Happy Hump Day! I've been back at work on The Last Sin, which means you get another sneak preview of Marya and Luka's story. Hope you enjoy it!
He could almost hear Ivan's voice in his head, telling him to take proper care of his precious daughter. Even if he couldn't imagine that so well, the urge would still have been there. He liked to think he had that much decency left in him. “We can find somewhere to stop for a few hours if you want,” he said.
She turned to him with another of those brilliant smiles, brimming with gratitude. “Please. I'm starving and I need a shower.” She hugged herself, expression turning thoughtful. “It feels wrong to be worrying about such mundane things.”
He shook his head. “Not at all. It's the best thing to do. Don't dwell on the darkness, Masha. You escaped. You're safe.”
She bit her lip, a maddening gesture that always made him want to touch her. “The other girls...will they be okay, do you think?”
He hadn't thought about them for one second after he'd let them out. “They'll be fine.” There was no reason why they wouldn't be, after all. They weren't that far from Kraków. If any of them wanted to go the police, that was fine by Luka. None of them would be able to say a damn thing that would damage him or endanger Marya.
She nodded, turning to look out the window. “I hope so. I doubt any of them have a father to send men like you after them.”
She meant it as a compliment, but guilt stabbed at him again nonetheless. He realised suddenly how difficult it would be to be alone with her, to handle her gratitude towards him. He'd never been alone with her before at all. He'd never even sat this close to her. For all his lustful thoughts – and there were so, so many – he'd never had his self-control tested.
And she, of course, had always been as cold as an ice carving. Not just to him, but all her father's men, because she was simply so far above them all in every way that mattered. Ivan had her cordoned off, waiting for marriage to some Bratva prince one day. She was never rude, never anything less than gracious to any of her father's men, but everyone knew she was off-limits. She was not for them, not in any way.
And now they were alone together, and the way she looked at him, the way she smiled, threatened to break every rule Luka knew, every rule he had.
He wondered if she knew how dangerous she was.
