The Bratva's Captive (Wicked Doms 3)

He holds me to his chest. "I'm sorry, Olena. I can't trust you to do that." Then he tenses, his arms around me rigid and taut. "A spy," he says to himself. But he says nothing else.

Reaching for my face, he frames my face with his hands. "You are mine," he says, his voice tortured and tight, as if he's trying to convince himself. "I've taken you as mine, and there is no escape. If you only knew..." his voice trails off before his mouth meets mine. My salty tears join with the taste of his lips, the roughness of his whiskers scraping my tender skin. When his tongue sweeps into mine, I sink into him.

I close my eyes and lose myself to this, this moment of intimacy that will be gone in the morning. When the light of day shines light on who we really are, this will vanish once more. He will go back to being my captor, the exacting man who punishes.

He pulls away too soon, his forehead meeting mine as his eyes close. I close mine, too. Our breath mingles. My fingers find his. I hold onto him while I take in a deep breath.

"You don't sleep well," I say to him.

He shakes his head.

"What did they do to you? And who was it?"

But he doesn't respond.

After a moment, his voice hardens. "Not tonight. We need sleep, Olena."

"Neither one of us can sleep the way we need to," I respond. He knows it to be true. He wrestles demons in his sleep, and I can't sleep beside his demons.

"I won't leave you alone," he says. "I have to stay by your side, or they could return."

"You can sleep in the library," I tell him helpfully. "The door's kicked down, so it's almost like it's one room."

That makes him chuckle, and the sound is so foreign I jump.

"Get in bed," he says, rising and taking me with him. He points, the stern look on his face brooking no argument. Defying him is pretty stupid, so I obey.

I watch as he gets some cushions from the couch in the other room and tosses them on the floor beside me. He doesn't trust himself not to wake up and strangle me again in our sleep. Just great.

But he'll sleep beside me.

Good enough.

I lie down and close my eyes, but I can't sleep. Not yet. My body's been wrecked by his punishments, pleasure, and pain, and my throat still aches from the strangulation. I want to curl up in a ball, fall asleep, and never wake up. I try to gather happy thoughts, something peaceful that will help blissful sleep bring momentary reprieve, but it doesn't.

"Go to sleep," he orders gruffly from the floor, and for some reason this amuses me. As if you can actually command people to sleep.

"Sleep isn't something you can just force someone to do."

"No," he says thoughtfully. "But there are many things I can. If you need me to get off this floor for a demonstration, I can make that happen."

I feel the threat at the center of my chest, freezing me into place. He's punished me enough times by now that I'm no longer immune to the threat. I also know he means what he says.

Finally, sleep comes to me, and thankfully this time it's either dreamless or I forget what comes to me when I wake.

I wake up the next morning, groggy and sore over every inch of my body. I blink, when memory comes back to me in a rush. The caning. Climaxing over his knee while he spanked me. The fact that I was almost murdered last night.

I sit up quickly in bed, my heart hammering in my chest. He's still asleep beside me, but my sudden movement makes him stir.

"What is it?" he asks, his brows drawing together in concern, and then he's on his feet, assuming a fighter's stance just seconds after waking.

"Nothing," I say, shaking my head. "I was just... just remembering everything."

"You stay in bed," he says, like he needs to do this. To remind me what our roles are or something.

"No one's here," I tell him. "And yes, of course. Where else would I go?"

It doesn't stop him from checking every window, doorway, and heating vent, as if a team of monsters is lying in wait, prepared to ambush us. We're alone, of course.

His phone rings and he fixes me with a look that dares me to move out of bed. I point to the bathroom, needing a morning pee, but he frowns and shakes his head at me. That's when I remember the perpetrator came in that way. He answers his phone and I sit, pouting, on the edge of the bed, my ass aching from the punishment I've endured.

I listen to his conversation.

"He lost it? Motherfucker," he spits out. "She isn't safe here."