Dark Desire by Lauren Smith (7 ebook reader .TXT) 📕

Yet the thought of her out in the night alone, shivering from the cold and facing the news that her life would never be the same again, was too much for him. He didn’t care if she needed space—he had to make sure she was all right.

“I’m going after her.” He opened the door, only to find her standing right in front of him, Maxim behind her, looking out to the road for danger. Dimitri’s focus locked on her red-rimmed eyes. His kiska had been crying. Her face reflected the devastation he felt inside, knowing he could never hold her again, never again touch her the way he had, and never be with her in the way they’d both dreamed. It was an icy hand of grim truth that dug into his chest and fixed its claws into his heart.

“Excuse me.” Elena stepped past him into the lodge, her tone emotionless.

“What did you say to her?” Dimitri growled in Russian at Maxim the second he followed her into the lodge.

Maxim lifted one dark brow. “Say?”

“She’s been crying.”

“She cried because of you and because her entire world was just turned on its head.”

Dimitri shot a look at Elena again, who was watching him and Maxim argue in Russian. Her eyes, such a lovely green, were shadowed with worry. Those beautiful eyes bored into him, carving out a hole and leaving him defenseless against her.

“She cried because of me?”

“She’s in love with you,” Maxim snorted. “I explained to her that we have been raised to put her above all others, that you aren’t good enough for her, not in that way. None of us are.”

Maxim’s words hit him in the gut. Not good enough . . . He supposed Maxim wasn’t wrong. Dimitri had no business trying to carry on a relationship with a woman who was the last of the Romanov bloodline. His sacred duty was to protect her, not indulge in fantasies of taking her to bed and soothing her painful past with pleasure.

“I’m not wrong,” Maxim said to Dimitri, a rare apology lingering in his tone. “But I understand what it means to want something you will never have.”

“Can you guys please stop that?” Elena asked.

“Stop what?” Dimitri and Maxim spoke at the same time.

“You’re talking too fast. I’m trying to follow, but I’m not fluent, so most of what you are saying is going right over my head.”

Nicholas stood behind Elena and seemed to be fighting off a grin. Leo’s curiosity and admiration for Elena was clear on his face.

“My apologies, Your Grace,” Maxim said politely.

Elena stared expectantly at Dimitri.

“I’m sorry,” he said.

She blew out a breath. “I didn’t want an apology. I wanted to know what you were talking about.”

“You don’t need to worry about it. You should go to bed.”

“Bullshit,” she snapped, her eyes like jade daggers. “I do have to worry about it. This is my life, and you can’t just tell me what to eat and where to sleep like some little pet.”

Dimitri held his tongue. Had she not been a Romanov descendent, he might have teased her that she was a little kitten in his bed, but she wasn’t. If anything, he was the one who belonged to her, who would do anything she commanded.

Elena turned to his friends. “Which of you is Leo and which is Nicholas?”

“I’m Leo,” Leo said, raising his hand.

“Maxim,” Maxim grunted.

“And I’m Nicholas, but you can call me whatever you wish, Your Grace.” Nicholas bowed grandly, and Maxim elbowed him in the ribs.

Elena’s eyes glinted with humor, and Dimitri’s tension eased a bit. It was going to be difficult for them to adjust to the confines of their new relationship after they had become intimate with each other. He was relieved his friends were here to help provide a distraction and some distance.

“Have you all eaten?” Elena asked.

“Yes, Your Gr—”

“Please don’t call me that unless I ask you to.” Already her tone held a sense of confidence to it, though Dimitri doubted she had noticed it. “Well, there are plenty of rooms to choose from. Please feel free to pick one. I guess I’ll see you all in the morning.”

She turned and walked toward the room they had planned to share tonight. The room he’d planned to share with her, along with so much more. It left him aching in a way he’d never felt in his life, to see her walk away, forever out of reach. She got to the doorway, and he waited for her to turn to him, to cast one glance back at him so he didn’t feel so alone in that moment.

She didn’t, and it killed him inside.

Despite her casual manner, Dimitri had seen the tension in her face. She was still upset, and she had every right to be. He had made a vow to her to be whatever she needed, and now he was breaking it to keep the vow he’d made to his father.

“I like her,” Nicholas said.

“She is rather fascinating,” Leo added.

Maxim merely turned his gaze on Dimitri. “What are you going to do?”

“What do you mean?”

“About her. She has eyes only for you, just as you do for her.”

A pang stung his heart. He couldn’t respond right away. His emotions were too thick. He glared at his friend. “You said it yourself—I’m not good enough, nor would it be right. I made a vow.”

Maxim, Nicholas, and Leo all exchanged a look that made Dimitri realize he’d been left out of whatever conversations they must have had on the way to meet him here.

“Dimitri, we all made that vow, but sometimes you have to break your word if it’s more important to do what’s right,” Leo said. “I think I speak for all of us when I say that we would release you from your vow.”

Maxim and Nicholas both nodded.

“If she wants you, she should have you,” Maxim said. “With what’s to come, she will need you more than ever.”

Dimitri wanted to agree, to go straight to her and take her in