10 Days to Ruin (Ozerov Bratva Book 1)
10 Days to Ruin: Chapter 21

Why am I not surprised?

Sasha’s text last night was a masterpiece in brevity. Noon tomorrow, plus a location pin. Someone ought to teach him how to form complete sentences one of these days.

I guess, technically speaking, this would count as one of our ten dates until death mercifully parts us, or whatever. As far as I’m concerned, it’s nothing but a new battlefield for the same old war to continue.

What’s worrying is that I’m less certain of my tactics than ever.

Yesterday’s intrusion at his office was supposed to be my big offensive. It was supposed to put him in his place and change the tide of this whole shebang.

For a while, it did.

But then he showed up at my apartment. Even if he hadn’t interrupted me mid-personal-time, it still would’ve felt like a changing of the guard. Like the terms of engagement had gotten completely flipped on their head.

Between Zoya, the restaurant, those whispered alleyway confessions as our clouded breath mingled in the winter air… Somewhere in the middle of all that, things shifted.

What things?

I’m not sure.

Where does that leave us?

Fuck if I know.

What comes next?

I guess I’ll replace out today at noon.

Sasha chose today’s venue—an underground bathhouse hidden beneath a Tribeca art gallery—so of course it’s all black marble and gold faucets and servers who float around like ballet dancers on ketamine. The kind of place that names its massage oils after the seven deadly sins and charges you five hundred bucks to whisper gluttony while rubbing juniper berries on your lower back.

I wish I could bring myself to hate it more than I do.

His assistant had emailed me a set of instructions after his so-blunt-it-could-barely-be-called-a-text message. Mr. Ozerov requests that you bring a swimsuit, she wrote.

Do I love being dressed from afar like a Barbie doll? No. No, I do not.

But did I listen? Sure did. In a manner of speaking.

Meaning I brought a bikini that makes dental floss look thicc.

And at the first opportunity, I intend to lose said bikini. Because fighting fair is for losers, and this is one fight I absolutely have to win.

“You’re late,” Sasha says when I stride into the dimly lit lounge. He’s draped across a chaise, shirt already unbuttoned to reveal a slice of scarred chest, covered in wavering shadows cast by the actual, literal torch flickering in the sconce over his head. His blue eyes follow every step I take.

I drop my tote bag on the floor with a thunk loud enough to make the attendant wince. “You said noon. It’s noon.”

“It’s 12:07.”

“Close enough.” I flop onto the adjacent chaise, letting my coat fall open just enough to flash the scandalous slash of spandex beneath. His gaze dips. Lingers.

I pretend not to notice.

A server materializes with two frosted glasses of cucumber water. Sasha takes his without looking. “Where’s your swimsuit, ptichka?”

“You’re looking at it.” I cross my legs, letting the coat ride up to show that there’s as much not-there on the bottom half as there is on the top.

He takes a slow sip. Ice clinks in his glass. “That’s not a swimsuit. That’s a health code violation.”

“So arrest me, officer.”

His jaw twitches.

We’re off to a good start.

The attendant—a nervous twig of a man who introduces himself as Emil—emerges and ferries us back through a labyrinth of soaking pools and cedar saunas before landing at a private suite.

In here, the air is thick with eucalyptus, the walls shimmering with condensation. A single massage table dominates the center of the room, flanked by shelves of oils and salts and who the hell knows what else.

Emil starts babbling about hot stone therapy. “When we begin the treatment, you’ll see how⁠—”

“There will be no treatment today.”

Emil and I both look at Sasha in utter confusion. “P-pardon, sir?” stammers the poor man.

Sasha answers him, but he’s looking at me the whole time. “We don’t need a masseuse. I’ll handle this myself.”

Then he ushers Emil out in a way that’s both polite and undeniable at the same time. How he manages that little balancing act is a mystery to me, because I’m still gawking back and forth between the swiftly closing door and the lone massage table and all the implications resting upon it.

Then the door clicks shut.

And those implications start to feel very, very real.

I arch a brow as I try to hide my nervous gulp. “Handling it yourself, huh? Planning to drown me in mineral water?”

“Planning to see how long you last before begging.” Sasha shrugs off his shirt. His scars are harsh in this light—ridges of ruined flesh carving highways across his shoulders, his abdomen, the serrated noose mark around his throat. A lifetime of violence etched into his skin.

My mouth goes dry.

He catches me staring. “See something you like?”

Blushing, I turn away. “Wouldn’t you like to know?”

He plucks a glass jar of cream off the shelf and saunters closer to me. “Turn around.”

“Excuse me?”

“You need protection from the steam.” His voice drops. “Unless you’d prefer to burn…?”

Challenge flares in my veins. I shrug off my coat and let it pool at my feet.

His exhale is audible.

The bikini must be worse than he imagined—black lace triangles held together by fishing line and audacity. This moment is worse than I imagined, too. Even when I was putting it on in my apartment this morning, I was humming with anxious energy. I told myself it was all in the art of the tease. Show him what he can’t have. Plant my flag in the ground.

Now, that plan feels flimsy and distant.

What’s not so distant?

Sasha.

He’s here and he’s huge and he’s looking right at me, waiting to see what I’ll do next. Will I roll over and heel like the good little pet he wants me to be? Will I submit?

For a moment, I consider it. Maybe all this fighting is stupid. Maybe I should just give Sasha what he wants, give my dad what he wants. God knows it’d be less effort. Less headache and heartbreak.

Then I think four little words to myself:

What would Jasmine do?

And I have my answer.

I pivot in place and toss my hair over one shoulder. “I’m waiting, Lotion Boy.”

For a second, I think he’ll refuse. Then he dips two fingers into the jar, the cream glistening like liquid pearl.

“Get on the table.”

Gulp again.

I climb up. The leather is soft and cool against my thighs. His shadow falls over me as he straddles the edge, his body heat every bit as hot as the steam billowing through the ceiling vents.

The first swipe of his fingers nearly undoes me. “Jesus!” I gasp.

“Close, but not quite.”

The lotion’s cold, but his hands are furnace-hot. He starts at my shoulders, kneading knots I didn’t know I had, thumbs digging into the hollows of my collarbones. Every stroke is precise. Clinical. Infuriating.

I bite my lip to stifle a moan.

“Too much?” he purrs.

“Barely felt it,” I lie.

His palms slide down my spine. Slow. Torturous. “Your body disagrees.”

He’s right—my skin’s singing, nerve endings sparking under his touch. His fingers skate the edge of my bikini bottom, deliberately avoiding the cleft of my ass.

More teasing. More taunting.

I bury my face in the table’s headrest. Do not arch. Do not whimper. Do not⁠—

His thumb circles the dimple above my tailbone.

“Sasha.”

“Yes?” He says it all innocently. As if he isn’t turning me into molten glass.

“Your technique sucks.”

He chuckles, low and dark. “Still lying, I see.”

The lotion eventually warms between his palms as he works my thighs. Higher. Higher. My breath hitches when his pinky brushes the knot at my hip. It’d be so terribly easy for him to undo it. Who knows if I’d even stop him? Maybe I’d let him undo it, undo me, undo this whole silly war I’m waging. It’d be a helluva lot easier than wearing myself to the bone trying to fight the inevitable.

Then he pulls back. “Your turn.”

I jump to my feet so fast the room spins. “Come again?”

He holds out the jar. “Repayment.”

Hell no. “I don’t do back rubs.”

“You do today.” He stretches out on the table face up, all carved muscle and menace. The scars ripple as he folds his arms beneath his head. “But if you’re scared, I understand.”

The dare hangs between us.

Pride cometh before the fall, I think, scooping a dollop of cream. But at least the road to hell will be well-moisturized.

His skin is fire under my palms. I start at his shoulders, mimicking his detached technique. But with every flex of his muscles, every stifled groan, my resolve unravels a little bit farther.

My palms glide over Sasha’s shoulders, the lotion turning his torso slick. Every ridge of muscle becomes a chance to lose whatever game we’ve found ourselves playing. I have to remind myself of the rules again and again.

Don’t linger. Don’t cave.

Make him hate you. Make him run.

“Harder,” he rasps. “Or can those dainty hands not manage?”

I claw my nails in. “How’s that?”

A low groan vibrates under my fingers. “Much, much better. A little pain makes the pleasure that much sweeter, doesn’t it?”

Sweat beads at my temples. The steam coils around us, thickening the air until every breath feels like swallowing clouds. His scars gleam under my touch—raised, angry terrain. My fingertips hover over the one circling his neck before I pull away, ashamed.

I go back to the massage, and as I do, I try to make it a mechanical thing. I could be rubbing anything, right? Conditioning a leather couch, for instance. Bathing a dog. Completely non-sexual. No reason to get all hot and bothered.

Except, of course, for the literal heat. Sasha’s heat, the steam’s heat, my own heat bubbling up from somewhere deep between my thighs.

More heat blooms where my hand has found its way to splay across the bottom line of his abs. I watch in dumb shock as it goes lower. Lower. Low⁠—

Nope, too low.

I try to wrench free, but he holds firm, guiding me over the swell of his⁠—

“Sasha!”

“You’re straying a little off the beaten path, Ariel.” His eyes are bright, even as his face is framed by billowing steam. “A less humble man might even think you’re after something.”

I let out a derisive snort. “Putting yourself in the same sentence as ‘humble’ might be the most batshit thing you’ve done yet.”

His other hand drifts to cup the back of my knee. “Oh, I’ve got lots more insanity you’ve never seen before.”

“Keep it to yourself,” I grit out. “Roll over.”

Smirking, he does as I say. That’s perfect—him facing away from me makes this easier. If I can’t see his eyes, I can’t be hypnotized by them, right?

But the fact that Sasha Ozerov just actually obeyed an instruction of mine immediately sends me hurtling back toward the fantasy I dreamed up in those feverish few minutes after the office invasion.

Keep those hands right there. Yes, that’s a good boy. Right there, where I can see them and make sure you’re not being naughty.

A full-body shiver commences.

It’s not that I want to boss him around; if I had my way, there’d be thousands of miles between us, and I wouldn’t give a damn about what he chose to do with his hands.

But there’s something intoxicating about the idea. About him letting me be in charge.

Maybe it’s because, percolating underneath the addictive high of that power fantasy, is the knowledge that it could end at any time. That if he wanted, he could rise up from the massage table, and snap.

Could go fucking feral.

Could pin me down and make me his and remind me that, at the end of the day, only one of us has ever truly held the upper hand.

And it’s never, ever been me.

“Tell me about your first time.”

His voice rips me out of my own head. “My what?”

“The first time you came undone.” I look up to see he’s still face-down, utterly at ease. Moisture beads in the crevice of his spine, pooling at each notch in the bone. “Was it alone or with someone? Quick and shameful? Or slow like sacrilege?”

“That’s a little improper to ask a lady,” I fumble.

“Only if that lady’s scared of the truth.” Sasha’s hand, lolling off the table, grazes the inside of my ankle when I pass by.

I grimace as I dig an elbow into Sasha’s lower back. I want a whimper of pain, but all I get is a contented sigh. “I was nineteen,” I whisper. “Freshman year of college. There was a T.A. in my journalism ethics lecture with nice eyes. He kissed me in the library stacks and… Yeah. Kinda unfolded from there.”

His palm hooks around my ankle and pulses, just once. “Was it everything you dreamed of?”

I consider lying. Men like Sasha are built one way: jealous. And wouldn’t getting him riled up over the thought of this T.A. making me see stars be worth it? Wouldn’t that get me where I want to go? Handled merchandise—surely he’d despise that kind of thing. He’d want a virginal bride who’s never so much as locked eyes with a man before.

But he’d know.

He’d know I’m full of shit.

He’d know that Danny Moreno kissed nice but didn’t know what he was doing with his fingers, and that I ended up walking out of those library stacks with a cramp and a headache and nothing even remotely close to a climax.

“No,” I say shortly. “It wasn’t.”

“Mm.” He’s quiet for a moment. Then: “Did you hate yourself afterward?”

“Nope. I save all my hate for you,” I retort. “Your turn. First time you killed a man.”

His answer is immediate. “Twenty-two. Back alley in Grozny. Chechen smuggler, ventured too far onto our turf. I put the pistol right here—” He grabs my hand and guides it to the back of his head, where my fingers instinctively clutch the thicket of hair.

“And… bam?” I guess. “No more Mr. Smuggler?”

Sasha shakes his head. “It jammed. I used a broken bottle instead.”

“Jesus.” I shiver. “Do you regret it?”

“That’s two questions. My turn again. How old were you the first time you came?”

“Thirteen. Who was the first girl you took to bed?”

“Marta. My father hired her for me. She taught me how to use my teeth properly.” He turns his head to eye me. “She cried when I left Moscow.”

“Adorable. Why don’t you marry her instead?”

Sasha’s hand darts out to loop around my waist and tether me close to the table. Slowly, slowly, he sits up, until we’re eye-to-eye. “Because you are the only one I want.”

He’s iron around my hips, but even if I could leave, I’m not sure I would. Not when he’s this close, when the steam is lassoed around us, when all these secrets feel like they can finally take their first breath of air in a long, long time.

“You don’t want me. Not in any way that matters.”

“Wrong. I want you in the only way that matters: utterly, completely, and permanently.”

His face is still, eyes level, breath calm. But this close, I catch something I don’t think he ever intended to show me: the faintest tremor in his hands.

He’s not as in control as he pretends to be.

Something about that realization makes me salivate. I’m not the only one teetering some razor’s edge between What the fuck is happening and Why not let it?

But the danger remains because Sasha is a hell of a lot more comfortable walking this tightrope than I am. Utterly. Completely. Permanently. Who can say things like that with a straight face? Who can lie like that?

Because it has to be a lie, doesn’t it? Sasha doesn’t want ME; he wants what I bring him. He doesn’t want me; he wants what he can use me for.

He doesn’t want me.

He can’t want me.

He’ll never want me.

“Your thoughts are deafening, Ariel.” He reaches up to toy with a sweat-soaked lock of hair that’s fallen over my face. He twists it in his fingers, then tucks it back up where it belongs.

I fumble for a bluff. “Just thinking of all the ways you’re full of shit.”

He laughs. “I’m an open book in every way that matters.”

I laugh right back at him, because that’s the biggest crock of shit I’ve ever heard. “You? ‘Open’? All you do is hide, Sasha. You’re literally a professional.”

He rises from the table, brushing against me as he stands. “Maybe you’re right. Fair is fair. I won’t hide anything from you anymore.”

He hooks his thumbs into the waistband of his swim trunks.

“Hold on⁠—”

Too late. The trunks hit the floor.

My brain whites out.

He’s… crafted. All hard lines and wicked intent. Michelangelo’s dirtiest secret. My knees threaten mutiny.

And he’s not even one percent shy of his nakedness. I keep my gaze far above the equator because that way lies temptation, and I’ve got plenty to deal with up top anyhow.

Sasha steps closer. I retreat. Closer. I retreat. “You’re sweating.”

“It’s a sauna. We’re literally in hell.”

“Close enough for the difference not to matter,” he agrees. He palms my waist, picks me up, and switches positions, so now, I’m hemmed in against the massage table by a naked, six-five giant.

“The real hell,” he rasps, “is you pretending you don’t want me as much as I want you.”

Our mouths hover centimeters apart. “I don’t⁠—”

“One day, you’ll learn to stop lying.”

“I’m not⁠—”

“No? Then why are you dripping for me, hm?”

I try to stop him again, but I’m too slow and too half-hearted and he’s too much for me in all the important ways. His fingers are deft as they pluck the knots at the side of my bikini bottoms in one go.

My dental floss armor goes slithering to the floor.

Sasha leans in, his knee knocking mine apart, and his palm comes to cup my center. He peels it away a moment later and, without looking away from me, licks the heel of his hand.

“Tastes like the truth,” he growls.

All I can do is whimper.

His hand returns to where I need it so fucking badly. He parts me, one thick finger sliding past the last resistance I have to offer. I reach out to grasp his shoulders for balance.

Slowly, still staring straight into my soul, Sasha pushes me onto the massage table, laying me out on my back. His hand is a slow pulse inside my throbbing pussy.

“Still hate me?” he growls down from where he towers above me.

“Yes.” My nails score the underside of his wrist. “Despise you.”

“Good.” He adds a second finger. “Hate me louder.”

“I h-ha… h-hate…”

“What’s that? I can’t hear you.”

Something is building inside of me. Pressure condensing, heat rising, light coalescing like a Big Bang getting ready to birth whole new universes.

Sasha bends down. “Say it right to me, princess,” he orders. “I want you to come with a curse on your lips.”

I try. I swear to God I do. “F-f-fu—” But it won’t work right; nothing will; nothing but Sasha’s fingers spreading me open while my spine arches toward the ceiling. Fluttery mewls pour out of me, one on the heels of the next.

Sasha keeps going. He’s panting, too. “Seven days left,” he murmurs, lips grazing my ear. “That’s what you wanted. But you’re already halfway there, aren’t you?”

“Go to hell⁠—”

He bends down to ravage my mouth and swallow the curse, kissing me until the room spins. One hand fists my hair, angling my head to deepen the contact. The other pumps into me. Every atom in my body screams as I charge toward a breaking point that might just kill me.

Ploy backfiring in 3… 2…

A gong reverberates through the room.

Sasha freezes. So do I.

Emil’s muffled voice floats through the door. “Mr. Ozerov? The next stage of your session is ready.”

You cannot be serious. Inwardly, I’m not sure if I should be laughing, crying, sobbing, or shouting for joy.

Outwardly, my manic laugh echoes off the tiles. I sound giddy, insane. “Saved by the bell. Literally.”

Sasha rests his forehead against mine, grip tightening on my hips. The war in his eyes mirrors the one in my chest—need versus control, fire versus ice.

“This isn’t over,” he vows.

“Feels pretty over from where I’m standing, er— Lying. Whatever.”

His growl flays me raw as he steps back. “Keep telling yourself that. We’ll see who believes it first.”

He scoops my bikini up from the floor and drops it in my lap. Then he turns and strides out, shrugging into one of the waiting bathrobes as he goes.

The door slam reverberates down to my bones.

Alone, I sit up, knees hugged to my chest. The ghost of his hands brands my skin and my insides are moaning from the lack of release.

You’re already halfway there, he accused. He was part right, part wrong. It’s only day three—we still have a long way to go.

But my body’s made a leap.

The rest of me wants so badly to follow.