Dark Desire, Lauren Smith [reading well TXT] 📗

beds. Too soft. I . . .” She almost said something more, but before she could, she seemed to wake enough to realize that she was talking and stopped.

Dimitri understood. Vadym would have kept her in a cell on a hard floor with perhaps only a dirty blanket to cover herself. He wouldn’t have let her use a bed. This was not uncommon with soldiers who returned from war. They were used to hard bunks in military barracks, and when they reentered the civilian world, plush California king mattresses were simply too much. Well, this was stopping tonight. He was not letting her spend one more minute on the floor.

He wrapped his arms around her blanketed body and lifted her up. Then he set her down on her bed again, but he didn’t leave. He pulled the light comforter over his body as he lay down beside her, and then he pulled her into his arms. She was still shaking, but he absorbed her trembling within his own body and held her until she finally stilled.

“Kiska, you will sleep in a bed from now on, do you understand?” he whispered in her ear. She wasn’t asleep, her pulse was still too rapid, but she didn’t argue with him. “And I will hold you like this until whatever haunts your dreams fades away.”

Again she did not argue, but slowly, inch by inch, her body loosened. After what felt like an eternity, her breath slowed and the beat of her heart steadied.

Dimitri lay awake for several long hours. Holding her in his arms like this had awakened something inside him. He’d always been a protective dominant, but how he felt about Elena went beyond lust and desire. It was something deeper, something in her blood that called to his.

When he’d been at the US embassy in Ulaanbaatar, helping Royce and Kenzie get medical care, he’d seen this wisp of a blonde beauty carried to another medical exam room. She had been in shock, her green eyes glazed over with terror and exhaustion.

He had gone unseen, fading into the crowd and shadows as chaos filled the embassy hallways. Later, he’d visited Kenzie while Royce was sleeping off his wounds and heavily sedated. Dimitri had met Kenzie for coffee at the embassy, and they both sat silently for a long moment.

“Kenzie, who is the girl?”

Kenzie’s brown eyes rose warily to his. “Girl?”

“The blonde one who came in with you.”

“That’s Elena Allen.” Kenzie let out a bone-deep sigh and rubbed her closed eyes with her thumb and forefinger. “Vadym abducted her from the very bar you, Royce, and I went to. Held her captive for at least a couple of months.” She met his gaze. “She was raped, tortured, and starved.”

“Vadym did this to her?” Dimitri clarified.

Kenzie nodded.

“Then he is a dead man,” Dimitri promised.

Kenzie’s eyes turned hard. “That’s one promise you had better keep. The world doesn’t need a man like that in it. He’s evil. Even poison is too good for him.”

Dimitri had reached across the table and closed his fingers around Kenzie’s. “He will be erased. I vow it.” Shortly after that conversation, Kenzie, Royce, and Elena had all been transferred to the US embassy in Moscow to make preparations for their return to the States.

Kenzie had no idea how deeply he’d meant that vow. As a member of the White Army, a descendant of those who had once guarded the Romanovs, he lived by his honor, and he would not fail in his promise.

He had been haunted by Elena’s face every moment since. As soon as he had heard that the US embassy in Moscow was ready to return Elena to the States, he had called Royce and set his plan in motion. He would be her shadow, help her heal and move on from the darkness of her past. He was needed back in Russia, but now that he had Elena in his arms, he wasn’t about to let her go, even if that meant turning his back on his life’s work.

As much as he missed his father, he was relieved his father was dead; otherwise, they would have disagreed about this. He would have ordered Dimitri to return to his duties, but Dimitri would have refused. His place in the world was now tied to wherever Elena was.

He was her man until the end, whatever end that may be.

4

Elena’s face was warmed by sunlight, and a cozy feeling of security wrapped around her. She lay there a long while half-asleep, hearing the waves crash upon the sandy shore. The bed beneath her was soft, almost too soft, and she rubbed her cheek against the pillow, breathing in the heavenly scent of a man.

Every bone in her body went still. Her breath halted halfway between her lungs and her lips. Where was she? She cautiously peeped an eye open and found herself in the middle of a California king bed with a fluffy white comforter tucked up to her chin.

Bits and pieces of last night came back to her. She had balled up her bedding on the floor to sleep, and when the nightmares had started, she’d screamed, and then he had come into the room. Dimitri.

He had picked her up and put her on the bed. He had slept with her. She threw back the covers and frantically searched her body. Her T-shirt, cotton shorts, and underwear were all still on. She didn’t feel like she’d been violated. She was positive. After all that Vadym had done to her, she’d become hyperaware of when she had been used. But Dimitri hadn’t used her. His scent clung to the sheets, and after a moment she rubbed her cheek against the pillows as her heart calmed, wanting to imprint that scent deep within her.

Part of her was tempted to lounge about all day, but that wasn’t like her. She retrieved her phone from the nightstand and checked her messages. There was one from Kenzie, reminding her that they needed to video chat when