60
IVAN
This shit was supposed to be fake.
Every time I look over at her, the light cutting through the window at different angles as the hours pass, I can’t wrap my head around it. How can something that is supposedly fake feel so devastatingly real?
My phone is God only knows where. Aside from a few plates of food Niles has left in front of the door, I haven’t interacted with another soul in well over fourteen hours. We’ve been fucking and talking and doing nothing at all, but together.
It’s miraculous. She is miraculous.
The fact that she is alive and breathing next to me is the only thing I care about.
All of which is fucking terrifying.
I sit up and drag a hand through my tangled hair. Cora’s arm is thrown over her head. Her cheek is resting on her elbow, her lips parted like she fell asleep talking. I think she did, actually.
“I’ve never known a guy who wanted to use toys in bed,” she said a few hours ago, still flushed from her fourth—maybe fifth, possibly sixth or seventh or twelfth—orgasm of the night. “They’re always afraid they’ll be replaced.”
“Then you’ve only slept with lesser men.”
She snorted. “You can say that again.”
“No, you say it.” I rolled over, a light hand banded around her throat. “Say I’m the best you’ve ever had.”
Heat rose in her cheeks, turning her a gorgeous shade of pink that had me semi-hard again. But her green eyes found mine and stuck. “You’re the best I’ve ever had, Ivan.”
Some unspoken truth floated between us. Saying it would ruin things, so I didn’t. Neither did she. I just stared down at her, watching as her blinks became slower and slower until her eyes stayed closed.
She’s been asleep since then, catching up on the sleep we lost last night.
But I haven’t slept at all. I don’t want to sleep. I don’t want to miss a second of this time where the only thing that matters is the sound Cora makes when I slide into her.
Because, as soon as we step foot outside this room, Cora becomes just another cog in the machine of my life. An asset in a mission. A pawn on the chessboard.
She inhales deeply, her chest rising and falling under the thin sheet covering her chest. It occurs to me, not for the first time, that she knows far more than she should about our family, but not nearly enough for my liking.
There’s so much I can’t tell her.
Murders, missing persons, billion-dollar handshake deals in smoky backrooms. She saw me kill the sniper who tried to hurt her. She knows what we’re capable of.
But she doesn’t know about Katerina. She hasn’t seen the complicated tangle of my past and I can’t even begin to unwind it for her. Not if I’m going to keep my promises.
So Cora can never truly understand me or my motivations, and I can’t be with her without defaulting on the deal I made on behalf of my sister. Which leaves me…
“Fucking stuck,” I mutter.
I reach out and run a finger over her shoulder. Her skin is golden in the late afternoon light. I feel like a demon clinging to the front gates of heaven. I trace the lean muscle of her bicep, tugging the sheet lower and lower.
Her eyes are closed, but her lips curl into a lazy smile. “I’ve never had to say this before, but please don’t give me another orgasm. I now think it’s possible to die from pleasure.”
“What a way to go, though.” I let out a low whistle and curl my hand around the underside of her breast. I cup the weight in my palm. She fits against me so fucking perfectly. “Death by orgasm.”
Her nipples pucker into points. “I’ve never been in this kind of danger before.”
I prop my head on my fist. “That’s a shame.”
“Go figure. The best relationship of my life is a fraud.”
The interaction from the jewelry store rises to the forefront of my mind. I convinced myself it wasn’t my business before so I didn’t get distracted by unnecessary details. But this entire day has been a distraction. Might as well go for broke.
“You and Kieran had met before I took you to his shop.”
Cora winces, then sighs and lets it go. She is still wearing my diamond on her ring finger. It’s the only thing she’s been wearing since last night. “I hoped he wouldn’t remember me. I was in there once. And only for a few minutes.”
“With who?” It’s an effort to unclench my jaw.
“Someone I didn’t want to be dating, let alone marrying.” She rolls onto her side and flips my hand over so it’s palm-side up. Then she traces the lines of my hand with a meticulous finger. “I won’t pretend to understand all of the pressure you’re under, but I know a thing or two about family expectations. I know a lot more about disappointing them.”
“So do you regret it? Not marrying whoever this asshole was?”
She arches a brow. “How do you know he was an asshole?”
I arch a brow in return. “Well, was he?”
“Yes.” She laughs. “He absolutely was. And no, I absolutely don’t regret running away.”
Pieces of Cora click together. Her refined manners and understanding of my world paired with her job as a waitress in that shit heap of a restaurant. She was someone in a previous life. She ran away from it…
And I dragged her right back in.
“Earlier, you said you don’t have anyone who cares about you.”
She wrinkles her nose. “All I wanted was to be free. Now, I am. Nothing else matters.”
“‘Free’? I seem to remember you told me I was holding you hostage here.”
“Are you going to keep quoting my words back to me?” She pokes me playfully in the chest. “I was…adjusting.”
“And now?”
She smiles so wide her eyes are almost closed. “I’d say I’ve adjusted.”
She stretches her arms over her head and yawns. Her eyes are puffy with sleep and there are pillow creases on her cheek.
Lying next to her like this feels more intimate than sex. There’s something vulnerable about waking up next to someone.
I never thought I’d like it this much.
“It’s not the first time I’ve been held hostage,” she explains. “It is the first time I’m not mad about it.”
“How flattering.”
“Telling you you’re better than my stepdad isn’t much of a compliment. He set the bar so low it’s basically in hell.” She gives me a wry smile. “I preferred living on the street to living in his mansion.”
“I didn’t know you lived on the streets.”
“Only for a year,” she explains. “My real dad left and my mom was struggling. She married him without a penny to her name. When he left, he took everything.”
“Fuck him.”
She snorts. “That’s exactly what his new wife did…while he was still married to my mom. She got pregnant and he bailed.”
When Yasha told me Cora’s dad had abandoned her, I was pissed. Now, I almost feel bad for him. He gave up Cora.
What a fucking idiot.
“So, yeah,” she continues. “We bounced from shelter to shelter until Mom was able to get a job as a secretary at this accounting firm. My stepdad walked into her work one day and that was that. It would be a romantic story if he wasn’t such a prick.”
“Does he have kids of his own?”
“No. But don’t worry, he viewed me as the daughter he never had.” She rolls her eyes. “He reminded me of that often. Usually when he was trying to pimp me out for money.”
I go rigid. “He didn’t—”
“No.” She lays a hand on my arm, soothing me back down into the mattress. “Not literally. But he made sure I met the sons of every rich friend he had. The sons of men he wanted to work with. I was the sign-on bonus.”
“Welcome to the club,” I say. “I was born understanding that the only reason I existed is because my father couldn’t figure out how to make himself immortal. Someone had to take over everything he’d built.”
“Do you think that made it easier? Being born into it?” She sighs. “I mean, it’s fucked-up either way. But sometimes, I wonder what my life would look like if I’d been born into this world. If I’d been raised knowing that I was going to marry rich and spend my life being some millionaire’s arm candy, maybe I would think it was normal. Maybe I’d be married right now. Pregnant, even. I’d spend my days shopping and supervising household staff and warming his bed every night.”
She frowns. I’m positive images of her next to her asshole ex-fiancé are flashing through her mind right now. Some possessive part of me snarls at the mere idea of another man daring to set foot in her head.
I grab her chin and bring her eyes to mine. “That would never be you, Cora.”
“How do you know?”
“Because you would roast those poor bastards alive, no matter how many they tried to set you up with. Some people just can’t be contained. You are one.”
“You make me sound like a wild animal.” Obvious amusement dances on the curve of her lips.
“After the noises you made last night, the shoe fits.”
She chokes on a laugh and slaps my arm. “I don’t remember you complaining about anything last night!”
I catch her hand and press it to my chest. “I’m not complaining now. Just stating a fact. Poor Niles has been scandalized.”
“Oh God.” She buries her face in the pillow—my pillow. “I hope he didn’t hear us.”
If he did, he definitely believes in our relationship now.
The trouble is…I might be starting to believe in it, too.