Perfect Monster by B. B. Hamel
Cassie
Like last time, I expected to find Roza waiting for me in the kitchen.
Instead, I found him.
At least he had a shirt on. Or maybe it would’ve been nice to see that toned chest and his absurdly sculpted abs again.
This whole thing was more than a little confusing.
Deja vu.
Except instead of an ocean-side view, I got a blank wall.
An underground bunker.
Who the heck had an underground bunker?
I got out of bed, brushed my teeth—another brand new brush, of course, this man seemed totally prepared for guests—and opened the closet. I expected to find another robe—
And found it packed with clothes.
I stared, trying to comprehend what I was seeing, before I reached in and started running my hand through the different tops, sweaters, pants, and skirts.
They must be for Roza—
But no. I took out a few pieces at random—all designer, of course, what the heck was with this guy, who had a closet of designer clothes just sitting around doing nothing?—and they were all in my size.
Like he’d put them here specifically for me.
Like he knew I’d be coming here sooner or later.
That freaked me out. I slammed the closet door shut and took a few steps back. My breath came fast and wicked as I steadied myself on the bed.
I was underground in some secret bunker, the guest of an ultra-rich oligarch or whatever the heck he was, and last night I watched him murder a man right in front of me.
And now he had a closet full of clothes, all of them in my size.
Roman was terrifying. More than that, he was alluring and attractive, but also really, really, freaking terrifying.
I checked my phone with shaking hands.
Winter: Get it girl!!!!
If only she had any clue.
I was tempted to tell her, but what could I say? Oh hey girl, I’m trapped in an underground bunker because some mafia guys want to kill me because I witnessed a murder but NBD my knight in shining armor is an insanely handsome and very freaking intense rich guy that’s also sort of running the mob from behind the scenes, ha ha, super complicated but don’t worry it’s great I’m having a blast this isn’t totally insane at all xoxoxo!!!
Pretty sure she’d call the FBI and the Navy SEALs immediately, and yes, I know you can’t really call the SEALs, but she’d figure it out somehow.
Which meant I was on my own.
I had nobody else to turn to. I left my old life behind years ago, and going back to them would only confuse things even more.
Besides—I told my dad I’d never speak to him again and I meant it.
No reason to break a promise just because I was—captive? guest? obsession?—whatever I was to Roman.
I went back to the closet, took several deep breaths, and picked out a simple outfit. Black jeans from some French brand I’d never heard of, the knees artfully ripped, and a white button down blouse from Yves St. Laurent. I finished it with a white Givenchy sneaker, though I eyed the ridiculous heels with some small amount of lust—a very teeny tiny amount of lust, no more than is appropriate for beautiful shoes—and left the room.
The hallway was bland, but I remembered the way back to the main living area. I stepped through the door and breathed in the smell of fresh coffee and frying bacon. That made me smile—I found it hard to believe they made bacon in this place very often.
I expected to find Roza hard at work on breakfast, but stopped short as I stood at the end of the counter and stared at Roman.
He had a shirt on, thank the stars. His hair was slightly damp, probably from a recent shower, and he moved around he kitchen like he was used to cooking. He had on a simple black t-shirt and jeans, though every stitch of him looked like it was custom designed to draw out his aching and gorgeous muscles. I stared at his arms, gaped at his back, and felt a strange thrill down through my stomach as he plated eggs, then pulled out finished crispy bacon, and looked over his shoulder.
“Breakfast is almost ready. Sit down.”
A command. Not a request. Even at six in the morning, this guy was too much. “I didn’t think you’d do your own cooking.”
“I don’t normally, but I thought you’d want a show.”
I gave him a solid outrage-snort. “I’m not sure what you mean.”
“I mean, you’ve been standing there staring at me for the last two minutes.”
My cheeks turned red. A solid seven, and he hadn’t even said anything outrageous. “I was surprised to see you, is all.”
“Sit down.” He brandished the spatula like a weapon. “You look hungry.”
I didn’t know how a person could look hungry, and I was pretty sure I should be offended, but I listened and sat down anyway. He brought over coffee, which I instantly poured down my throat, because coffee, and leaned back with a sigh.
His apartment was surprisingly nice for an underground bunker. A lot had gone into making it seem homey and comfortable despite the lack of natural light and windows. The bulbs were all a warm yellow color, lending the whole place the feel of a high-end steak house, which was only magnified by all the natural woods and earth tones. The rugs were thick and looked Persian or something like that, and the couches and chairs were in black and brown leather.
Although I wanted to scan my surroundings and work out a plan of escape in case Roman turned out to be some kind of psychopath intent on skinning me alive or whatever, I couldn’t take my eyes off him.
There was something about the way he moved—confident, controlled, measured, like he was a gymnast on a balance beam making only the most optimal motions, all of it centered around a specific goal. Flipping eggs, making more coffee, putting the milk away. Concise, specific, like a choreographed routine. And the guy was only cooking. I had to wonder what he’d look like doing other things.
Like, uh, running. Or lifting weights, or fixing a car.
Not like running his fingers through my hair, his palms down my body, his mouth wrapped around one of my stiff, pink nipples.
He joined me at the table with half a slice of grapefruit and some weird green smoothie thing. I frowned at his plate.
“I didn’t take you for a healthy kind of guy.”
“You don’t look the way I do by magic.”
“I’m just saying, grapefruit? I hate grapefruit.’
“Can’t say I’m surprised.”
I arched an eyebrow. “I feel like I should be insulted.”
“Why do you dislike grapefruit so much?”
I waved a hand in the air. “It’s gross and bitter. I mean, a fruit that you have to add sugar to isn’t a fruit, it’s an abomination.”
“I don’t add sugar.”
“That’s even worse. And what’s in that drink?”
He sighed and rubbed his temples. “I didn’t invite you here to critique my eating habits.”
I let out a sharp breath and drummed my fingers on the table. “Sorry. When I get nervous, I start saying whatever comes into my head. It’s a really bad habit.”
“Must make you a lot of friends.”
“It really doesn’t. But then again, at least I don’t eat grapefruit. Seriously, who eats grapefruit? Psychopaths. I can’t trust a man that eats grapefruit.”
He took an exaggerated bite and chewed while staring into my eyes. I looked at his lips, his tongue, and oh my god, it was weirdly erotic.
I shut my mouth and stopped talking.
“Are you finished?”
“Yes. Mostly. Probably. I’m still nervous, so I might start—“
He held up a hand. I stopped talking.
“I need to talk to you about something.” He watched me very carefully as he took small, measured bites. He drank down some of the smoothie and tilted his head. “You’re staring at me like you’ve never seen another human being before.”
“You shot a guy in the head last night and now I’m staying in some secret underground bunker in Jersey City and I’ve got a closet full of designer clothes that happen to fit me, so I’m a little freaked out.”
Which was an understatement. I was extremely freaked out, and the near-death experience was the only thing keeping me going. I was running on fumes and adrenaline and pure fear and my extremely strange but incredible intense physical attraction to this man.
To this killer.
“I can see how you might be struggling.”
“How are all those clothes in my size, by the way?”
“Roza did some research. Plus I have a very good eye.”
“You know my size from looking at me?”
“More or less. Was I wrong?”
I tensed my jaw. “No. You were right. Why do you even have all that stuff? It’s like you expected me to come here at some point.”
He gave me a frustrated look, lips curled slightly. “Please, save your questions for the end.”
“This isn’t some lecture.”
“I know that, but I have something more important to talk to you about.”
“More important than the very creepy closet of clothes? And the fact that you just admitted to sizing me up? I’m not sure if I should be flattered or offended.”
“Flattered. I liked what I saw.”
My cheeks pinked immediately. A solid five. Not too bad.
“Alright fine. What od you want to ask me?”
He put his fork down and leaned toward me as I held my cup of coffee up like a shield.
“We need to talk about your family.”
I went very, very still.
My family.
I hadn’t mentioned my family. I don’t think about my family. I don’t talk about them.
I ran away from my family three years ago after the incident and I have no interest in going back.
“What about it?” I asked, doing my best to steady my voice, but the tremble was there.
“Why didn’t you tell me your father is a high ranking member of the MacKenna Family?”
I put my coffee cup down and a little sloshed over the side. I shoved my chair back and stood. “I should leave.”
“Cassie. Sit down.”
“No,” I said, heart suddenly racing. How the hell did he know that? What else did he know about me? Does he know what happened, what I did? My hands shook violently and I wrung them together and tried to hide the fact that I was losing it, completely and totally melting down.
I didn’t talk about the MacKenna Family.
I hated the MacKenna Family.
And I especially hated my father.
Damaged goods. You aren’t worth much to be now. Get yourself together.
The first words I heard on the day I was released from the hospital three years ago.
God, I hated him so much.
“Cassie.” My name was like a velvet whip on his tongue. Pleasure and pain. “Sit down. Don’t make me sat it again.”
“Or what? I’m not your employee. You don’t get to order me around.”
“No, maybe not. But if you don’t sit, I will come over there and punish you, and I promise the punishment will be both painful and confusing.”
“Painful and confusing?” I stared at him, my mouth hanging open. “What the hell does that mean?”
“It means that I’ll spank your ass until it’s as pink as your cheeks. And if that doesn’t work, I’ll tie you to your bed and tease every inch of your skin until you’re dripping wet and begging for an orgasm, but I promise you, my kukolka, I will not give you that release.”
He spoke the words in a steady monotone, like he was lecturing a classroom full of students. I gaped at him, body tingling, the heat between my legs pooling in a warm, wet frenzy. I felt my nipples stiffen—what the hell was wrong with me?—and I ran my tongue along my lower lip.
Spank my ass pink. Tie me up and torture me.
Maybe this man really was a psychopath.
Slowly, I lowered myself onto the chair.
Because I believed him. Even if it was crazy to threaten me with a spanking like I was some little girl, the grim and deadly serious glint in his eye suggested I shouldn’t press him.
That maybe he’d done it before and he’d do it again.
That maybe he was right and I really would like it.
But what scared me the most was how badly I wanted to find out.
“I’m not your kukolka, whatever that means. I’m not your anything. You’re just some guy that’s helping me out. Even if you are creepy and you have a closet full of clothes just waiting for me in your underground bunker. Is this where you take all your victims for their dismemberment? I bet you—“
“Cassie.” His voice was ice. “You’re doing it again.”
I stopped talking and glared at him.
He sighed and ran a hand through his hair. “Maybe I approached this the wrong way. If so, I apologize. But you don’t understand what’s happening. The fact that you’re related to the MacKenna Family matters, and I need to understand exactly how close you are with them.”
I chewed on that for a moment. I knew Roman was involved with the mafias, which meant he had dealings with the MacKennnas. I didn’t know how important my father was to the Family, but I did know that he’d been working his way up in the ranks, at least until the time I ran away. Since then, I had no clue, had no connection, had no dealings.
They were my past. And I hated my past.
I wanted to erase it all.
“I haven’t spoken to my father in three years. I left home and moved to Sea Isle, and I haven’t looked back.”
“Where was home?”
“Outside of Boston. We had a summer house in rural Maine.”
He tilted his head as if adding that little detail to an ever-expanding profile of me.
“Why did you leave?”
“Personal reasons.”
“This is important, Cassie. Why did you leave?”
I leaned closer and met his gaze. “I don’t care if you beat my ass with a paddle. My reasons are my own.”
That got another little smile. My heart almost leapt in my chest. “Alright then. You haven’t spoken to your father in three years. Has anyone from the MacKenna Family ever tried to contact you? Has your father?”
“The first week after I left, he called every day. He threatened to come bring me back. I haven’t heard a thing since and I don’t give a damn about any of them.” I sucked in a deep breath and blew it out, trying to keep my frustration under control, but it was difficult.
I worked hard to distance myself from those people. I knew the MacKenna family was deeply connected with drugs and politics and prostitution—I knew they were bad people. But I’d never really been in that world, and when it encroached in my own life, I got the hell out of there as soon as I could.
I knew what it meant for me if I stayed.
Mafia princess. Bought and sold. Arm candy for some high-ranking Don.
I didn’t want that. Couldn’t want it, not after what happened.
So I got the hell out.
“I believe you,” he said and lifted his weird green juice to his lips.
“I don’t care if you do or not. I’m telling the truth.”
“Do you know what your father’s been up to in the last three years since you left?”
“No, and I don’t want to know.”
“You’re not even a little curious.”
“Not even a little bit. And I’m not joking. I don’t want to hear anything else about him.”
He nodded slowly as if I just passed some kind of test. “Then I won’t go into details, but you should know that your father’s people have been pushing down past Boston for years now. They’ve been causing a lot of problems.”
“Sorry to hear it. My dad’s an asshole.”
“You have no idea.”
“Actually, I do. I ran away and hid out in Sea Isle for three years, remember?” I pushed my chair back and stood again. This time, I didn’t care how much he threatened me, I wasn’t having this conversation anymore.
Talking about my dad sent me back to that time, and I really, really didn’t want to go there. Bad enough that I had to endure a two-hour car ride. Bad enough I was stuck in his rich bachelor pad slash nuclear fallout bunker.
I wasn’t going to get sucked back into my old life. Not for anything.
Because every time I thought back to my dad and Boston, I remembered what happened to me, and I couldn’t handle it. I survived by avoiding and ignoring, by pushing it away and pretending like I was totally fine and noting bad happened.
I wasn’t going to let Roman ruin my years and years of avoidance.
But instead of commanding me around like a child, he stood up and drifted toward me. I backed away until I bumped up against the arm of a nearby couch.
He stopped inches in front of me, radiating command and control and an intense desire that made my chest seize.
“I hope you’re not lying to me,” he said, his voice a subtle whisper, low and throaty and gorgeous enough to send a little chill along my fingers. Even if he was calling my character into question. “Because if you are, I promise that your punishment will fit the crime.”
“What are you going to do? Ball gag me?”
“That’s a nice idea. I’ll have Roza order a few.”
“I was joking.”
“I’m not.” He leaned closer and ran one finger down my cheek, along my jaw, over my lower lip, then down my throat. I tried not to gasp for breath as the tingling he left in its wake threatened to send me descending into a fit of pure ecstasy.
All from one finger.
“I’m going to protect you Cassie. Even though I think you’re going to be a problem, I still don’t believe that you should be punished for who you are and what you happened to witness. But understand that if you’re not telling me the truth, that if you are still involved with your father and anyone else in the MacKenna family, I will find out and I will take action.”
“Take action. Like you took action last night?”
“No. I won’t kill you. But I will make you suffer in a very particular way.” He came closer. I wanted to scream, to shove him away. What the hell was wrong with this man?
Even his threat of torture sent a wave of longing through my core.
“I’m not interested in whatever serial killer games you like to play.”
His hand lingered against my hip. “I don’t play games. I’ll tease you, but it’s not a game to me.”
“Why don’t you just take me home if you don’t trust me? That’ll be easier for both of us.”
“Because I haven’t had my fill of you yet.”
I stared into his eyes then looked at his lips and god, his fill of me, his fill, like he was hungry and I was the real treat here, I was the meal, the dessert, the everything. I tilted my chin up and my lips opened and I wanted it, god I wanted it, as he came closer, his breath warm, his smell encompassing and intense and heady, and I was dizzy then he pressed his lips against mine, and dizzier still when I shoved myself hard against him and let his lips take mine.
His hands wrapped around my back and pressed me against his hard body.
My skin reacted like lightning, like I stuck my tongue in an electric socket. He nibbled my lower lip, teased my tongue, invaded my mouth. His kiss took me, even if I wanted to resist at the same time, if all my warning bells were ringing, the sirens screaming, every inch of me saying I should run, this man was a predator, a killer, and he just threatened to hurt me if I lied to him—
And I still returned that kiss with a shocking desire.
Shocking, because I hadn’t experienced anything like it in a long time.
I denied myself this pleasure. I was like a monk on a mountainside living a life of acetic religious fervor. I didn’t believe I could have physical pleasure anymore, not after that man—
The knife sliding across my belly and hot blood dripping from between my fingers as I screamed in agony—
The memory was a thunderbolt in my skull. I tried to pull away, but he wouldn’t let me. I was his, Roman’s thing, and he kept me pinned against him, his mouth moving on mine, his tongue teasing me back to life, that kiss, his taste, his arms, everything about him drawing me back from that horrible memory and into the present moment, into this kiss.
He took me like I was his to taste and it felt so good I nearly forgot who I was.
For one long moment, my past blanked out, all that anxiety and uncertainty, it disappeared, and there was only Roman.
He bit my lower lip hard before pulling back.
“What happened to you there?” he whispered, his forehead against mine. “You almost stopped me.”
“I’m sorry, I just—“ I closed my eyes. “I haven’t been intimate with anyone in a long time.”
“Intimate.” He moved back, tilted my chin up. I met his gaze.
It burned into me with a hot desire that made my feet go numb.
He said, “Is that what you think we are? Intimate?”
I shook my head, the barest of motion. “I don’t know what we are.”
“We haven’t begun to get intimate, my kukolka.”
“You keep using that word. What does it mean?”
A wicked smile. I was beginning to see that his grins meant both pleasure and pain for me. “Ask someone else.” And he released me then like he was ripping his hands from ice. “I have an appointment. I trust you can amuse yourself for a while?”
His harsh attitude knocked me back to earth—a little bit, at least.
“I think I can handle that.”
“Good. Don’t get into trouble. If a door’s locked then it’s off limits.” He turned and strode away. I watched him go and when he disappeared around a corner, I sank back onto a couch like I was melting into a lake.
What was wrong with that man?
And why the hell did I like it?
I thought it’d been a long time since I felt anything like that level of need and sinful want deep in my core—
But no, that wasn’t right.
I’d never, ever felt anything like it.
Not remotely close.
Not before that incident, and definitely not since.
Winter would be proud of me.
If I could even tell her.
I sighed, stretched like a cat, and wondered exactly how Roman would punish me if he knew that I told my best friend all about him.
