you to your book,” I mused. “I was just wondering why you’re up in a tree. The dogs bothering you?”
“No,” Elena answered crisply. “I haven’t climbed a tree in years. I was curious.” She said it so simply and factually that she implied I was the idiot for asking.
Elena was very talented at implying the person asking the questions was an idiot and the answer was obvious. It drove Roman insane—I thought it was brilliant. It was a special skill to be able to make those around you feel inferior using only the tone of your voice.
“Not a lot of tree climbing in your marriage?”
She shot me an annoyed look. “What do you think?”
I laughed. “Just don’t hurt yourself.”
“I won’t. I’m not stupid.” Elena tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. “You didn’t answer my question.”
Her eyes held me to the spot. The color of mossy leaves after the spring rain hit, but with the same viciousness as the eyes of a wolf.
“I am quite the early riser. Like yourself.”
She thinned her lips. “I’ve never seen you around the garden before at this hour.”
“I imagine it’s hard to see anyone when you’re dozing amongst the underbrush,” I told her.
Annoyance mixed with surprise crossed over her features. “You’re spying on me?”
“Of course not. But—” I pointed up towards the manor. “My study is right there. It is difficult to miss you.”
Elena looked slightly embarrassed before she pulled her up chin, peering down at me as if I was a bug that wouldn’t stop buzzing around her. Like I was something she needed to swat.
I wouldn’t mind being swatted by Elena. But only if I could swat back.
The thought caused me to smile slightly, the act only making her look angrier.
“Don’t you have anyone else to taunt, Konstantin?” she asked, but the usual fierceness behind the question fell flat.
From the reddening of her cheeks and neck, I knew what thoughts had occupied her mind. That conversation from the night of the ballet had been on my mind too, as had my taunt, my question.
You’re a scientist. Why don’t you test your hypothesis?
Inviting her to my bed… At the time, it had been an offer fueled by lust and that emerald colored dress. I stood by it—I wanted Elena. I wanted Elena more than I had wanted anything in a long time. Her refusal hadn’t been a surprise but the expression in her eyes afterwards had been.
It had confirmed a faint hope I’d held: Elena wanted me too.
The knowledge had done nothing good for my ego. Artyom had called me insufferable twice since I realized.
But Elena wanted her freedom badly, and with Tatiana growing healthier by the minute, Elena was closer than she had ever been before.
I wasn’t letting her go so easily.
I craved Elena’s body, craved it in a way that would terrify her. My dreams centered around her wet, wanting sex, my teeth biting down into her flesh, her screams of pleasure echoing for hours.
But my desire for her body was nothing compared to how much I coveted her. Her mind, her attention, her everything.
I wanted it all and I didn’t want to share. No more thoughts about Thaddeo, no longer Falcone as her surname. Mine.
Careful, I remembeedr the Queen of Chicago had warned, after I’d asked the Rocchetti Don for permission. Elena is not one to succumb. She can bite, too.
I was counting on it.
“So many,” I said. “Yet I keep coming back to you.”
She glared. “I take it Ainsworth hasn’t woken up yet.”
I had briefed all the women upon returning home from interrogating Edward Ainsworth. Roksana was still shaken up about the attack, sucked back into the violent memories of her past. Elena had made a few sarcastic comments before leaving.
But I had seen the flash of panic in her eyes, the memories. Identical to the look in Roksana’s eyes.
I hoped Thaddeo wasn’t growing too comfortable in Hell. Because when I arrived, I would spend an eternity punishing him for hurting Elena.
“No, he hasn’t,” I answered honestly. Like always, there was a flicker of surprise in her eyes. “But he belongs to Danika now.”
“That sounds terrifying,” she remarked.
I laughed softly. “It is.”
Elena broke our gaze, picking at her sweater. She wasn’t cleaning the leaves and dirt off it–instead she was pulling at a loose piece of string. I was relieved to see her words had returned to her hands, random thoughts that had overflowed from her brain throughout her day.
I caught only a few. Suspicion, unbalanced, enucleation.