Wicked Mafia Prince (A Dangerous Royals Romance, #2)(60)

I don’t like it. I feel naked suddenly—more naked than I ever have before.

“Slow,” she says.

I suck in a ragged breath. “Slow? Slow is…” Too much, I want to say, too frightening.

“I want to feel you,” she says. “You.”

It breaks me a little bit.

“Please.”

I hesitate, but she watches my eyes so trustingly. Depending on me. I move my trembling hand from her neck to her cheek. “Like this?”

“Like that.”

I close my eyes and move into her slowly. I don’t know how to do it—it’s too much. But I pull out and press in, loving her nakedly, shaking with every slow thrust.

“Open your eyes,” she whispers. “Let me see you.”

I want to say that I can’t. But it’s too much truth to say it, and it’s too much truth to look at her. I think she’ll see what I’ve done to her, and it’s all too much truth.

Eventually, somehow, I force myself to gaze at her.

The affection in her gaze overwhelms me, and dimly I realize that the tears on her cheeks are mine. I’m f*cking her and crying.

I know that I should let her go, to bring her back to the convent, the one place she had peace.

But I can’t.

“Forgive me,” I grate out, burying myself in her goodness.

“It’s okay, Viktor.”

“It’s not.”

She arches under me, pulling me into her. She’s coming. I know it before she does. Her sex clenches around me, milking me. She cries out, pure as a bell.

I hold her, kiss her as she comes. I hold her until the last shudder leaves her body.

Afterwards I come, quick and violent. I collapse beside her.

We lie side by side. It’s almost like old times until she sits up and sucks in a great gasping breath.

“Tanechka?”

She draws her slim legs to her chest, tears streaming down her cheeks, pants bunched at her ankles, chain leading out.

“Tata?”

She regards me uncomprehendingly.

I move toward her, thinking to embrace her, but she pushes me away, then clasps her knees once again. Her voice sounds gravelly, dredged from the center of her. “What have I done?”

I follow the line of her gaze to the Jesus icon.

“The light,” she says. “The sweetness. I’ve forgotten it all!”

My heart twists.

“What have I done?”

“It was me who did it,” I say. “My fault, not yours.”

She shakes her head, but it’s true. I chained her up. Gave her booze. Fucked her while she was drunk. Choked her when she resisted, knowing what it would do to her mind. Threw her into Daliani Gorge.

She looks wild, almost—feral with grief.

It cracks me open. That and the slow sex—it all cracks me open.

Maybe that’s why I feel as though my heart is being ripped out again. What did I do to her? “It’s my fault. Please—I’ll take you back to Donetsk.”

Tearfully she shakes her head.

“It’s my fault, Tanechka, not yours. I did this.”

“Killing and f*cking and drinking? I did it.”

“I’m the one who betrayed you. The gorge—”

She bats my hand away. “Unchain me. Let me go to the church and confess.”

“It’s too dangerous.”

“More dangerous than this?”

I’m not sure how to answer that.

“I did this. I did it all,” I say.

Tires squeal nearby. The sound of vehicles converging. These aren’t the regular sounds of this neighborhood. I grab my phone and text Yuri with a “?”.

Nothing back.

A tingle runs up my spine. I pull on my clothes and my holster. “Get dressed, Tanechka.”

She looks up at me, so small, so tearful.

“We may have to leave.”

She doesn’t budge.

“You want me to take you out of here naked?” I shrug as if I don’t care. As if the world’s not crashing down around my heart.

Downstairs a door bangs. No—it’s a shoulder. People trying to get in.

“Put on your clothes!” I bound down the stairs, piece drawn. I nearly collide with Pityr coming up.

“The American Russians,” he says. “They’ve turned.”

“What?”

He tosses me my rifle and pushes me back up. “We’re surrounded. Yuri was hit—only in the shoulder.”

“Where is he?”

“Out of here. Safe.”

My phone goes off. Aleksio. “I’m coming, Viktor. Hold them off.”

Tanechka has pulled her clothes back on, thankfully. I throw Pityr the keys to her ankle cuff, and I run to the weapons safe. I grab two grenades and a nine and get to the window. They haven’t gotten in yet. The Russians reinforced this condo—steel construction techniques. Their own cleverness foils them.

“What’s going on?” Tanechka asks.

“Stay down, close your eyes, and plug your ears!” I break the window glass with the butt of the rifle. Then I crouch and pull the pin from the grenade. “Ears!” I say again.

When her ears are safely covered, I toss it and crouch.