked out of the room, leaving her alone.

Bone allowed her head to fall forward, the long, brown skeins of her hair lank with perspiration. She was nowhere near stable enough to see anyone. She needed to purge but suddenly it wasn’t as important as it had been when she’d walked in.

She looked around the room. The ropes still taunted her.

She was alone.

Always she was alone.





Chapter Seven


Dmitry made it to his room in time for the devil riding his back to sink in his fangs and tear into his soul. He closed the door and punched the wall, hand going through drywall with ease. He would not be the one to hurt her—it wasn’t in him.

But he’d been close to unleashing his own demons. She called forth parts of him he’d hidden for years under the veneer of a solid, stable man. She made him want to lose control.

He stepped out of his pants and walked to the bathroom. His hand was bleeding, his shoulder was doing the same and still he got under scalding hot water and showered, trying to eliminate the traces of her on his skin.

She felt right in his arms, her small bones and curvy body a benediction against his own. He wanted to stalk back to her, demand all the answers she had, f*ck her blind and then walk away.

He struck the tile wall and winced. The tile cracked but did not break. He was left handed and his shoulder was on fire. The bitch had punched him right in it, moving for his weakness with no remorse.

The water streamed down his body, stroking his skin. He was hard with need. She alone did this to him and the fight, combined with the debilitating desire he had for her, solidified in his body. His cock responded to her unerringly.

He showered and got out, wrapping a towel around his waist and entering his bedroom. The shock of her presence was akin to fire ants under his skin. He swiped a hand down his arm before he could check the action.

“What do you want?”

She stood near the window, her body silhouetted by the dull light of the cloud-covered moon. In the distance lightning split the sky, highlighting her blank face and setting her eyes on fire.

He could not do this with her right now. There was too much unresolved between them and she was a killer. Yes, they’d danced around this fiery lust between them for years now—but she was too fragile to handle what he wanted to do to her.

And Dmitry was afraid he would be the casualty of their war.

“That is a question I have never been asked before,” she murmured. Her soft voice snuck its way into his heart and squeezed.

Just that fast she changed his mood. Splintered, he thought, she is splintered. She stood so still it was eerie and at the same time it filled him with fury. She’d suffered too much and he knew she’d only scratched the surface with the story about her parents.

He still did not understand why she hated Minton with such ferocity, or why, unlike her sisters, she smiled as she dealt death. She was the coldest fire and yet something inside her called to everything male and protective inside of him. He wanted to hold her, take her body against his and let her melt into him.

The silence grew and Dmitry found himself loathe to break it. She’d come here for a reason. He would know what it was but he wasn’t going to make it easy for her.

“The first time I saw you, my breath stopped,” she whispered as she turned to gaze to the night.

She managed to stun him and at the same time fan the flames of his desire for her.

“You were in Moscow, working with the Russian secret service. An international arms dealer had come across your path and that path intersected with mine. I was waiting for the dealer, you see. He was my target. Nobody crosses Joseph and lives to tell the tale. I was standing in plain site near Lenin’s Mausoleum. He thought it funny that he was making a deal for stolen weapons beside the Father of the Revolution’s memorial.”

Dmitry remained still and quiet. Her voice lulled him but there was a tone buried beneath the dulcet quality that put him on alert. He remembered that day but he did not remember her.

“You stood less than fifteen feet from me and I wondered how you knew of the meet. But then I smelled you and all thought of killing left me in a rush. I’d never reacted that way. You glanced at me, dismissing me instantly as no one of note. I remember being angry at that.” She breathed in deeply and turned back to him, catching his gaze and pulling him into her. “I have never felt as if I truly existed, and to be affected by a man who dismissed me? It fired my rage.