I know he’s too strong for me to fight, but I wriggle anyway, trying to free my arms. His hands tighten around my wrists and he grinds his hips into mine. There’s nothing sensual or electric between us. It’s raw, angry. “We aren’t partners, Bella. Or friends. You’re just collateral.”
“Yuri, please—”
His lips tear across mine, and I clamp my mouth shut, but it doesn’t matter. His hands are all over my body. Tears spill down my cheeks before I can stop them, and when he finally pulls away from me, I’m shaking with sobs.
“Why?” The word is a broken whisper.
Yuri leans down and licks across my cheek, tasting the tears he caused. “Because you can’t trust me, Bella. You’re the bitch I’m using to help my family. Nothing more.”
He spits the words at me, and then just as fast as he pushed me onto the bed and crawled over me, he’s gone.
Even after the hotel door slams shut, I lie perfectly still in the bed, too afraid to move.
Chapter Eleven
Yuri
The hotel bar isn’t even open yet, but I convince one of the waitresses to “accidentally” spill a little liquor in a clean glass for me. She tells me she’ll charge it to my room, and I wink at her. Her cheeks color and she bats her eyelashes, and the sight is so repulsive I have to look away.
I’ve always had a way with women. They’re drawn to me before I even try, and when I do, I can have almost anyone I want. But up until now, I haven’t ever wanted anyone. Not really.
My life is complicated. There are few people I can trust to tell about my work, and those that I can are either married to someone in my family or actually related to me. But then Bella came along. She knows the whole truth, has seen me at my worst—a few minutes ago in the hotel room is a good example of my worst—and I want her.
Even admitting that much makes me want to grab one of the bottles lining the shelves behind the bar and pound it back in one swallow. I don’t know how to be good.
I’ve told Bella I’m no good, but when she looks at me, I get the sense she’s seeing someone else. I can practically feel her expectations hanging around my neck like a weight. Even though I kidnapped her and pinned her against a cell wall, she looks at me like she expects better. Like I’m walking around in a mascot costume, and only she can see the sweaty man underneath it all.
Bella hasn’t realized there isn’t anything beneath the mask. I’m the mask. My father groomed me my entire life to fulfill this role. To torture people, get information, and dispose of those who are unnecessary. I wasn’t raised to play house with raven-haired socialites. I have one-night stands, not romances. I fuck women; I don’t make love to them.
But does that mean I can’t?
I finish the amber liquor and wince as it burns its way down my throat, clearing my head.
She was crying when I left. Sobbing, actually. Bella was as terrified of me as I wanted her to be right after I’d kidnapped her. I wanted her to cower in fear and cry. But now, the memory of it scrapes my insides clean. I felt hollow.
I caused her blue eyes to go wide and glassy with fear. And for what?
She wanted to know what my dad said, and when I told her it was nothing, I wasn’t lying. He was just checking in, making sure we hadn’t been discovered and overpowered by anyone in the secret society, and reminding me to stay put and keep Bella hidden. It wasn’t anything secret or sensitive. Yet I kept it from her. Because she called me nice.
I guess I forgot who I was talking to. You were being nice, so I must have gotten confused.
I felt like I was losing my edge, like I was going soft. If my dad hadn’t called, I would have talked to her about her feelings, maybe laid her out on the bed and kissed her softly until she forgot about everything else. I wanted to make her feel good, and like a horse who spies a snake on the trail, I got spooked. I had to push her away as fast as possible.
And like the idiot I am, I thought it would make me feel better. If I could get back to the status quo, to being the monster everyone thinks I am, then my complicated feelings for Bella would go away. But they didn’t, and now that I’ve left her crying and alone in the hotel room, I feel even more like an ass.
“Do I need to accidentally spill you another drink?” the waitress asks, leaning across the bar, her breasts squeezed together for my benefit, no doubt. She’s a leggy blonde with too much makeup on—the exact type of woman I usually prefer.
“No, I think I’m good,” I say, sliding the glass towards her.
She purses her lips and nods. “I’m just opening the bar. I actually get off in half an hour.”
“That’s nice,” I say, sliding off my stool and stretching.
Her brows pull together, but she strangely isn’t discouraged. “You could take me to lunch? We could see what I can do about that frown of yours.”
Fucking her would be fun. She has perky breasts, big lips, and long legs that could wrap around my waist easily. And yet, I can’t even get excited about the thought. Not when I so recently had Bella. Not when she’s upstairs crying because of me.
Without responding, I turn and leave.
***
When I get back to the room, everything is quiet and still, and I wonder if storming out wasn’t a bigger mistake than I already thought. Did Bella leave? I told her not to trust me, but on some level, I trusted her. Trusted that she would stay in the room, that
