She looks fucking phenomenal.
The dress is tight around her bust, pressing her cleavage higher. The neckline swoops low, revealing acres of flawless skin.
That all suits me just fine. But I can tell Olivia is self-conscious. She’s nervous to lean in and her movements are stiff. I don’t understand why. The dress simply wisps over her curves, accentuating and highlighting her curves without cheapening them.
The women in my world would cut off a finger to have half of her innocence. But her? She wears it without regard for just how precious it is.
I steeple my fingers and lean in towards her. “If you only learn one thing about me, Olivia, learn this: I take what I want. I don’t waste time thinking about petty consequences. So I took you, and if I left damage in my wake, so be it. The women I fuck disappear from my life soon after. We certainly don’t end up having a conversation over dinner.”
She frowns in dismay. “They disappear from your life? Like, they leave., or…?”
I laugh, but her frown only deepens. “Do you really believe I’d fuck a woman just to kill her after?”
“Am I supposed to know what gets you off?”
This night is supposed to be about extracting whatever information I can about her brother. But for some reason, that feels like an unwanted inconvenience I have to get through.
The questions I’m more interested in asking have a much different purpose.
“You’ve never fucked a stranger before, have you?” I guess.
She blushes, which confirms my suspicions immediately. “I like to have a connection with someone before I sleep with them.”
“Ah, yes. We were rather connected.”
She narrows her eyes at me. “You were a glaring exception.”
“I’m flattered.”
“You shouldn’t be.”
“You had a rule that you broke for me. Surely that makes me special?”
“It wasn’t a rule, I just—” she sighs. “I didn’t do it for you.”
“Oh, it was for you, then?” I suggest with amusement. “Like a treat?”
She glares at me. “Stop it.”
“Stop what?”
“Stop twisting my words. Stop trying to confuse me.”
“I’m just talking here. Don’t be afraid of a little conversation, Olivia.”
“I should have known not to trust you from the beginning,” she hisses. “You were too…”
She trails off. We both know there’s no ending to that sentence that doesn’t bury her further in her own words. That doesn’t betray her own deepest desires that much more.
“Too what?” I press.
“Smooth,” she finishes. “Polished. Practiced.”
“I wasn’t aware that was a bad thing.”
“‘Never trust a man who always knows exactly what to say,’” she murmurs as though she’s talking to herself.
“Who gave you that pearl of wisdom?”
“My dad.” She raises her eyes to mine for the first time all night.
The way she mentions him tells me everything I need to know. They were close. The loss of him still weighs heavily on her. More heavily than I ever suspected.
“In this case, your father was right.”
“He usually was,” she says softly.
I let her soak in the silence. It seems as though she needs the space to breathe, to unclench.
She’s quiet for a while. Then she turns her eyes to the pond and starts talking.
“He had this amazing laugh. Like, booming, you know? The kind of laugh that scared little kids. Even though he loved kids. And he made a mean apple crumble, but he couldn’t cook anything else.”
She smiles to herself at memories only she can see.
“In the evenings, he used to sit at the counter and whittle while I did my homework at the kitchen table. If I asked him for help, he dropped his tools and came over right away. Even though he didn’t know any of the answers. He was the same with Mia and Rob, too. He taught us to love each other fiercely. He told us to have each other’s backs. And we always have. We always will.”
She turns her eyes to mine, and I see it then: the strength that’s been on reserve. The resilience that she’s not sure she possesses. It’s all there in spades.
It just needed a little coaxing to emerge.
“I get it,” I say. “You’ll protect your brother like he’ll protect you.”
She nods.
“It’s a beautiful sentiment to live by,” I tell her, leaning forward. “But there’s one problem.”
“Which is?”
“None of you were prepared for me. I am not your run-of-the-mill family drama, your little bump in the road. I am not some problem that can simply be overcome with a little strength and perseverance and elbow grease, Olivia.”
“What are you then?”
“A fucking hurricane,” I growl. “And I will destroy everything in my path if you make me.”
“He’s my brother,” she whispers.
“And why should I care? You aren’t anyone to me.”
She flinches violently. Her face floods with hurt. It’s the only moment in my life that I can remember coming close to feeling regret.
“Why did you pick me?” she asks suddenly, once the silence has festered into something distinctly heavy. “Mia was an option, too.”
“I think you already know the answer to that.”
“I want to hear you say it.”
“You were the better target,” I explain bluntly. “Young. Naïve. Easy to manipulate.”
She knew exactly what I was going to say, and yet she cringes at each word. She lets me see just how much my opinion scalds her.
Mistake after mistake, kiska.
“Did you always intend on sleeping with me?”
“Is there an answer that will make you feel better?” I ask.
“No.”
“Then why ask?”
“Maybe it will help me… to know.”
I smirk. “Help you resist me? Or help you feel okay succumbing?”
She stares at me with a desperate look in her eye. Then she turns away fast to stop me deciphering it.
I just want to grab her and shake her. I want her to unravel right in front of my eyes so I can see all the broken pieces she’s trying to hold together.
“Please don’t tell my brother. He won’t understand.”
“Don’t force my hand, Olivia,” I say. “It’s that simple.”
“Have you always gotten your way?”
The question is asked without judgment. She’s just curious about me. How I operate, how I’m put together on the inside. Much the same way I’m curious about her.
“I don’t get my way. I make it.”
“How can you maintain any relationship like that?”
I frown. “What do you mean?”
“I mean exactly that. Relationships, romantic or otherwise, require compromise. Give and take. If you’re always getting your way, surely that means everyone else gets the short end of the stick.”
“I’m the don.”
“So?” she scoffs. “That means that everyone just yields to you?”
“When they don’t, I fight. Unfortunately for everyone else, I’m very, very good at it.”
She takes a deep breath. “I don’t think your mother is happy, you know.”
I’m already uncomfortable with the liking that my mother has taken towards Olivia. Her statement only makes me more so. “Oh? Did she tell you that?”
“Of course not,” Olivia covers up quickly. “But I can tell.”
I nod. “Interesting.”
She leans forward on her elbows, her eyes searching my face. “Don’t you care?”
“If I can’t do anything about it, caring is a waste of time.”
“But she’s your mother.”
“And?”
She blinks at me before shaking her head. “I don’t understand you.”
“I’d advise you not to try.”
“Do they beat it out of you young?” she asks, her tone flickering with ice. “The humanity? The compassion?”
I smile. “More like they train the cruelty into you. But they didn’t have to do much work with me.”
“And that makes you proud?”
“It doesn’t make me anything. I am what I am.”
“And you’re happy with that? With who you are?”
“I am what I am,” I repeat with a grimace. “This is my life. This is who I was born to be. If you’re upset with the turn of events, turn your disapproving look to your brother. His need for vengeance made my life more difficult. I can’t just ignore that. More to the point, I won’t ignore that.”
“Has he tried to contact you?”
“Constantly. My phone is practically ringing off the hook. Your brother wants you back badly.”
She blinks in alarm, processing this tidbit. Interesting—did she truly fear she’d been abandoned already? Perhaps I’m working on her faster than I expected.
“What have you said to him?”
“Nothing. I haven’t answered yet.”
“But—”
“He has to know I mean business. Otherwise, he won’t play ball. And I’ve wasted enough time on the cockroach.”
She leans forward and grips the sides of the table. “Aleks, please, let me speak to him. Just to let him know I’m okay. Just to let me know they’re okay.”
A refusal is on the tip of my tongue. But then she leans forward. The string lights above our heads turn the scene golden and gauzy. Her skin practically glows.
And another idea hits me.
“Maybe we could do more than a phone call,” I say.
She inhales. “What do you mean?”
“I could orchestrate a neutral meeting ground. A face-to-face meeting.”
Her eyes are as big as the lily pads floating nearby. “Are you serious?”
“I’m always serious.”
“And you’d take me with you?”
“That remains to be seen.”
Her knuckles turn white as she stares at me, muscles knotted tight from head to toe with fervent hope. “Please, Aleks, take me with you. I’ll… I’ll do anything.”
I smile. This is just too fucking easy.
I lean back in my seat and regard her with a cool gaze. “Prove it.”
Her chest is rising and falling hard now. I imagine running my tongue between her breasts. Sucking each nipple into my mouth and savoring the soft moan it would coax from her lips.
She’ll tremble like she did in that plane bathroom. Her body desperate for the release only I can give her.
She knows what to do, even if she hates to admit it. And she knows what she wants to do. She hates that twice as much.
Slowly, Olivia rises from her chair. She smooths out the edges of her dress with trembling fingers. Then, steeling herself, she rounds the table toward me.
She pauses a foot short and meets my eyes for a moment. I see so many things in that look. Fear. Uncertainty.
But also determination. Fire.
She traces a hesitant finger along the rim of the table. I watch it, transfixed. The sensual swoop of her thin wrist. The soft rustle of the tablecloth.
Every other sound around us seems to mute itself.
There is only this.
There is only her.
There is only us.
She takes a deep breath and advances one more step toward me. It’s spellbinding. Utterly captivating. I couldn’t tear my eyes off her if I tried.
Until her ankle twists in the unfamiliar high heels and her finger accidentally catches the stem of a wine glass.
All the concentrated sexiness dissipates at once. In the blink of an eye, she’s Awkward Liv again, fumbling to catch a spilled drink, just like the very first time I ever laid eyes on her.
She nearly busts her ass as she lunges forward just in time to cradle the wine glass against smashing into the ground. I shoot my hand out to save her from tumbling head over heels.
“God-fucking-shit-dammit!” she hisses as purple wine drips from her fingers.
“At least it’s not hot coffee.”
“Very funny, asshole. Now, can you hand me a napkin so I can clean myself off?”
“No.”
I look her dead in the eye. She starts to retort, but then she sees something in my gaze that silences her.
Slowly, I rise, never breaking eye contact. I tower over her. She is so small, so fragile. So utterly at my mercy.
Olivia fidgets the whole time. She doesn’t know what to do in the white-hot glare of my full attention. It’s too much for her. Like she’s staring into the sun.
Only this time, the sun is staring back at her.
I still have her elbow in my grasp from where I caught her. Moving with aching slowness, I let my hand glide down her forearm until I encircle her wrist in my fingers.
I raise it to my lips and take one wine-soaked finger in my mouth. I still don’t look away. I stay locked on her, like something as little as a blink will ruin this forever.
I suck the wine off one finger. Then the next. Then the next.
Then I place her hand gently back by her side.
“If you’re going to try to seduce me to get what you want, Olivia, you should take your heels off first.”
She shudders like a cold wind only she can feel just blasted through the garden. “I should’ve stayed far away from a man like you,” she murmurs.
“Scared of living, Olivia?”
“If this is living,” she says, gesturing to me and our surroundings, “then I don’t want it.”
“On the contrary, kiska, I think you want it more than you’ve ever wanted anything in your whole fucking life. You just don’t know how to ask for it.”
