I adjusted her so she was lying on top of me. My hands came down to her ass, squeezing both cheeks in my palms. Her eyes darkened with hunger, her mouth opening slightly, but nothing came out.
I stilled my hands but didn’t move away from her.
“What are you thinking about?” I asked.
She cleared her throat and looked away briefly before bringing her eyes back to me. “Just—we’re alike, aren’t we?”
Fuck, no.
There was nothing about her that was similar to me.
“Why do you say that?”
“We don’t have anyone in this world, except … except, Mikhail and Nikolay … and each other.”
The last part was said shyly. I felt my grip tightening around her before I eased up. “Yeah,” I said gruffly. “You have me. And I—I have you.”
She smiled brightly, and I could feel my heart reacting to such a simple thing from her.
“I didn’t have any siblings growing up,” she said suddenly. I cocked my head to the side, wondering why she brought it up. She continued, “I mean, that was probably a good thing, because my father … my father is not a good man. But sometimes, I wished for it. I wished I had someone else in my life who understood what I was going through. Someone who could be there for me.”
She shook her head and directed her gaze off to the side. “It probably sounds silly.”
“No,” I said, bringing her attention back to me. “Not at all.”
The corners of her lips quirked up in the smallest of smiles. “I guess I see you with Nikolay and Mikhail, and I …” she shrugged, trailing off.
I supposed I was lucky. Mikhail, Nikolay, and I weren’t related by blood. But I’d found them when they were at the lowest points in their lives, and I’d offered them a way out. I didn’t know what it was about these two men that made me want to help them. Being who I was, I had seen a lot of sad cases, sad people who needed help. I supposed I saw a kindred spirit in their eyes—or hell, perhaps I saw the fire in them and knew, like me, they weren’t done fighting.
But by helping those two men, I found something I never thought I could have—the bond and loyalty of brothers. I would die for them. And I knew without a doubt in my mind that they would die for me.
They’d saved me as much as I’d saved them.
I looked back into her soulful brown eyes. She was watching me intently, and for once, I didn’t know what she was thinking by just looking at her.
And I didn’t know why I said what I said next, but I wanted her to … know me.
“I had a sister.”
Her eyes widened. “Had?”
I nodded. “Inessa died when she was seventeen.”
“Oh, Damien. I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay, pet. It was a long time ago.”
“That doesn’t mean it stops hurting.”
She would probably know. I could still remember the pain in her eyes that I saw when she told me how her father had killed her mom in front of her. She was right. It didn’t get easier, no matter how many years had passed.
I cupped the back of her head with one hand and pushed her gently down, so the side of her face rested on my chest. I could feel her eyelashes every time she blinked, like the fluttering of a butterfly wing.
“How did she die?” she asked.
I cleared my throat. “My father killed her. She was nine years younger than me. She was barely three when I was shipped off to America, sold to your father like cattle. But I held onto the memories of her, until I could come back home and take her with me. I didn’t think I would live past twenty. The life I was sold to was a dark one. As long as I had my youth—my appeal—your father kept me alive.
“But once I turned eighteen, I started to look more like a man. I got hairier. I grew muscles, and I was slowly losing my appeal to the sick bastards your father was friends with.” I wrapped my arms around her body, holding her close, letting her hold the darkness at bay for a while. “I was losing my appeal to your father.”