Claimed Darker by Em Brown
Chapter 4
All appetite left her, though Alena had been too nervous to eat anyway.
Peter had never spoken about compatibility before. She had been convinced he was head over heels for her. The man sitting beside her, staring at her with cool charcoal eyes—his irises were nearly the same color as his pupils—was not the Peter she had expected.
The women were sharing hotel rooms, five to a room, and there was no rule against staying the night with a man. The men apparently each had their own room, which was not surprising given that they were the ones paying the agency.
She had never actually slept with any of her Chinese husbands before, having managed to leave within hours of being married to them. While, in vastly different circumstances, the thought of sleeping with Peter might have appealed to her, she didn’t feel comfortable enough at present.
For certain, she would have felt safer with one of the more slender men. Peter, perhaps as a result of a Western diet and lifestyle, was much more muscular than she had expected to find in a Chinese man.
“Tonight?” she asked, trying to quell the quiver in her voice.
“You said you wanted to be married soon,” he returned.
She frowned. He wanted to have sex before they were married? Had she been wrong about Peter? What if he had misled her just so he could have sex? She supposed it would serve her right, as she was being far from honest in her dealings with him.
She dared to glance at him. No, a man like him didn’t need to go through elaborate schemes to get a woman into his bed.
“You don’t look too happy,” he observed, his countenance darkening.
“It will be more special after the wedding, no?”
“With you, it will always be special.”
That was more what she had expected Peter to say, though a part of her doubted he meant what he said.
She remembered coming across Anna, a Russian woman who had met her Chinese husband through a matchmaking service. Anna had gushed about her marriage, how responsible her husband was, how devoted and kind. The only thing she wished was for her husband to be more romantic. Nevertheless, Alena had envied Anna.
And here she was with the most handsome Asian man she had seen, a man with means, a man who, if she were to believe the stereotypes that led so many Russian women to matchmaking agencies, would be a responsible and devoted husband. Perhaps she should be open to him as a partner?
No. She couldn’t officially be married to him because she had never formally divorced her other husbands. Fearful of being prosecuted for what she had done, she had simply disappeared, leaving behind letters with vague explanations that she could not be the sort of wife they deserved.
“Do you not love me?” he inquired, a challenging edge to his tone.
“I-I do,” she responded. Worried that her relationship might be in jeopardy, she placed her hand over his. A muscle along his jaw rippled.
“Tonight then,” he said, withdrawing his hand.
They finished the dinner in relative silence. Peter was much more brooding than she’d expected, but her mind was more preoccupied with the prospect of having sex with a man she barely knew. She was not at all prepared for this. She didn’t have protection on her. Did he? Should she ask one of the other women? Would the hotel have anything?
Or maybe she could get him off so that they wouldn’t actually have to couple. Yes. That would be her plan. She would even be willing to go down on him with her mouth if needed. She had heard that usually did the trick with men.
Feeling better, she tried the dessert, a sort of red bean soup. She had not expected to like it as much as she did.
“Have mine,” Peter offered when she had finished her bowl.
While she consumed his soup, she felt as if he was consuming her with his gaze. It made her very uncomfortable, and she was relieved when dinner was over.
Afterward, a number of couples went outside to walk in the gardens in the back of the hotel. A few lingered in the hotel lobby. None appeared to be making their way back to the rooms.
“May I have half an hour?” she asked Peter after he pulled the chair for her. “I have to find someone.”
“Half an hour,” he replied. “Then meet me in the last room on the fourth floor. Don’t keep me waiting too long.”
The words could have been spoken out of enthusiasm for what was to come. Instead, they sounded more like a warning to her.
She went in search of George, who always managed to find her. She had saved pieces of fish from the dinner and fed them to her cat. After eating, George purred with contentment in her arms. She decided to bring George with her for moral support.
Her heart skittered as the elevator brought her to the top floor. She walked down the hall to his room, hugged George closer, and knocked on the door.
Peter opened the door. His gaze fell to the cat.
“This is my cat, George,” she introduced.
As if suddenly uncomfortable, George squirmed in her arms.
“Interesting name for a female cat,” Peter said.
“Oh, I named her after one of my favorite authors, George Sand, a woman.” Noting Peter’s grim expression, she asked, “Do you not like cats?”
“No. I don’t.”
George leaped from her arms and ran down the hall. So much for moral support.
Peter stepped aside for Alena to enter. She noted his room was much larger and nicer than the one she was to share with the other women. His had a balcony that overlooked the gardens and river.
“How lovely,” she remarked, walking toward the view.
He went to a sideboard. “Would you like a drink? Kvas? Vodka?”
She rarely drank, but she would need something tonight. “Vodka.”
“How do you like it?”
She could not resist a smile. “You have been in the West too long.”
He nodded and poured her a shot. She knew that Americans, and perhaps the British as well, liked to mix vodka with other things to form a cocktail, but that diluted the purity of vodka.
She accepted the shot glass from him. “Are you having not any?”
“Not before sex. Especially my kind.”
His kind? She assumed he was referring to his ethnicity, though none of the women had ever mentioned any Chinese habits of not drinking before sex. She downed the vodka, then promptly started to cough as the liquid burned her throat.
Peter went quickly to get her water. They exchanged glasses.
“I have not had vodka in many years,” she explained after drinking the water. She looked toward the balcony. “May I?”
He opened the balcony doors for her and went to put the glasses away. Outside, she braced herself against the railing and looked out at the last of the light coloring the horizon a dark purple. They were thousands of miles from St. Petersburg, where she had hoped to find a job and settle into some normalcy.
The hairs on her body stood on end, for she felt him behind her. He stood so close she could feel his body heat. She sensed him lowering his head.
“You’re nervous,” he murmured, his breath a warm breeze on her neck.
She swallowed with difficulty. “It has been…a long time.”
She wasn’t ready to jump in already. She wanted some conversation first, but she couldn’t think of anything to say. His nearness had taken away her ability to think.
He breathed in her scent. She hadn’t had the chance to shower upon arriving at the hotel. She wondered if he could smell George on her. She hoped he wasn’t allergic to cats. Or maybe it would be good if he started sneezing. Maybe he would skip the sex then.
“Why do you not like cats?” she asked, feeling frozen to the spot, worried that the slightest movement would lead to contact.
“My mother had a cat. It was always hissing and scratching. Caught me near the eye when I was two. Half an inch over and I would have been blind.”
“Not all cats are like that. George is—”
The rest of the words were stuck in her throat because he was brushing his knuckles against her upper arm. She hadn’t been touched with such sensual gentleness in…forever. And yet her body yearned for more as if it were already addicted.
Alarmed that her body could have such a strong reaction to such a simple caress, she blurted, “I wish for more vodka. Please.”
He pulled back. “Is that wise? You look like you barely weigh a hundred and ten pounds.”
She didn’t know what that translated to in terms of grams, but she didn’t care. She needed space.
“Please.”
He walked back to the sideboard and poured her a shot. She released the breath she had been holding. When he returned, she eagerly accepted the drink from him and relished the burn that went down her throat. He had a glass of water ready as well, but she shook her head, not needing the water this time.
“Drink it,” he ordered.
For some reason, she didn’t dare disobey. He was probably right to have her drink the water. It wasn’t wise to down two shots of vodka given that she hadn’t had much for dinner.
He stayed his distance from her this time. She was both relieved and a little disappointed. He crossed his arms and studied her as she took a long sip of the water.
“How is it a beautiful woman like yourself has to resort to a matchmaking service to find a husband?” he asked.
“There are more women than men in Russia,” she explained, glad for the conversation. “And it is hard to find a good man. But my friends, they tell me Chinese men make good husbands.”
He snorted, a response she found odd. She took another sip of water.
“That’s a terrible generalization,” he said.
“All women I know who have Chinese husbands are happy.”
“What if you’re not so lucky?”
Why would he say something like that? she wondered. And how was she supposed to answer that?
“I can’t remember,” he continued, “if I told you about my preferences where sex is concerned.”
She shook her head. He had never mentioned sex in their chats before.
“I suppose I didn’t want to scare you.”
Did he think Russian women were afraid of sex?
He advanced toward her, and she held up her glass of water to drink as a shield. Standing mere inches from her, he took the glass from her hands and cupped her jaw with his free hand.
“Do you scare easily?”
Why did he ask such a question? Perplexed, she shook her head. His grip on her seemed to tighten a little.
“Good.”
Releasing her, he went to replace the glass at the sideboard. He turned around to face her. She wished she could make out his expression. Because his irises were so dark, it was hard to tell if his pupils were dilated or constricted.
With a solemn but commanding tone, he issued his second directive to her. “Strip.”
