Dmitry's Royal Flush: Rise of the Queen by Nelson, S. (classic reads .txt) 📕

Dmitry sat up in the bed a little straighter. Royal was clever. She could have found a way to overhear his conversation with Anatoly earlier, but it was highly unlikely. And the look in her face warranted that of true concern and sincerity.

He ran his hands through his golden locks and groaned. He didn't need this right now. He was hoping that she had come to make love to him, to ask him to make love to her—not to warn him of some strange portent.

"Sweetheart, Ivan is dead," he pleaded, trying to reason with her. His voice was as soft and sympathetic as always.

"I know that," Royal snapped. "But it felt real. It felt… "

"No," Dmitry snapped back. His temper reared its ugly head. "Enough of this! Ostanovit. He's dead, and he's not coming back!"

"I know," Royal said with tears in her eyes. "I just… "

"I have had enough," Dmitry's voice raised. "I want you to stop this. I can't take it anymore."

Royal shook her head. Tears ran down her cheeks. "If you would just listen for a damned minute!"

Dmitry got up from the bed and snatched his jogging pants. Slipping them on, he turned on the lamp and walked around to face her.

She looked at him concerned and wide-eyed, clueless to his sudden anger due to his excruciating sexual frustration.

He gritted his teeth. "I have a meeting tomorrow. My helicopter will pick me up first thing in the morning. When I get back… "

"Is it on a lake?" she interrupted.

"Listen to me, zhenshchina," he said sternly. "When I get back, you and I are going to go back to therapy. You aren't getting better. You're getting worse and I can't… "

"I'm not getting worse," she protested. "I came in here to tell you that you must be in some sort of danger… "

Dmitry talked over her. "You're getting worse and paranoid. I want this to stop. I'm calling the doctor and… "

"You're not listening to me!" she protested again, trying to push past him.

Dmitry blocked her. "Listen to me!" He grabbed her and shook her. "I want my wife back, damn it." He pushed her body against the bed. She fell over on the mattress.

"I haven't gone anywhere," she said crying. "Take your fucking hands off of me, Dmitry!" She tried to wheedle away. "I… I hate you!" she cried. "I came in here to tell you that you're in danger. I came in here to warn you, but you won't listen to me!" She kicked her feet.

"I have been listening to you! Every night for three years, I've been listening. And it's always about Ivan. It's like you mourn him. I can't stand it. I hate it almost as much as you hate me and Anya," he growled as he leaned in between her thighs.

Royal gasped as he held her down. She stared him in his eyes. He was only a hair away from her face. She could feel his hot chest against her body. "I don't hate my baby?" she cried. "I love Anya. She's all I've got in the world."

Dmitry was in shock. He let her go and backed away. She lay on the bed with her legs wide open, gown pulled up to her waist and visibly shaken. The sight made him instantly think of the rape. He was sure it had made her think of it as well, but her words were what destroyed him.

"After all that I have given you, you think that all you have in this world is Anya?" he asked in sheer disbelief.

She sat up in the bed. Wiping the tears from her face, she pulled her gown strap up and sniffled.

"I know that you don't love me, Dmitry. I'm just a burden that you have to bare, because I have nowhere else to go." Her bottom lip quivered. "That's why you brought Victoria here. To replace me, at least on some levels."

"Victoria? Fuck her. She's just a teacher. She's here to teach Anya. I don't give two shits about her!"

"Then why do you look at her like you do?"

"Like what?"

"Like you used to look at me," She cried. "Like before Ivan."

"I barely see her. I don't have time to look at her."

"You'll find time, won't you? You brought her here to take your mind of what I am."

"Did I?" He shook his head. "Just what the hell are you, Royal?"

Royal looked down at her shaking fingers and swallowed hard. Well, she had told Anatoly that when Dmitry brought it to her attention, she would deal with it. It was evidently time now.

"I am a drunk, addicted, crazy bitch that you accidently knocked up and was forced to marry because otherwise someone would kill me, even though you couldn't possibly want me anymore after your brother fucked me like a two-dollar whore in every God-given orifice I had, after he had broken my nose, cut me, beat me, stabbed me, sodomized me," she shook and cried. "How could anyone ever want me again? Especially his own brother, his own blood? You'd have to be insane to want me."

The breath caught in Dmitry's lungs. Sweat formed on his forehead. To hear her say those words was the purest form of torture. He exhaled finally, breathed out and deflated into a near nothingness. "Is that what you've thought? This whole time since we've come to Prague, you've thought that I saw you as damaged goods."

"I know you do. You buy me all this stuff to keep my occupied and away from you. Royal go to shop. Royal go to city. Royal find something to do," she mocked him.

"I know the kind of woman you are. You are independent. You like to keep busy. I thought I was helping." His voice had lost its fury.