Elaine stirred next to him, but he didn’t turn to look at her. He kept his position, fighting to push his anger down. She sat up, placed her hand on his bicep, her chin on his shoulder and he could feel her stare at him.
“Derek?”
He turned his head slightly to look at her. Her eyes were red and swollen, her nose just as red and tear tracks ran down her cheeks. She was beautiful and all his. How?
“I can’t believe how strong you are.”
She pulled at his arm until he sat up dropping one knee. She slide over his leg and fitted herself between his thighs and leaned back against his chest, her face in his neck. “I didn’t have much of a choice.”
“How could you ever stand my touch?”
She pulled away and looked up at him, her eyes searching, “I didn’t tell you enough for you to ask me that.”
“It’s what you didn’t say that I heard louder than what you did,” bile filled his throat and he swallowed hard to get rid of it. When it just kept climbing up into his mouth, he picked up the bottle of gin and drank down a helpful amount.
Elaine pulled the bottle away from his mouth and finally out of his hand. She placed it beside them on the floor then took both his hands and placed them on her body. One on the inside of her thigh and the other on her breast.
“I love it when you touch me.”
He just shook his head, stunned, “How did you even stomach us making love?”
She smiled coyly, “I enjoy that too, immensely.”
Derek smiled at her attempt to make him feel better, but it didn’t help. “Elaine, when was the first time you willingly let a man touch you?”
She looked down then, lowering both their hands from her breast onto her lap, “It was years before I felt safe enough to even be in the same room with a man. I would jump at shadows and barely slept. If I was asleep for more than an hour, I’d pat myself on the back. But it all got better as I got better at fighting, and killing. The more men I took out, the stronger I felt against them.”
She sighed and tucked herself under his arm, her head on his shoulder, “After that day, Vladimir trained me how to fight to defend myself. He felt sorry for me, that he could do nothing to help me when it happened, but he was determined that I could put up a fight if it were to happen again. I stopped caring about a lot of things by then, slowly training myself to stop feeling, to shut my emotions in a little box and hide it in the deepest darkest corner of my mind. I refused to ever see my father again and he made it easier by not forcing the issue. For my sixteenth birthday, Vladimir sent me out to kill someone. He was a man who liked to prey on young girls. I was scared, but I kept thinking of all those girls I was saving from him and I got all the courage I needed. A single shot to the head, that’s all that I needed to do. Instead, I found myself in his room. He was excited to see me, another young and weak prey, until I pushed a knife into his jugular.”
She shifted against him and Derek knew she was feeling nervous that he would judge her. He couldn’t and he wouldn’t. Men like Ivan deserved to die.
“It felt good, empowering like his death boosted my strength and confidence up. At that moment, I was the predator, no longer a victim and it felt good. And so the Black Widows were born.”
Derek was surprised by that. No one knew when the Black Widows started, in fact, they’d only found out about its existence around eight years ago. To think it was his woman who was the foundation of it. He shouldn’t feel proud, but he did.
“The first time I let a man touch me I was eighteen and he was a mark. I didn’t know much about him and I buckled when I laid my eyes on him. His resemblance to Ivan almost sent me to my knees. I was back to being that fifteen-year-old girl he’d abused for five days, telling her he loved her. But the second he turned his eyes to me, and I saw that they were brown and not blue, I felt steady enough to berate myself for being a coward. The mark was a large man, but he was still a man, easy to manipulate, to seduce.”
“Yeah, men are easily led around by their dicks,” Derek commented dryly.
Elaine chuckled, patting his chest as if to say so sorry, but true, “Once I got him up to the room, I was ready to kill him and be done with it. His resemblance to Ivan scared the shit out of me and making it difficult to maintain character. But then I thought, how long would Ivan lookalikes rob me of my breath and strength and leave me vulnerable. So I fucked him.”
The way she said that she didn’t sound as detached as she wanted to be.
“How?”
“What?”
“How did you fuck him?”
She went silent, her hand fisting in his tee. Two Mississippi’s later she said, “I tied him to the bed like Ivan did to me and fucked him. I felt strong, powerful having him at my mercies. Once I was done, I slit his throat open and left. Then I researched BDSM clubs and joined one at every city in Russian.” She stated so matter of factly that Derek was the silenced one this time.
“Don’t worry. By the time I met you I was done torturing and being tortured and having random sex with strangers. I craved something else and I didn’t know what until I saw you that first time. I didn’t understand what I felt, but I knew it was dangerous, to me. You could have used it against me and I would be back to being that helpless female. That day I came to your room, Ellsa had spent a good twenty minutes talking me into having sex with you instead of killing you like I planned,” she laughed then.
Derek pinched her ass and she jumped, “Not funny. I should probably buy Tasha a gift for always saving my ass.”
“Treating her like Tasha and not psycho Ellsa is gift enough. Trust me,” she sighed, “I realized something. As Katarina or Elaine, you’ve treated me the same way. Your touch, your kiss, how we make love even how you speak to me, it’s all the same.”
With his fingers under her chin, he tilted her head up so that he could see into her eyes. She was confused. “Why? Was I supposed to treat you differently?”
She shrugged, “I guess. I don’t know. I guess I expected everything to be different.”
He could understand that, “Let me ask you this, did Damien treat Tasha differently?”
She shook her head, “Even when everyone was trying to convince him she was a dangerous killer he didn’t let them sway him. He knew who he met all those years ago and as far as he was concerned, she was the same person just without a memory. Once I told them about what had happened to Ellsa to turn her into a serial killer, he wasn’t smug that he was right, he was furious, he didn’t even care that before that she used to kill people for a living,” her head careened to the side thoughtfully, “Tasha said all he cared about was that she kept being his Victoria Secret.”
He kissed her lips lightly, “Well then, all I care about is that you remain my Kitty Kat.”
She smiled widely, “Your Kitty Kat? You only nicknamed me that because I seduced you by holding a knife to your throat.”
He shrugged, “What can I say, I have dangerous taste.” She laughed loud at that and it was the most beautiful sound he ever heard after listening to her cry for so long, “Katarina, Elaine they both have one thing that will keep them the same.”
“What?”
“You. And I love you so very much.”
She smiled sweetly, “I love you too. I’m so afraid that I’ll wake up one day and all this would have been a dream. You, Katya and your family who’ve been so wonderful to adopted me as their own.”
“It’s not a dream. And if it wasn’t for you, I think my parents would have abandoned me already. My mom is hugging me again and I’ll tell you now no son can survive without his mommy’s hugs.”
She pushed the side of his head, “You are such a mama’s boy. I can’t believe she still cuts the crusts off you PB&J till now. You’re forty-two years old for crying out loud!”
‘Hey,” he protested, a little affronted, “When you have your son, you can baby him as much as you like.”
She scoffed, “And you’ll be like your dad, glaring at us and screaming ‘Quit that, he’s a bloody grown ass man Amelia!'” she erupted in a fit of giggles, “I started learning Portuguese so that I can understand what he mumbles under his breath when your mom glares at him.”
Derek chuckled. What he mumbled was a long list of lethal expletives. His mom lost her shit when Katya repeated one of them. The word wasn’t clear, but she said it well enough to be identified. Now he understood why his cousins got smacked by their wives so often.
“I’ll help you learn. You’ll be fluent by the time I’m done.”
One eyebrow went up, “Oh yeah? Are you going to reward me with sex if I do well?”
Derek pretended to mull it over, “Hmm, I’m not sure, but if I do, I’ll have to get real creative.” Then he kissed her, soft and slow, savoring the taste of her lips.
She deserved so much love in her life, he was determined to give her that, every day of their lives together.
The cabin phone rang, interrupting them. Grumbling at the bad timing, he stood from behind Elaine and walked to the phone in the kitchen. Derek knew his family wouldn’t have called if it wasn’t important. He’d made that expressly clear the day they left for the cabin.
“This better be good.” He demanded.
“A letter addressed to Katarina Paraji was delivered by your CIA boss at my doorstep. Is that good enough?” Dale responded, thinly veiled anger in his voice.
Derek cursed and turned to look at Elaine. She’d followed him and was now standing beside him, a concerned look on her face.
“We’re on our way back,” he said into the receiver before he hang up.
“Derek what is it?”
He sighed, wiping his face with his hand, “I think your past has come calling.”
****