we can both get a bit of comfort.
CHAPTER TWENTY
Konstantin
I’m still awake when Cassie slowly pushes my bedroom door open, closing it softly and padding across the floor, to slide under the covers next to me. I’m surprised she didn’t come last night.
I heard the low murmur of her talking to Andrius in the corridor, but I couldn’t hear what they were saying.
At thoughts of Andrius, my mind worries over what he told me today. It’s unlikely Allyov will work with the Armenians, because years ago he had a beef with them, and Andrius put a bullet in two of their highest-ranking generals. Of course, as Andrius says, it depends which Armenians these are, and if they’re related to that group or even part of it. If they are, there’s little hope of them and Allyov working together.
It means we could find ourselves in a war on both sides, against Popov and the Armenians he’s aligned with, rather than the hope Damen and I had of Allyov and the Armenians coming together to take out Popov.
Cassie sighs and shuffles about under the bedding.
If she’s here for comfort, I’ll give her it, but if she’s here for something more—all bets are off. I won’t be gentle, and I won’t be kind. I’ll work her body until she’s shattered and broken, but in the best way. I don’t love her, but I do want to imprint myself on her. I want to be the one she remembers years from now when she’s married with kids, and she thinks back to the man who no one has matched up to. Me.
I don’t normally feel this way about my conquests. I like to make sure they have a good time in the sack, but I don’t worry whether they’ll remember me for all eternity. Once I’m done, I’m done. Cassie, though, I want this to be something more, even if it is short lived.
If I was a good man, I’d tell her to go back to her bed right now, and not come in here again. She’s young, naïve, and if Vasily is correct, her heart is involved, and mine isn’t. Or, at least, not in the way she needs.
I don’t think it’s capable of being.
My heart took too many hits, and now it simply doesn’t work like most peoples. My father walking out and in quick succession losing my mother, grandmother, and worst of all, my sister, did something to me. It took me years to feel anything close to normality again. Just when I thought I had it all figured out, when I had someone I loved, in my friend Yulia, my father took that away too.
Ever since that moment, I’ve been unnatural. I don’t feel in the same way. I know that after Yulia’s death, I failed Michael. He needed love and lots of it. I gave him a home, security, guidance, but I couldn’t give him the one thing he needed, unguarded affection and love. I’m always afraid that if I do love someone completely and unguardedly, then I’ll lose them. Or worse, they’ll betray me, and honestly? I don’t know if I could come back from that again. Or what I’d do to the person who did such a betrayal, or anyone in my path. I’m so scared of the anger and rage deep inside me that I’ve put up barriers so high I can’t see over the fucking top.
So Cassie can’t have from me what she craves because I simply don’t have it in me. Or rather, I might, but I’m not willing to go digging and find out.
She reaches for me, her small hand brushing over my waist. My naked waist. I’m not wearing anything tonight. I figured if she came here seeking that out, why put barriers in her way?
Her hand moves down over my hip, and I hear her tiny intake of breath when she realizes I’m not wearing underwear.
“You better be sure what you’re asking for is what you want,” I tell her.
She stills, and for a moment, I think she’s going to walk away.
Then she moves her hand back up, over my side and arm, feeling me, mapping me out. Her fingers trail over my chest, back to my arm, and in the dark she traces the outline of the bird I have there, as if she can see it, but I know she can’t. She must have committed the shape of it to memory. I like the fact that she’s looked at me