Bone Deep(42)

There was no time to process the pleasure, her body languishing in the throes of an ecstasy she’d not known possible. She had joined with Dmitry in the most elemental way and though sleep was creeping up on her, she smiled, acknowledging he had been right—she was changed and it was both lovely and frightening as hell.

She let the smile remain as her eyelids closed, blocking out the sun and giving her…peace.





Chapter Eleven


Dmitry watched her sleep through the day. He’d cleaned them both after he’d taken her, wiping her virgin’s blood from her legs and feeling a certain pride that he’d been the one she’d given that gift to. A soft knock of the door had brought them food, though it remained on this bedside table uneaten. He would not waste a single moment of their time here in this room. Dmitry had a feeling it wasn’t going to last long.

She did not talk in her sleep but occasionally her breathing would quicken and he would wonder if she was dreaming. He had f*cked the vigilance right out of her it seemed, because she slept with abandon, arms thrown askew, legs twisted in the covers when they weren’t entwined with his.

A single taste would never be enough. Even now his body demanded he wake her up and take her again, solidify their bond and prove her she could not escape him. His gaze flowed over her exposed breasts, down over her smooth, flat stomach and over the graceful flare of her hips. Those hips cradled him so sweetly. He burned with her.

The promise of their kisses had been eclipsed by the storm of the mutual need. It had been beyond anything he’d ever known.

The sun was disappearing and Dmitry couldn’t help but feel his time with her was drawing to a close. He’d never been prone to misgivings but his instincts rarely lied. She stirred and he glanced up meeting her hazel gaze and smiling.

She licked her lips and his hips shifted, cock hard and ready for whatever the curve of her lips was vowing.

Bone surprised him. As hard as she was, her capacity for giving knew no bounds. He’d watched her “dance” as she called it with the children and the peace on her face had been glorious. He could have watched her movements forever, the flow, ebb, and tide of her body unmistakably, unknowingly erotic. Then she’d looked at him and given him her body and he’d known heaven in its clench.

She traced his lips with her fingertip and he made to bite it but she pressed her finger to his lips. “I have never known that kind of pleasure.”

“Neither have I,” he admitted.

He lay on his side resting his head on his hand. She lay on her back in the crook of his body, both of them tangled in the sheets. She glanced out the window. “I slept the entire day?”

“Yes. Your body was tired.”

She nodded. “So was my heart. I hurt my sisters earlier. I am close to being out of control. Normally the only one who can rein me in is Blade. You have proven there is another who can control what the devil created.”

She tried to smile to lessen the harshness of her words, but their point pierced his heart. “He is the devil, but you, Bone, you are not evil. Evil comes in many forms but not yours.”

Dmitry did not touch her. Now wasn’t the time. He’d become attuned to the subtle nuances that spoke of her moods and what she would and would not tolerate.

“I cried today,” she said, clearly unsure what that meant.

“Kazhdaja snezhinka—eto sleza rebenka okutannaja vechnim ljdom,” he told her. “My mother’s words.”

She smiled fleetingly but then it disappeared. “I have not heard you speak of your mother.”

He shrugged and sat up, putting a pillow behind him and then scooping her up and placing her on his lap. He covered them both, but his hands roved. She didn’t stop him and he considered that progress. “My mother disappeared at the same time my sisters did. My father searched for them and when I turned eighteen I did the same. There was never a trace until I began to hear about The Collective, knew that they operated with the help of the Bratva, but when I questioned my father he denied any knowledge of them.”

“Was she nice? Mean? Tell me of her,” she pushed gently for the information but her body was still and she seemed on edge.

“She was a woman under the constraints of four small children. I remember her singing the lullaby you used to sing to Ninka and I remember her making sugared apricots. She seemed to prefer Ninka to the rest of us. Other than that I don’t remember her being particularly loving or gentle with my sisters and she would often say that children should be seen and not heard. She would yell that at Alexander and me. She was a hard worker, tough but I remember not much else about her. Alexander and I were boys, not to be bothered crawling around our mother’s apron strings.”

She rested her head on his right shoulder and her hand stroked up and down his chest. He loved it, the feel of her tiny hands on his body right.

“My father, brother, and I had been out hunting for an entire week and when we returned, the doors had been knocked down, our house ransacked and my mother and sisters gone. I remember my father was furious. Alexander and I were just scared.”

“That is all you remember about her?”

“Yes, why?”

“My own mother was no example of how it’s done right, and I always wonder about other people—did they have their own Dinah Ramler? Or were they lucky enough to have a January Cleaver?”