Evgeni's Obsession: A New Reign Book 1, page 10
She set the clothing on the counter, bending to peek beneath the sink as well. All manner of bandaging material and First Aid products took up the tiny shelves, alongside a partially used package of toilet paper.
Nothing of interest. Nothing useful. Nothing she could use as a weapon. Not that she’d have had the courage to try it.
With a sigh, she raised the toilet lid and unbuttoned her pants, shimmying her jeans and underwear down as she sat. She propped her elbows on her knees, bracing the heels of her hands against her temples as she tried to go to the bathroom.
After so many hours of holding it in, it didn’t come easily. Knowing he was waiting only made it harder.
It felt like it took forever, but she finally accomplished her goal. She’d finished and was in the process of standing up when a knock sounded.
Elena rushed to sit back down as Evgeni opened the door, dropping her arms in her lap and pinching her thighs together to cover herself.
His eyes followed the motion, lingering briefly before they traveled back to her face.
“Faster, Elena.”
Then he was gone.
She sighed and kicked off her shoes as she tugged her jeans the rest of the way off. Her shirt and bra followed, quickly replaced by the gray T-shirt he’d given her. She’d left her socks on, since he’d said she could. The bitter-cold wind battering the apartment made it hard for the radiator to keep the space warm.
Elena stood up, pulling her panties back into place. The way the shirt fell over her hips, it could have been a dress. She tugged at the hem, relieved she wouldn’t be exposed.
She took one of the washrags from the rack, turning on the tap and soaking the cloth in the frigid water. Given Evgeni’s impatience, she didn’t think she had the time to wait for it to warm up. Elena scrubbed her face as best she could with no soap, rinsed the rag, and hung it on the towel rack with more care than she’d ever done in her own home.
She gathered up her clothes and shoes, not wanting to make him angry by leaving them strewn across the bathroom floor. It seemed sensible to her that she should try not to upset him. Elena took a breath and forced herself to push open the bathroom door.
Evgeni was in the kitchen, moving a kettle from the stove to a trivet on the counter behind him. At the whine of the opening door, he angled his head in her direction. His eyes fell on the bundle in her arms and he pointed at the corner nearest the closet.
“Clothes in basket, shoes in closet. Then come sit.”
Elena obeyed, dropping her clothes in the basket and hiding away her shoes before crossing the apartment.
There was a dining table and an island bar, so she wasn’t exactly sure of where he’d meant for her to sit. She waited just opposite the island, watching as he filled two cups with what smelled like tea, adding sugar and milk to only one. Where to sit was a concern Evgeni addressed when he slid the milk and sugar cup across the counter in front of her.
“Sit.”
She braced against the edge of the counter, pulling herself up onto a barstool so tall her legs were left dangling half a foot above the ground. Elena tried to situate herself, but getting comfortable in her current state of mind wasn’t an option. The stool was only the icing on the cake. She pulled the steaming cup closer, wrapping cold hands around the warm ceramic.
“I thought you like it sweet.”
Elena sent a cautious glance his way, still uncertain of his mood. He was so hard to read. It wasn’t like before when they’d teased and flirted. She couldn’t tell what he was thinking. His expression was sober, devoid of any identifiable emotion. More than anything, he just looked tired.
“Thank you,” she said.
Evgeni folded his arms over his chest, those characteristic worry lines furrowing his brow. “We have problem, Elena. You know this, da?”
She knew what he meant, but she couldn’t bring herself to agree. “No. We don’t. It was self-defense, Evgeni—I know that. He pulled a gun. Oleg did what he had to. I won’t tell anyone!”
Evgeni shrugged a shoulder. “They all say this. Even if true, doesn’t matter. Witness to crime like this? Cannot be. If Oleg was only one tonight, he shoot you, or take you to brothel and leave you for slave. No one cares what a drugged-up whore say she saw.”
Elena bit her lip, trying to blink away the tears that sprang up at the callousness of his words. She looked down at her cup, fingers flexing nervously against the ceramic.
Across the counter, Evgeni sighed, drawing Elena’s attention back to him.
“Only reason this doesn’t happen?” He gestured at himself. “Me. This is why.”
She nodded. “I’m grateful, I am. But can’t you just put me on a plane home? No one ever has to know.”
“Is not possible,” Evgeni countered, his expression souring. “Even if I did this, they find you there. We have people in States too, solnyshko. But you see, is not only you now to worry about. I let you go, is end for me too.”
“Evgeni, please!”
“Nyet. No.” He sliced his hand through the air, silencing her with the sharpness of the gesture. “I risk much for to keep you safe. I sacrifice to keep you. You belong to me, Elena. Is only way for you to live.”
Elena whimpered, unable to contain her sob. Her shoulders slumped, brow knit against the tears that spilled down her cheeks.
“Drink the tea, Elena,” he commanded, his tone mellowing. “It will help.”
“My family will look for me.”
“They won’t.”
The resolute way he said it suggested that he’d already accounted for that scenario, but she didn’t have the heart to ask how. Elena took a sip of the tea, using the drink as an excuse not to speak. She needed a minute to get herself together. So many thoughts flashed through her mind. She wanted to protest, to beg, to rage—but none of it would do her any good.
He’d alluded to the fact that keeping her alive had cost him. If he was indebted to someone higher up in the organization, Elena wouldn’t be able to barter with him for her release. She had nothing to offer that he wanted, nothing to sway him or convince him to go against whatever deal he’d already struck.
Telling him he couldn’t do this was a waste of breath. He obviously could. Who would stop him?
She took another drink from her cup and avoided his gaze, pretending she didn’t notice how closely he was studying her. She wasn’t ready to look at him. A sense of expectation hung heavy in the air between them. He wanted something from her, but Elena struggled to rationalize what. Uncertain what to say, she just let the words tumble out.
“I’m sorry for whatever I’ve cost you.”
Evgeni leaned forward, spreading his hands against the countertop just inside her field of vision. Still she refused to lift her head, instead drinking more of the tea. It did help a little.
“For you? I would give more.”
“I…” A fresh burst of tears stung her eyes, blurring her vision as she stared down into the half-empty cup—the reality of what he was saying finally set in. “I just want to go home…”
“You cannot go home, Elena,” he said matter-of-factly. “This is your home now. Here, with me.”
A strangled noise escaped her throat, and Elena clapped her hands over her mouth to smother the awful sound. She slipped off the stool, needing away, but the second her feet hit the floor, her knees gave out.
Elena grabbed at the counter for support, shaking with the effort of holding herself up. She felt dizzy and weak. She looked toward Evgeni, her fingers skidding on the laminate top as she tried to hold on.
He was coming around the counter, already reaching for her. “Be easy, Elena.”
His tone was gentle as he slipped his hands around the sides of her ribcage, his fingers spreading wide.
He could have held her up on his own, but Elena’s suddenly weak state had her grasping at his shirt, twisting fistfuls of fabric in her hands as she pulled herself up against the wall of his chest.
“W-What—”
“Is to help you sleep, solnyshko. Is okay.”
Elena stared up at him in confusion, searching his expression for an answer. When his gaze shifted toward the counter behind her, realization dawned. She looked over her shoulder at the teacup, then back to Evgeni.
The sad smile on his face confirmed her suspicions.
“You… You drugged me?”
He bent forward, scooping her up into his arms without warning.
“I’m so stupid,” Elena sobbed, choking on the tightness in her throat. “S-So fucking stupid.”
“You don’t say this. You stop.” The command was punctuated by his chin coming to rest atop of her head, Evgeni cradling her against his chest as he crossed the room. “Was just wrong place, wrong time, Elena.”
When he laid her down on the bed, Elena rolled away from him, scrambling across the mattress in a clumsy rush of motion until her back hit the wall. She tried to sit up, but she didn’t have the strength. Bedside, Evgeni was watching her as he pulled his shirt over his head.
“What are you doing?” she asked.
“I need to sleep,” Evgeni told her as he reached for the buckle on his pants. “We need to sleep. It has been a long day.”
Of all the times she’d imagined going to bed with Evgeni, this wasn’t one of the scenarios she’d pictured. Elena’s heart fluttered as she watched him start to work the button on his jeans.
“I…” Elena’s ears started to ring, the edges of her vision closing in—dark and hazy—until all she could see was Evgeni. “I don’t want to—”
“Hush now, be my good girl. I am tired, Elena. No more fuss. We talk more in the morning.”
Her fear leaked out in the form of a moan as he bent to remove his pants, but she didn’t dare look. The sound of shifting fabric was enough. She wanted to protest, but her words died in her throat as the world faded to black.
Chapter Fourteen
Elena woke to the sensation of someone stroking her hair.
She lay still, trying to keep her breathing even and steady. She needed a minute to get her head together.
Trying to shake the grogginess after a drug-induced sleep proved difficult. She opened her eyes, blinking rapidly as the room swam into hazy focus.
It was dark. The only light came from the digital clock on the back of the stove across the room. The apartment had an open, studio layout, and the faint glow outlined the shapes of the furniture, but showed her nothing else. It was enough for her to piece together where she was.
Evgeni’s apartment.
She sifted through her fragments of memory from the night before, trying to remember what had happened.
She remembered the bar, being kidnapped. She remembered being forced into his trunk, then lying alone in the apartment, bound—pushing herself off the bed, lying on the floor exhausted when she couldn’t get the tape loose, and screaming for help that didn’t come. He’d returned, drugged her with tea and told her she could never go home.
That was where it started to get fuzzy. She’d gotten upset. Evgeni had taken her to the bed. She’d lost consciousness while she watched him strip off his shirt and start to take off his pants.
She sucked in an anxious breath as panic flared.
What happened after that?
“Good morning, solnyshko.”
His words were a soft, husky rumble against her ear. The hair on the back of her neck stood up in warning, her body going rigid.
The lazy play of his fingers over her hair and down her collar bone to her shoulder stopped. He slipped his arm over her side, tucking his forearm against her body and curling his hand into a fist just beneath her chin. The shift and bunch of his muscles pulled her back tight against his chest, trapping her.
Evgeni nuzzled into her hair, inhaling deep as he stretched his legs. The action made her keenly aware of just how close he’d been lying—how the length of his body framed hers from behind—the rigid heat of an erection pressing into her ass.
Elena closed her eyes and pursed her lips against the nausea of building anxiety.
“How you sleep?” he asked.
“You drugged me,” she said, her mouth expelling the words before she’d had a chance to consider the question. Worried he might react poorly, she rushed to supplicate. “I… I slept.”
“Good.”
Evgeni sighed, the heat of his breath ruffling her hair and spreading tingles of sensation down the side of her neck.
Elena resisted the urge to squirm. Wrapped in his embrace, caged in by a predator as dangerous as any lion, wriggling would send the wrong message. She bit her lip, trying to think of something to say.
“What happens now?”
He tightened his hold on her briefly, returning his nose to the crook of her neck. He pressed his lips to her shoulder so that his words vibrated against her skin.
“I will make breakfast, then we discuss how it will be. But first, shower.” He retracted his arm, patting her outer thigh as he sat up behind her. “Up, Elena. Up.”
She rushed to sit up, sliding to one side and out of his way as he unfolded his legs and moved toward the edge of the bed. He hooked her arm as he went, pulling her to her feet alongside him.
“There is little hot water here. Will be best for now to shower together.”
She wobbled as she rose, prompting Evgeni to lower his arm to her waist and pull her against his side. She tried to lean away from him, pressing the heel of her hand against his ribs in a not-so-subtle attempt to gain distance.
“I’m okay,” Elena muttered. “I can wait.”
The idea of being in a small space and naked with Evgeni didn’t inspire the same feeling it once had. Now the prospect made her stomach knot with dread. She was at his mercy, and she still had no idea exactly what that meant for her. It was an unnerving prospect, to say the least.
“You will not wait,” Evgeni asserted as he moved them forward, the heavy vise of his arm around her waist forcing her to go along. “You bathe now, no complaining.”
The sharpness of his tone cut short her follow-up protest, flashbacks to the night before when he’d threatened to hurt her if she didn’t obey prompting her to bite her tongue. He’d let her off with a warning once. She doubted it would happen again.
He led her to the bathroom, ushering her in and flipping on the light as he closed the door. The space seemed even smaller with him crowded in behind her.
Elena clenched her fists at her sides, shifting nervously from foot to foot. “I, uh. I have to go to the bathroom.”
It was a weak attempt to get him out of the room, to give herself a little more time to try to come to terms with what was about to happen. The fact that she did actually have to use the bathroom wasn’t the point.
Evgeni cupped her shoulders, shifting her position so that she was now in front of the toilet and he was next to the shower.
“Use toilet, then,” he said, turning away to pull back the glass door and turn on the water. “Be quick.”
“With you in here?” Elena balked. She couldn’t help it. “I—”
Evgeni was already taking off his pants, slipping the lightweight fabric down over his hips and letting them pool on the ground beneath him.
Her eyes followed the descent of his clothing, tracking over the rounded globes of his ass, his bulging thighs and heavily muscled calves. The muscles lining his back rippled and bunched as he twisted to look over his shoulder at her, his expression chastising.
Elena’s mouth fell open, but no sound came out. She’d known he was a powerhouse. It was a hard fact to miss, even when he was wearing bulky sweaters and loose-fitting cargo pants. But seeing him in the flesh was a uniquely unsettling experience. He was built like the Greek sculptors carved their gladiators—godlike and lethal, something to be admired, but not touched.
“Don’t be a child.” He snapped his fingers at her twice in quick succession. “You hurry. Go to bathroom and undress or I do it for you.”
Startled into action, Elena reluctantly shimmied out of her underwear and sat down on the toilet. She avoided looking at him, ashamed by how much it bothered her that he was in the room while she peed. She knew she didn’t have a choice, knew it was a simple bodily function that she couldn’t help. Nonetheless, she was embarrassed.
When she was finished, Elena stood, glancing Evgeni’s way. He’d said the hot water was limited, and he was already standing under the water soaping his hair. Somehow she didn’t think he’d find any humor in it if she scalded him by flushing the toilet.
“Should I flush it?”
“No.”
He motioned for her to come, closing his eyes as he tilted his head back to rinse the bubbles from his hair, assuming she’d obey.
Elena watched the soap slide down his body, running over his chest, the ridges of his abdomen, and through the patch of neatly manicured hair surrounding the root of one of the heftiest cocks she’d ever seen. Her mouth went dry at the sight of it, fear and trepidation rearing their heads. Still half-mast, his morning erection not quite gone, she’d have sworn the thing looked almost as thick as her wrist. She couldn’t imagine it hard—didn’t want to imagine it—didn’t want to be in close to it without clothing between them to protect her.
He could wreck her with his cock alone, never mind being strong enough to strangle her one-handed.
“Elena, do not make me come get you.”
“Jesus, I’m coming.”
She lowered her eyes and forced herself to take the three steps to the edge of the tub.
“Shirt off. Come, do not be shy, solnyshko.”
The fact that his tone had softened should have been a relief. He made taking a shower sound so perfunctory. But no man she’d ever been in a relationship with had “just” wanted to take a shower.
Hell, she wasn’t even in a relationship with him. She didn’t have the luxury of saying she wasn’t in the mood. She’d escaped being raped so far, but it seemed like an inevitability, and it wasn’t one she was ready to face.
