Infernal: Bite The Bullet (11 page)

So good, he was a master as he caught onto my
rhythm, his large hands curving around the rounds of my ass and guiding my
grinding need to the lash of his tongue, a perfect tempo working sensitive
flesh to a fever pitch of lust I didn’t know I was capable of. I didn’t care
why I was doing this, or what would happen after, he had my desire captivated
and reined to the curling strokes he lavished between my quivering thighs.

To say I surrendered was an understatement. I was
completely at his mercy and in his unrelenting quest to tear my body apart he
gave me none.

“Konstantyn, dammit! Do something!” I gritted out a
frustrated whine as his teeth skimmed over my clit. He was doing it on purpose,
his smug laughter making me wish he had more hair for me to yank. So I clamped
my thighs around his head and ground down desperately, working myself on tongue
and chin and lip to the sound of his satisfied growls. So close, I was so close
I could see stars, I just needed… Yes! That! His teeth pinched and his lips
sealed on my swollen clit, and I shattered.

Thighs quaking against his stubbled jaw, my orgasm
swept up and over me in a tidal wave of ecstasy, stripping me down to quaking
muscles and shocking sensation. When bliss stole my strength, I caught myself
on the back of the couch and lay half-slumped over him, gasping his name in a
slew of curses.

His rumbled laughter was smug as he licked at me
lazily, and if I’d been in a position to slap him, I would have, but I was too
content, boneless and sprawling and trying to keep out the thoughts that were
sure to come crawling back.

His warm palms slid me down into his bare lap, and
the feel of his legs against my skin – thick muscled and dusted with dark hair
– jerked me from my buzz. We were not going to cuddle, and his cock was far too
happy for me to be safe cozying up in his lap.

I scrabbled to my feet, the slickness of my own
passion and his wicked tongue still wet between my thighs as I dragged my pants
up and drew in a breath. Konstantyn watched me silently, his eyes hooded,
and when his tongue ran along his glossed lips my thighs clenched.

Dammit.

He didn’t say anything, and neither did I, as I
gathered up the discarded iodine bottle and cotton pads. He was bleeding again
and he grabbed a corner of the throw, folding it across his lap and leaning
back so I could run the disinfectant over the razor blade cuts I’d been
distracted from.

I could still taste him, and I fumbled the first
few tries at taping gauze over the worst of the lacerations, my hands shaking
when his muscles twitched, like he was ticklish, or flinching. Whatever it was,
it was distracting, and I had to order myself to seal him up, smoothing the
tape down and sitting back when I’d finished patching him up. With the amount
of gauze covering his skin, he looked like he was part mummy.

“It’s a good dressing,” he pronounced, checking
over my handiwork.

“You like it? It’s my first,” I laughed, copying a
line from one of my favourite movies, and looking up at him for the first time
since he’d made me come. I fought to keep the blush from my cheeks.

“The Terminator, right?” His smile was genuine. It
settled me, easing some of the awkwardness.

“Yeah.” His smile had struck me monosyllabic. I
cleared my throat and smiled back, tidying up the kit I’d brought to tend him.

Konstantyn’s fingers linked my wrist and halted my
organising. His fingertips brushed over my hammering pulse and my eyes shot to
his.

“Thank you, Neva.”

Whether it was the sincerity in his voice or the
way my name rolled off his tongue in that foreign accent, my insides fluttered.
“You’re welcome,” I stammered.

“Mind if I use your bathroom to clean-up?” His
eyes searched my face, like he was looking for something. Regret maybe? I
couldn’t muster any.

I shook my head and severed the contact between
us. My heart was beating too fast and too hard for him not to feel it in my
pulse. “Of course not. Go ahead. The towels are clean.”

He ditched the throw and pushed to his feet with a
grunt.

Part of me wished he hadn’t left me there alone,
but that didn’t mean I wasn’t watching his ass as he walked away, and I slumped
back when he was out of sight, scrubbing a hand down my face.

The shower came on and I stared at the blank TV
screen, with only my own reflection staring back at me. I didn’t look so
shocked. My expression was softer, mussed from pleasure. I let that relaxation
sink into me while I had the chance, before he came back, and I had to start
asking questions.

Konstantyn returned wearing nothing but one of my
towels, and running another over his short, damp hair. He looked good wet,
droplets catching in the shadow of his beard growth and trickling down the
chiselled planes of his chest to disappear beneath the towel. Now I knew what
lay beneath, the sight fried most of my brain cells. The ones that survived
were worried about the spots of crimson spreading across the damp gauze.

I dropped my eyes when he flopped beside me. I
didn’t know what to say, and he didn’t volunteer any small talk, the awkward,
stretching silence broken only by the swirling of his clothes in the washer.

Where to begin? I had so many questions.

My stomach gurgled and with his quiet laughter,
the tension drifted away.

His green-flecked eyes skipped over to me, and he
broke the silence.

“Your brother is Daniel Raines,” he said. “You
share the same last name?”

I nodded.

“The Friar called you Miss Bailey.”

The guy didn’t miss a trick. “It was an invented
name, for the club.”  

“Ah.” He nodded. “Neva Raines?” A teasing grin
lifted the corners of his full mouth. “Is that a stage name?”

“No, that’s my real name,” I said, like I was
apologising for the sheer dumbness of my moniker.

“It suits you.” He sounded sincere.

I shrugged again and dragged a cushion into my
lap, playing with the tassels. “The woman who birthed me has a sick sense of
humour.” I frowned, remembering. “Neva again, she’d joke. Whether she meant
never doing drugs again, or never getting knocked up by a random stranger,
either way, she fell off the wagon.”

He looked at me, questioning my meaning.

“Five years after she had me, my half-brother
Daniel came along, also fatherless. He was born premature, and fitting from
heroin withdrawal.” I felt my eyelid start to twitch, and I stared down at the
cushion until the pattern of the fabric was a blur. “Start as you mean to
continue, I guess. Growing up was a real party of failed rehab, debt-collectors
and bouncing between our mother and foster homes. But Daniel and I always had
each other. We stuck together, you know? He was a fat little kid.” I smiled,
remembering. “A comfort eater, and he got bullied relentlessly for it. I used
to pick him up after school and bring him with me to my dance classes, just to
keep him safe. That’s how he got started. The kid had natural talent, and he
gave everything he had to dancing. Pretty soon, the weight turned to muscle. He
was so young …”

There I went again, running my mouth when I got
nervous. I was spilling my life story to this man I hardly knew, and if I
stayed on this line of conversation, he was liable to get a show of waterworks.

I cleared my throat and shoved my hair from my
face, pushing it up into a high ponytail and switching the subject as fast as I
could get the scrunchie on.

“So anyway, what’s your story, Konstantyn
Lazarenko? Assuming that’s
your
real name.”

He inclined his head, an infuriating half smile on
his cruel, delicious mouth. “Me? You sure you want to know?”

I nodded and leaned forwards, smiling when he
copied me by propping his elbows on his knees in a way that made his shoulders
bunch and my mouth water.

“I was born in Ukraine, on a pig-farm in the
outskirts of Odesa. My mother and father were simple, hard-working people.”

“Sounds like a fairytale,” I said.

He chuffed and his expression turned grim. “I
couldn’t wait to get out of there.”

I looked at him, waiting, hoping he’d continue.

“My father was a drunk, with a mean temper, and I
was a soft boy. I didn’t want to become like him. I didn’t want to butcher the
animals.” He laughed drily. “I was six years old the first time he made me do
it. I remember it clearly. My father took me to the slaughter house, and he
held the knife in my hand while he cut the animal’s throat.

It made horrible noises, almost human, and then it
bled everywhere, on my shoes, on my clothes. And the smell. I ran into the yard
and threw up. Mariya was very young then, but I remember her standing at my
father’s side, and both of them laughing at me. For days after, I’d find spots
of dried blood behind my elbows, and in the creases of my skin. Like it would
never wash off.” He scrubbed at his forearm like he could still see the stains.

My eyes were wide by the time he took a breath,
and I sort of wished I hadn’t asked.

I didn’t feel so bad about having told my own
story anymore though. Neither of us were made for small talk. Our pasts were
too heavy for that. But I was interested, and my eyes encouraged him.

Konstantyn took a breath.

“One night, I came upon my parents, up in Mariya’s
bedroom. My sister was cowering in a corner, and her nightdress was ripped. My
father was drunk again, and he and my mother were arguing. He raised a fist to
her.” He looked down, examining the backs of his hands like they were the most
fascinating thing. “I got in the way and he broke my arm,” he said quietly. “My
mother said it was my own fault, for interfering. That night, Mariya and I sat
in the dark, and vowed to run away, together. But the next day, my father
brought a stranger home. He was from the military, and he was recruiting
soldiers. It was my father’s way of punishing me. I had no choice but to go
with him.”

He looked at me with a hollow gaze and a grim
smile, and a shiver ran up my spine.

“They made a butcher of me, after all. They
offered me Special Services, said I had an ‘aptitude.’ I leapt on the chance
not to go back to that farm, but Mariya was not so fortunate. She was only
fifteen, and she had no place to go. I wrote her a letter once, full of plans
and promises, but I never sent it. Contact with our families was strongly
discouraged. Recently, when I spoke with my mother about Mariya’s
disappearance, she told me my sister never forgave me for leaving her behind.”

I hugged my cushion, when I wanted to hug him.
“Where did the ballet come in? Was what Raider said true, about you training at
the Kiev?” There was no denying his talent. The man had fierce skills.

He nodded. “We had a mentor in the Armageddon
Force. He used unorthodox methods to hone us into his killing machines.
Anything that would gain the edge over an enemy. Chess, linguistics, chemistry,
anatomy, computer hacking, you name it. He handpicked his elite recruits and
put us through it all. Ballet requires the strictest discipline. Core strength,
flexibility, anticipation of movement, these are all weapons when combined with
the right combat skills.”

Damn, I thought. Not a ballet school and tutus
kind of deal then. “Your mentor sounds like a smart guy,” I said.

“Dante Barron is a psychotic genius.”

He’d mentioned that name before. “Dante? The same
guy who did this to you?” I motioned down his battered body. “The one who
thinks he owns you?”
The man who may have murdered Daniel
.

He drew a ragged breath and nodded. “Dante is a
maverick. Highly dangerous, and extremely charismatic. He was like a God to us.
He led us into hell, and we trusted him to bring us out. We were like the
fucking musketeers, you know? All for one. We killed for him, on a word,
without question, and he saved my life, more than once. I’ve been shot more
times than I can remember. I was his second in command, and in time I became
his friend. He called me Lazarus, because I never stayed down.”

His lips twitched up at the memories, but his
words seemed tinged with remorse. My eyes strayed to the puckered scars on his
chest, and to the bullet that hung from a silver chain around his neck.

“Is that a memento?” I asked.

“This?” He toyed with the scratched and dented
casing, and smiled. Unlike the fakes I’d seen in Goth jewellery stores, this looked
like it’d seen action, and the tarnish had been polished off in parts, a result
of frequent rubbing? “This belonged to my Grandpa. He was a sniper. He fought
against the Nazi occupation of my country. This, he called his final solution.
He was saving it, in case he should be caught.”

“He never needed to use it?”

“No. He died peacefully in his sleep, a wrinkled
old man.” Konstantyn’s fingers stroked the smooth metal of the bullet with a
rhythm of familiarity. “Before the war, he was a renowned cellist. He gave me
my love of music, and dance. I miss the old man. He was more a father to me
than my real pop ever was.”

“I never knew my father.”

His brows popped, questioning.

I shook my head and smiled. “My mother would never
tell me who my father was. I’m not even sure she knows herself. She’s high most
of the time, and any time I try to broach the subject, she shoots me down. All
I know is that she’d been living on some Greek island, but she fled when she
was pregnant with me and came to London.” I thought about what the psych nurse
had said about her running from a cult. “I’m not even sure if that’s the
truth.”

“I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay. I never felt I was missing out on that
much, and Daniel and I had each other, you know?”

Chewing on his bottom lip, Konstantyn’s eyes read
my grief.

“You and my mother have something in common, you
know.”

He frowned.