Page 46 of Pageant

A bolt of electricity shoots through me, and I gasp in pain. “What the hell! I didn’t even say anything.”

Kirill bursts out laughing. “You must have been thinking about lying. Did you see that, Elyah? She got her pussy all wet and frustrated over you.”

“It is what I already knew,” Elyah replies with a careless shrug, but there’s a hint of a proud smile on his lips. I must have really got to him yesterday with my comments about never being attracted to him. I hope he laid awake all night rerunning our handful of hot and heavy moments through his head, breaking out in a cold sweat as he wondered if I had faked my desire for him the whole time.

I glare up at Kirill. Well, now he has his answer, thanks to this asshole.

Konstantin has been following the conversation closely but seems content to sit and watch. What a strange relationship these three men have. Not like anyPakhanand his underlings I have ever seen before. My father or Ivan would never sit in silence for long stretches while letting their seconds-in-command take the reins.

Elyah crosses the room toward me and hunkers down on his heels so our eyes are on the same level. “Have you had enough, Lilia?”

I glance at the machine, not sure how to answer. I don’t want another electric shock, but I also want to keep eating up their time and energy so they have less to spend on the other women.

The safest answer is another question. “Are you going to let me out of these cuffs?”

He draws a sensuous forefinger along my jaw. “If you beg me. I love hearing you beg,solnyshko.”

My head rears back in indignation. “I’ve never begged you for anything.”

Another shock of electricity fries my nerve endings. Elyah jerks his hand back and a stream of Russian expletives spill from my lips. “Yob vashu mat’!”Fuck your mother.That particular epithet I learned from my father’s bodyguards.

“I thought you said she couldn’t speak Russian,” Kirill says.

“Swearing does not count,” Elyah replies, and I can hear the smothered laughter in his voice. “Lying again, Lilia? You are very bad girl.”

I rack my brain, trying to remember when I ever begged Elyah for anything.

He grasps my arms over the wires as he murmurs, “Trakhni menya pozhaluysta, Elyah.”

Please fuck me, Elyah.

I swallow, hard. The memory of being pinned beneath his heavy body in his bed is shockingly vivid, but I’d forgotten he’d coaxed me to say those particular words. I went to his apartment in a moment of soul-crushing loneliness and weakness, and I’ve regretted it ever since.

Elyah stands up, a triumphant expression on his face, and swaggers back to his seat.

Konstantin is gazing at me with sharp interest. “Why did you want to fuck him, Number Eleven?”

I inhale sharply, panic slamming through me. “I don’t want to talk about this.”

“You don’t get to choose what we ask you. Why did you sneak around with Elyah behind your husband’s back?”

“Please ask me something else. Anything else. It’s too private. Too painful.”

“Answer the question or I will unbuckle those cuffs and Kirill will beat you until you’re unconscious.”

I squeeze my eyes shut. It’s so cruel of him to ask when he already knows. “I was grieving. I was confused.”

“Grieving who?”

I open my eyes and stare at Elyah. He didn’t tell them? I thought he’d told them everything. Elyah swallows hard, his expression suddenly troubled, and I’m thrown back to that day two years ago as he stood by my side in Ivan’s house while the police swarmed everywhere. Elyah’s warm hand on my shoulder as he urged me again and again to sit down. The shock on his face as I collapsed, and his horror as he realized I was bleeding.

Elyah carrying me out to the car, his face white with panic as if it were his baby I was losing.

Elyah’s arms tight around me as I sobbed in the hospital bed. His lips against the top of my head as he spoke gentle, heartfelt words to me. I would have a beautiful child one day, and the child would have everything because they had me.

When my husband backhanded me across the face for committing the sin of being an imperfect vessel, Elyah looked angry enough to murder him with his bare hands.

“Why didn’t you tell them that part of the story?” I whisper.

---