14 Chapter 13

David watched her face intently, absorbing the pain, the panic, the distress the beauty.

Blyad, she was so breathtakingly beautiful. More so than when she last belonged to him, two years ago. Her facial features were slightly sharper, less soft, more mature. Her curves were all woman. He knew they would fit his hands even better than they had when he'd made love to her last. Fuck, he couldn't wait to have her back under his hands, his mouth and his cock. The years had indeed wrought changes in his young wife. Some good and some that set his teeth on edge, set his blood boiling in his normally icy veins. Changes he intended to ferret out and, god help her if he didn't like the answers.

"No!" she cried and pushed uselessly against him. "Please David! We can't be together! I won't tell anyone about you. I haven't since since I left. Why can't I just go back to my life here? I'll stay away from you and never breathe a word. I promise I won't!"

Fuck if he didn't love the way she begged. Her gorgeous lips pursing, her brows drawing together in worry as she thought how best to please him, how best to get herself out of this deadly situation. Not that it mattered. She could beg all she wanted. In fact, he would encourage this activity in their future encounters. He liked the way she looked when she wanted something from him. When she was desperate.

He shook his head. "Impossible Natasha. You know I can't leave you. You know too much about me. If I don't kill you then you must come with me."

A shudder rippled through her.

Dropping his head against her neck he breathed deeply of her sweet, damp scent. Ah, that beautiful, sweet smell, the feel of her under his hands once more! "You have much to make up for, my love."

Unable to hold back a moment longer from tasting his wife, David tangled his hand in her hair and forced her head up to his. She tried to brace herself against his chest, pressing her fists against him, but he easily crushed her resistance, pulling her wrists behind her back and arching her into him. He took her lips in a harsh kiss meant to punish. He plundered her mouth with his tongue and teeth until she struggled to breathe. Dizzy, her knees buckled and she was forced to rely on him for support. Dark satisfaction flared like fire through his veins and he tightened his hold on her to an almost unbearable degree.

The kiss went on and on. It wasn't meant to be sexy, but a primal possession of her mouth, a stamp of ownership over the woman he was reclaiming. Forced to take what he was giving her, she finally capitulated and relaxed her jaw, allowing him better access without a struggle. He pulled back slightly, when she began to grow limp in his arms, and she sucked in a mouthful of air before he once more assaulted her with his mouth. He ignored her faint moan of protest, clenching his fist in her hair and tilting her head back further to deepen the angle of the kiss.

His teeth grazed her, his lips hard against hers, his tongue lunging into her mouth and sweeping every recess within. Over and over he kissed her, giving her only brief moments of reprieve to breathe in much needed oxygen before taking her mouth again. A muffled cry and the taste of metallic blood had her struggling against him. He stiffened.

"Fuck," he growled against her swollen lips. His tongue swiped against the cut on her lip. He tasted her blood.

He allowed her head to drop against his shoulder. He knew she wouldn't be able to stand on her own. This was the beginning. If she was going to stay alive, to survive in his world, she would come to rely on him for everything. Starting with the very air she breathed. Her breaths puffed out from between swollen, bloodied lips, fanning intimately against his throat. His cock hardened in response and he was reminded sharply of the many times Natasha had curled against him in her sleep, before she had run from him. Her breath had caressed his skin, reminding him of the delicate life entrusted to his care.

The life she had taken away, hidden and stolen from him. Teasing him, as she fitted and flirted from country to country, from continent to continent. For two long, fucking years. The hand gripping her wrists behind her back clenched until she whimpered in pain. He gritted his teeth, trying to bring the tidal wave of black rage back under control. No one  not one single other person  was capable of eroding David's control the way Natasha could. The organization that had raised David would call her a liability. The man that taught him to pull the trigger on another life would insist he bury his weakness.

Instead he loosened his grip.

He dropped his forehead against the top of her soft head, feeling the smooth silk of her hair against his skin. It calmed him. Fuck, it shouldn't, but it was true. There was something about his dancer that still got to him, even after their years apart. She somehow reached into his numb, emotionless body, hooked his cold heart and pulled. She gutted him. Good emotions, bad emotions. She pulled them all out of him. He didn't get it. But he was long past trying to understand. And since he was apparently incapable of pulling the trigger on her, he was going to have to figure out what the fuck to do with her. Because he now had a disobedient wife on his hands. A woman that had proved herself capable of running and hiding from him, a man capable of hunting prey far more skilled at hiding than a sheltered twenty-year-old ballet dancer.

This thought reminded him that he needed answers. Answers that she wasn't going to want to give and that he sure as fuck wasn't going to like hearing. But he needed to know. Needed to find out how she got away from him. How she hid so effectively from him for two years. It should have been impossible. But somehow, she'd managed it.

Rage rippled through him as he remembered the amount of times he'd convinced himself she was dead. Brutally raped and murdered at the hands of his enemies. At those times, he would lose all control, his infinite icy calm would crack and he would destroy whatever hotel room he was in until there was nothing left to rage against. Then then, he would pick up the thread of her trail once more. It was those moments that his thoughts turned bleakest. That he imagined turning his gun against her. Of ending the wife that obsessed him endlessly. Of finishing the woman that captured his thoughts and emotions and twisted them in a beautiful, but deadly little dance.

What other choice did he have? She was a liability. Her rebellion had to be crushed. Destroyed. Yet, looking down at her now, taking in the soft wisps of hair caressing her pale cheeks. The shuddering breaths pulled into struggling lungs overwhelmed by his kisses, he knew he wouldn't pull the trigger on her. He couldn't. She was his dancer. His delicate, passionate beauty that must be harnessed and protected.

He relaxed his grip and allowed her to fall through his fingers, hardening his heart against her frightened whimper. He'd spared her life. He wasn't going to give an ounce more of his mercy. They would have to find a way to survive the coming storm and he knew of only one way. The assassin's wife would have to learn her place. So, he let her do something he'd never allowed before. He let her fall to her knees before him; a symbolic gesture of subservience that would set her place in their marriage going forward.

Her hands came out in front of her body, her fingers splaying wide on the smooth floor of the gym. The tidy knot on top of her head was now a mess with strands of hair escaping all over the place creating a dark halo around her head. She frowned for a moment and started to push herself up.

"Do not move," David snapped.

She froze and slowly lifted her chin to look at him, fear and defiance flashing in her eyes. Did she understand the significance of her position? Even to suck his cock, he'd never before allowed his wife to go to her knees before him. He'd worked for, become part of, shadowed organizations, within Russia and elsewhere, for too long to allow his wife to ever take this position before him. Bowing down to another power was never something he wanted for this precious creature. Yet, now she'd forced his hand. If she would not bend, then she would have to break.

She shifted on her legs, allowing her body weight to fall sideways until she was sitting with her legs curled beside her, her feet tucked slightly underneath her butt. His mouth damn near watered with the need to touch, to taste, to fuck her. She watched him warily as he circled her. Stalked around her crouched body within the circle of the spotlight. Glass from the mirror crunched beneath his shoes as he stepped around her. She winced, but held her position.

"Why did you run from me, wife?" he finally asked, his voice low, almost conversational.