Chapter 2: The Whores' Claim
The world narrowed to the heat of her mouth, the surprising softness of her lips against his own, the faint taste of ale and something sharper, like mint. Leonid’s hand, still cupping her face, felt the rapid flutter of her pulse beneath his thumb. His other arm around her waist held her firmly against the sudden, insistent hardness growing beneath his uniform trousers. For a few seconds, there was only this—a silent, raging battle of lips and tongue that was more intimate than any fuck he’d ever paid for.
Then the outside world bled back in, not as sound, but as touch.
A hand, cool and slender, brushed over his shoulder. Another trailed fingers through the short hair at the nape of his neck. The scent of cheap perfume, cloying and sweet, cut through Jennie’s jasmine and the pub’s musk.
He broke the kiss, but didn’t release her. His eyes, dark and focused, lifted from Jennie’s flushed face to the periphery of the booth.
They had drawn a crowd. Not the roaring, stomping crowd from before, but something sly and opportunistic. Three of the Anchor’s other girls had slithered over, their smiles practiced and empty. One, a redhead with bored eyes, leaned her hips against the table’s edge, her bodice gaping purposefully. “Looks like you’ve got a handful there, soldier,” she purred, her gaze dipping to where Leonid’s body met Jennie’s. “We can offer you… a quieter table. More privacy for whatever you need.”
Another, her hand still on his shoulder, kneaded the muscle there. “She’s all fire, that one. We know how to be… accommodating.”
Jennie stiffened in his lap. The dazed heat in her eyes evaporated, replaced by a flash of pure, undiluted rage. She tried to twist, to face them, but Leonid’s arm was an iron bar.
“Get your hands off him,” she snarled, the sound low and vicious, like a cat spitting. “Find your own corner to lurk in.”
The redhead’s smile turned knife-sharp. “Or what, little girl? You’ll serve us drinks?”
A ripple of tense laughter from the small circle. Leonid felt it then—the shift. This wasn’t just jealousy; it was a challenge to the precarious order he’d just established. They saw a soldier, coin in his pocket, a pretty thing on his lap, and they moved in like scavengers sensing a moment of weakness. They saw distraction.
He hated distraction.
His movement was subtle. He didn’t shove the girls away. He simply turned his head, just enough, and his eyes—the eyes that had stared down cavalry charges and held steady while setting a bone on a battlefield—landed on the redhead first, then the others. There was no anger in his gaze. It was colder. It was final.
His voice, when it came, was a quiet graveled thing that somehow cut through the pub’s noise and silenced the women instantly.
“She is mine.”
The words weren’t a shout. They were a statement of fact, simple and absolute. He felt Jennie’s sharp inhale, the way her body went perfectly still against him.
“Now,” he continued, the single syllable dropping like a stone. “Leave us.”
The redhead’s painted smile vanished. The hand on his shoulder withdrew as if burned. There was a violence in his calm, a promise of something unspoken and brutal that their streetwise instincts recognized instantly. They retreated, melting back into the crowd without another word, shooting glances over their shoulders that were now filled with wary fear, not invitation.
The space around the booth cleared again. The fiddle played on, but the spotlight had moved. They were just another shadowed couple in a corner.
Leonid looked back down at Jennie. Her fury was still there, simmering, but it was mixed now with a stunned confusion. And beneath that, something else—a dark, thrilling satisfaction.
“You don’t own me,” she breathed, but the protest was weak, automatic. Her fingers, still curled against his neck, didn’t pull away.
“No,” he agreed, his thumb stroking once, slowly, over the line of her jaw. A possessive gesture he didn’t remember deciding to make. “But I am not sharing.”
She searched his face, her chest rising and falling rapidly against his. The defiance was trying to rekindle, but it was guttering. “You pulled me off my table. You ruined my fun.”
“You were about to be pulled off that table by someone who wouldn’t have stopped there,” he said, the truth blunt and unadorned. “This was safer.”
“I can handle myself.”
“I saw.” His lips almost curved. Not a smile, but the ghost of one. “You handle yourself by starting fires. I end them.”
A long moment passed. The noise of the pub seemed to cushion them, a blanket of sound granting a strange privacy. The tension between their bodies hadn’t lessened; it had changed, condensing into something heavier, more specific.
“Your friends are staring,” she said finally, nodding subtly toward the bar where Misha and Petro were watching with frank, amused curiosity.
“They are not my friends. They are my unit.” He didn’t bother to look. “And they know better than to interfere.”
He shifted then, the movement causing her to settle more firmly against his aching erection. A small, choked sound escaped her throat. Her eyes widened, the reality of their position, of his physical reaction to her, finally overriding everything else. She wasn’t frightened. She was fascinated.
Leonid made a decision. This was a distraction. A profound, dangerous, all-consuming distraction. And for the first time in his remembered life, he was going to pursue it.
In one smooth motion, he moved her from his lap to the bench beside him, his body blocking her in against the wall. He stood up, a tall, solid figure momentarily casting their booth into deeper shadow. He threw a few coins on the table, far more than the whiskey was worth.
“Come with me,” he said. It wasn’t a question.
Her feline eyes glittered up at him from the shadows. The chaos in them was settling into a single, sharp point of intent. “Or what? You’ll drag me?”
He leaned down, bracing one hand on the table beside her head, bringing his face close to hers. He could see the rapid beat of her heart in the hollow of her throat. “Yes.”
A slow, real smile touched her lips then—a wicked, knowing thing. Without a word, she slid out from the bench, her small hand finding his. Her grip was surprisingly strong.
He led her through the press of bodies, ignoring the calls from his unit, the stares. She followed, a step behind, her head high. They didn’t speak as he pushed the heavy door open, letting in a blast of cold, salt-tinged air that smelled of the sea and freedom.
Outside, the cobbled street was slick with mist, the gas lamps making halos in the gloom. He stopped, turning to look at her. Her hair was a mess, her lips swollen from his kiss, her eyes reflecting the lamplight like a wild thing’s.
He had no plan. No safe house. Only the imperative to get her away from the noise, the eyes, the everything. To some place where the only sound would be the two of them, and the only battle would be the one they started themselves.
“Where?” she asked, her voice small in the vast, damp night.
Leonid just tightened his grip on her hand and started walking, pulling her into the darkness beyond the reach of the Anchor’s flickering sign. The answer, for now, was simply away.