MadetoBeBroken by Lyra Byrnes Read Free Book Online Page A

and glowering at her with those strange, brown-gold
eyes.
    “ Sooka !” he spat.
    “I’ll assume that’s not the Russian word for ‘sweetheart’,”
she replied, munching the apple.
    “You shot me.”
    Coco approached the prisoner, humming again. Delicately she
wrapped her free hand around his neck and positioned her thumb over his Adam’s
apple. The look in his eyes—pure rage—gave her great pleasure.
    “We are not in the same business, Alexi, but we share some
of the same tricks, don’t we? Like this little number.” She pressed her thumb
on the nerve bundle at his throat, eliciting a satisfying groan of pain. Her
thumb dug into the flesh, feeling the ridge of his larynx. He made an awful
gargling sound.
    “Does that hurt? It sure hurt the fuck out of me when you
did it. Then again, you didn’t take your time while trying to choke me to
death. Lucky for you, I’m patient.”
    As swift as a cobra, his head dipped and he clamped his
teeth on the tender web between her thumb and forefinger. Coco cried out in
pain and shock. Before she could jerk her arm back, her thumb slid into his
mouth.
    She wanted to pull away, to wrest back control of the
situation, but her hand felt numb, as if it wasn’t attached to her body. Her
mouth hung open and she forgot to breathe as Alexi sucked on her thumb then
moved to her next two fingers, running his tongue across her skin, sucking
gently, eyes locked on hers. His mouth was warm and wet and his scent rose into
her nostrils—tobacco, leather, sweat and autumn leaves.
    She jerked her hand away.
    “What the hell are you doing?”
    “Your skin is so white, like cream. I wanted to taste you.”
    She stepped back, out of reach from his head. “You won’t be
trying that again.”
    “Not until you beg me to, krahsniy .”
    “Funny. There’s a whole closet full of restraints that says different.”
    His eyebrows managed a weak elevation. “Is there? Is what
you like, little bird?”
    “I ask the questions here.” She retrieved a knife from her
purse and knelt before him.
    “Is good position, agent,” she heard him chuckle. “Stay down
and I tell you everything.”
    Once she’d cut the denim off, the wound appeared mid-thigh,
nowhere near the femoral artery or the bone, but there was a lot of blood, both
crusted and tacky, to clean. Alexi did not flinch when, none too gently, she
began to wipe it off with a wet towel.
    “Your superior wants me alive,” he said.
    Ugh, so he did know. And double ugh that technically,
Templeton was her boss for this mission. How he must be relishing the tin-can
operation he’d given her. She grunted around the roll of tape between her
teeth. “I don’t have a superior.”
    Coco sat back on her heels. The gauze looked tidy, only a
little blood was seeping through. She couldn’t help thinking that such a
magnificent male specimen deserved better than to be strung up like this,
unless it was at his request for his own pleasure and that of a swarm of supple
females.
    It wasn’t often she encountered an enemy who behaved like a
human being, with all the kaleidoscopic shades of humanity on display. Usually
she was assigned to a frustrating negotiation in an airless room or stifling
tent, or told to aim very carefully at the eye and disappear without leaving a
trail. Some had been intelligent, some even amusing or hospitable, but without
exception, the men she had dealt with were loathsome creatures who toiled in
fields of poison flowers—egomaniacal, destructive and as willing to put a
bullet in her head as she was in theirs. No one had ever sat in front of a
painting with her and talked about home. And none had ever invaded her dreams.
She willed her eyes away from his crotch.
    “Is a dream for me, you know.”
    She looked up sharply. “What?”
    “Just last night I picked up trashy girl, red hair like you.
She sucked my dick—terrible, how you say, method?”
    “Technique,” she said automatically.
    “And now you are here on