Dark Desire, Lauren Smith [reading well TXT] 📗

right.” She fumbled, shoving her backpack under the seat in front of her. She rushed to buckle herself, but her hands started to tremble and she had trouble getting the buckle to fit.

“Allow me.” The man suddenly leaned over, his muscled forearms right in her face as his hands gently brushed hers out of the way, then he clicked her belt into place. She flinched away at first, then relaxed. His fingers, even only briefly in contact with hers, made her skin tingle in a wonderful way rather than a bad way. She had the sudden urge to stroke her hands down his corded forearms and trace the veins that just barely showed on his tanned skin.

This was insane. Why wasn’t she panicking? A strange man being so close, touching her, should have sent her into a dizzying spiral of PTSD, causing her to pass out. But it hadn’t. Ever since she’d escaped Vadym, she hadn’t been able to let any man touch her. And now . . . ?

Was it because his eyes were kind? It sounded silly, but maybe it was the truth. Lips could lie, but cold, calculating malice couldn’t be hidden in a person’s eyes.

“Thank you.” She turned her face to the window to watch the ground crew load the final suitcases on the plane.

“Of course. My pleasure, kiska,” the man beside her replied.

Kiska? That was a word she didn’t recognize. She had studied two years of Russian, but there was still so much she didn’t know. She opened her backpack and pulled out her small pocket dictionary and searched for the word. When she found it, she shot another glance at the man.

He’d called her kitten? She shivered, yet not out of fear. A couple of years ago, when Elena had turned eighteen, she’d learned that she had a submissive tendency, but only in the bedroom. She hadn’t experimented, at least not officially, in the BDSM lifestyle. She’d had sex a few times with a college boyfriend that first year, and he’d tied her up once or twice, but while she’d enjoyed it, he hadn’t been that interested in the experience. She’d started researching about BDSM and learned that many Doms saw themselves as wolves and their subs as kittens or sweet things they would fiercely protect.

She had gone with a couple of friends to that bar in Moscow that night hoping to watch some BDSM play, to see if it excited her in real life the way it had in her fantasies. That had been her mistake. Even going with a group of friends, she hadn’t been safe. She had been ambushed when leaving the restroom, and for the next two months she had lived at the mercy of a sadist.

Elena closed her eyes as the cabin crew was told to prepare for takeoff. She gripped her armrests tight, her hand brushing against the man’s fingers. She stared at the point where their fingers connected before she flinched and moved her hand away.

“Afraid of flying?” the man asked.

“What?” It took Elena a second to process what he had asked her. “Oh, it’s not that.”

He watched her with those vivid blue eyes. She’d never seen a blue so pure and clear. “Then what?”

“I . . .” Elena bit her bottom lip. She shouldn’t be talking to the stranger, yet something about him made her want to trust him.

“I really need to leave Moscow, and I’m just terrified that something will keep me here,” she said as the plane rumbled down the runway.

A breath released from her lungs as she felt the plane accelerate, and she sagged back in boneless relief. It wasn’t until she felt the plane leave the ground that she realized how tense she had been. Now every muscle in her body ached, and she tried to hold in a flood of emotions. Yet she couldn’t stop the outpouring of fear and relief that overwhelmed her.

“Excuse me!” she gasped and unbuckled herself.

His eyes widened in surprise as she scrambled across his body and into the aisle, but she couldn’t just sit. A flight attendant who had strapped himself in for takeoff waved his arm and told her to stay seated, but she turned away from him and headed toward the business-class bathroom. She couldn’t stay seated any longer. The gnawing anxiety of the past months made her feel sick to her stomach, and she needed a private place to cry.

She yanked open the door, the interior lights snapping on and disorienting her.

“Kiska.”

The sound just behind her had her whirling toward the man from her row, and a scream welled up in her throat as he crowded her. Terrified thoughts raced through her mind, and the pain of her experiences with Vadym battered against her nerves. She brought up her arms to stop him—Did he mean to strangle her? Rape her? Murder her?—but her strength was depleted after being so long abused. She was tired, defeated, and when he gently pushed her into the bathroom and locked the door behind them, she let him do so without a fight. She pitched forward as a sob racked her body.

“Kiska,” he murmured again, and then his arms were around her stiff body, gentle and firm.

The sob turned into real cries as she fell into his embrace, knowing now he wouldn’t hurt her and uncaring as to where his kindness originated. She leaned into his strength where hers was failing. The two months of having to be strong, of not allowing herself to cry or feel anything but terror or numbness and the threat of her imminent death, all washed over her. She was overwhelmed.

The plane hiccupped in its rise, the ding of the seatbelt warning lights sounding out, and she was reminded again that they were in the air, on the way home, far from the sadistic animal who had harmed her. She was safe. Her life was hers again. Even if she knew she’d never feel as alive as she used to.

“Kiska, please, dry your eyes,” the beautiful Russian man begged. “You’re