Page 97 of Impenitent Claim

The noise of the vacuum cut off as it was viciously unplugged from the wall.

I spluttered in protest around the gag, but then a cold, whispering touch made me freeze. That was a blade. If I’d been asked if I was into knife play, I would have said it was a hard no. Knowing that Ilya would never hurt me didn’t help. I began to pant, unable to drag a proper breath as my saliva soaked the cloth in my mouth.

The warm air of the room brushed against my bare skin.

“I’m going to burn these,” the monster growled as he tugged the shredded jammies off my body. “And then I’m going to erase his touch from you. You let him put his arms around you, rusalka. For that, you’ll be punished.”

“It was a fucking hug, phantom!” I gurgled. “Afilialhug!”

There was no convincing this jealous man differently.

Jealous…Ilya was jealous over me.

He shoved me on the bed, and as I fell, my knee bumped into the sideboard. I cried out, tucking the injury into myself as I curled into as much of a fetal position as the restraints allowed.

Ilya cursed violently in Russian. He tugged on my wrists, unbinding then rebinding them in front of me. In one smooth move, he hauled me to the top of the bed and secured my hands to the headboard.

With a hard grasp, he captured my jaw. “Your knee hurts?”

I narrowed my eyes.

“And you were going to take care of it when I interrupted you?” he surmised. Blowing out a violent breath that was partfrustration and perhaps a little self-deprecation, he stalked away from the bed.

I tugged on the bindings. If I wasn’t fuming mad, this would be kind of fun.

I wonder if he’ll let me tie him up sometime.

The rope would have to be very strong, and the knot impossibly tight. Even then, I didn’t know if there was a force on earth that could hold this monster down if he didn’t want to be.

Collecting the medical kit and making a quick stop for the towel, the spectre returned moments later. He opened my nightstand drawer and pulled out a sleeping mask.

Raged-filled sounds escaped my chest.

The last thing I saw before blackness consumed me was his grinning face. There was nothing but pure dominance etched into his features.

Something splashed over my knee.

Soft touches prodded the skin, and another curse in Russian left his lips. “There’s glass in here.”

No shit, genius!

But I didn’t cry out, not from the implement digging into the wound.

“Be still,” Ilya growled. “I don’t want to hurt you.”

The pain in my knee was nothing. My mind focused solely on the gentle touch.

His fingers brushed up and down my thigh, making me want to wrap them around him. He stopped twice to kiss my leg, once my toes. But his touch didn’t move higher until he was finished. The tearing of the bandage told me he was wrapping the wound.

This was a man who relentlessly pursued me, who made an effort to spoil me, discovering what I loved, and this was a man who cared for me.

Why am I telling him no?Hell, if he killed the don, the underboss, the capos…I could be free.

Ilya was freeing me.

I can choose.And I knew exactly where that choice would fall.

A buzzing made me still, tabling the thought of how I should tell him his lunatic plan was something I was on board with. What was that noise? What could he possibly be—

---