“It’s different,” I whisper.
“No. When I look at you, I see the person, not just the adornment, and you are beautiful, Ruby, beautiful inside and out.” Stroking my stomach, he kisses my forehead. “This doesn’t change anything. I want you to be my wife, and not just because the boss said so, but because you’re the one I want.”
“I don’t know if I can.” I know that I want him, but what if I panic when we’re in bed together?
“You think too much, sweet. Just let me do the thinking and you just feel.” With those words, he suddenly places a hand under my knees and the other behind my shoulders as he lifts me against his chest. Gasping in surprise at the sudden movement, he quietens me with his lips on mine. I can feel him walking, and I know we are moving towards the bedrooms, but instead of panicking, I block all thought and do as he suggested by just giving in to the feeling of his kisses, of his touch.
When he finally lowers me onto the bed, I can feel my nipples are tense with wanting his touch, something which excites me at the way my body is reacting to his touch, to his kisses. After what happened I never thought I would want anyone in this way ever again, but now I’m laying here panting in excitement for his touch.
“I want you, Ruby. Just you will do.”
My heart lurches in joy. When his lips lower to my neck and his fingers start to pull up my shirt, I give myself to the feeling of warmth that is engulfing me instead of the thoughts that are trying to break through the haze.
This is Dimitri, the man who has protected me at every turn since the minute he met me. The man who has accepted everything that has happened to me and still wants to try. I know it’s not fair on him, that I should follow through with my plan and leave, but knowing Dimitri just from the time that I have been with him, I know he would come after me and turn over everything in his way until he found me. We have been put together in the most bizarre way, but I think, to both of our surprise, we have drawn close to each other, and from my side, I can’t see myself without this man who is now kissing me so gently.
He lifts my arms over my head and discards my shirt. I want to draw my arms down and cover myself, but I know that now more than ever, I need to give in to this and allow Dimitri to see all my flaws, allow myself to be seen by someone else. It is time to stop hiding and start accepting my situation.
My bra is now off, and I feel his warm fingers stroking my nipples, which has me murmuring in pleasure. My eyes open to clash with his intense look of passion. If I had any doubts that this man wanted me, his possessive, intense look disabuses me of that notion. His fingers continue their ministrations, building the passion within me. He lowers his head, and I see his lips take one of my nipples into his mouth, and then I feel the warmth run through my body, heating me up like nothing else ever has.
“Oh,” I murmur, and place my hand over his head, holding his head close so that he can continue with this sweet torture. When I start to writhe in pleasure, his lips lower to my stomach, kissing his way down. I tense when he first touches my scars with his lips, but then force myself to relax. His eyes are on my face as he continues to kiss every inch of me.
“You are beautiful, Ruby. Never doubt that,” he murmurs, his voice a deep seductive timbre that runs over me like silk, giving me goose bumps. This man has the power to draw a reaction from me with his words alone. When adding his touch, his look, his kisses, I am completely lost to the world he is building around me.
I don’t know how long he kisses my naval, my breasts, my neck when he sits back and pulls his T-shirt off, showing me his perfect body. Contrary to what I thought, he doesn’t have many tattoos, but the ones he does have compliment his body to perfection. His muscular torso confirms the strength that I have felt from him before. His biceps ripple as he moves his hands once again over my body until his fingers are at the button to my jeans. I can feel myself starting to tense at what I know is going to happen next, but I force myself to try to relax.
When he starts to pull my jeans down my legs, my panties also lowering, I feel an overwhelming sense of nervousness starting to freeze my muscles, my breathing racing. I know I’m going to start hyperventilating soon, and Dimitri will be upset and leave.
“Ruby.” I hear his voice as if from a tunnel far away. “Ruby, look at me.” His voice is low and gentle but with an unmistakable order in it. When my eyes focus on his, I see the kindness, the passion on his face. I know this man will not hurt me, that he will stop if I ask him to, but I don’t want him to stop. I want him to make me feel like a woman, like a desirable woman.
“Don’t stop,” I say, and he frowns. “Please, Dimitri, don’t stop.”
“Fine, I won’t stop, but if at any time you want me to, just tell me. Ruby, I don’t want you to push yourself and make this unpleasant.”
I nod in reply, as my throat is clogged with tears. He slides off the bed and divests himself of the rest of his clothes. My brain goes numb when my eyes start to travel over his body.
His chest is strong and covered with a light fluff of hair that tappers down to his erect manhood, which is pulsing with passion. My fingers start to tingle with anticipation in stroking his body, kissing his lips once again until I can’t think of anything else except for him. I know he is giving me time to calm down, time to adapt to his presence.
“Kiss me,” I say, which has him on the bed once again, his hand stroking up my arm as he leans forward and takes my lips in a blistering kiss that has my mind exploding with passion.
He continues to kiss me, his hands running up and down my body, distracting me until I feel him entering my body. My first reaction is to tense at the invasion, but he is being so gentle that I soon start to relax. His movements are slow but mind blowing. I can feel the tide building in my body. I have never felt this out-of-body experience as I feel now as I pinnacle on the edge, and then with one last thrust, as I hear him groan, I am tossed over the edge and into an ocean of rushing tide of emotions.
My breathing is still ragged as I feel him kissing my face, my neck, his breath warm as it flows over my skin.
“Are you okay?” he murmurs against my ear, his lips nibbling just behind my ear, shooting a gush of sensations to my nipples that are sensitive from his ministrations. I can feel him still deep within me. My husband has brought me back from a place of darkness. A place I thought I would never come back from, a place in which I couldn’t see a return. Now as I open my eyes and see his handsome face, I once again have hope. Hope that I can have a semblance of a normal life.
“I’m better than I have been in a long time,” I say, and see the smile that lights up his face. I feel I finally got someone who sees me for who I am and not just for looks, but there is still something I need to tell him, and I don’t know how to do it.
DIMITRI 13
It has been a week since I first made love to Ruby, and ever since then, she has been the only thing on my mind. I don’t know what she has done to me, but she has taken over every fibre of my being. When I’m with her, I just want to touch her, and when I’m away from her, I just want to be with her.
“Are you daydreaming again?” My thoughts come to a standstill when I hear Vlad’s teasing voice.
“Don’t know what you are talking about. I was thinking,” I state, which has him throwing back his head and laughing.
“Sure you were. Depends on what you were thinking,” he quips. “Because with the silly look on your face, you could only be thinking about one thing.” With that, he winks and turns to leave. Vlad has been checking up on me ever since the day we fought. He tries not to make it obvious, but I can tell what he’s up to.
“What does that say about you? Seems like you have sex in abundance on your mind,” I tease, knowing that Vlad has his share of women. As a fighter, he has a fan club after him at every fight. The men like to tease him about it, especially as he doesn’t really keep a woman for long.
“Yep, takes one to know one,” he says with a laugh, and is about to continue on hi
s way, when he receives a call. “Da,” he answers, and stops. “Fuck, I’m coming down.” He looks over his shoulder as he starts to walk again. “There are fucking cops downstairs, and they have a warrant.”
AI place my gun behind my back in the waistband of my slacks and follow him. “What the fuck are they looking for?” I ask, hoping none of the men have anything illegal that the cops can pick up on. “What is the warrant for? Who are they investigating?”
“The whole damn building.” The lift door opens to the garage, and we come into what can only be considered a volatile situation. Our men are standing like a barrier, preventing the cops from reaching the stairs or the lift. “Good thing Alexei left yesterday for the week, or he wouldn’t be happy,” Vlad mutters as we reach the barrier of men.
“What the fuck is going on here?” he roars angrily as the men move aside to let us through.
“Tell them to stand down or we will have to take you all down to the station,” a man in what looks like his late forties says.
“Lower your guns,” Vlad orders, which has the men immediately complying. “Now, do you want to tell me what this is about?”
“We have a warrant to check the building and everyone in it, as we were informed that there are drugs on the premises.”
I tense. One thing we don’t dabble in is drugs. If Alexei knows that any of his men are involved in anything to do with drugs, they are made to understand that the Bratva Fury do not mess around with it.
“There are no drugs here,” I state, wondering what exactly they are looking for, because it’s clear that drugs are just a cover up for what they are really doing here.
“We will be the judge of that. Now move aside.”
“I will accompany you,” I state, and turn to walk back towards the lift.
“No, you will stay here,” one of the fuckers says with a smirk on his face.
“Like hell I will.” There is no way any of them are going near Ruby without me there. I carry on walking until I’m at the lift and hear the cop telling me to stop. “I’m going to my apartment,” I say as the lift opens, and then I hear rushing feet and all hell breaks loose. I know our men are fighting the police who were rushing towards me, and for that they might be locked up, but I’m not leaving Ruby to confront these motherfuckers alone.
The lift closes, which has me breathing out in relief. When it stops again, I rush out towards the apartment. Entering, I hear music coming from the kitchen.
“Ruby,” I call, and hear her footsteps.
“In here.” She is like a different woman with me since that day we finally slept together. Ruby is a loving, caring woman with a big heart, and each day that passes, I see a little more of it. Walking into the kitchen, I see her standing over the sink as she washes a mug.
“The police are coming up; they have a warrant to search the building. I wanted to be here when they came here, which might not be too long,” I mutter, knowing they will make it a priority to follow me. I see her shoulders tensing at my words as she places the mug down to dry.
“What are they looking for?” she asks as she approaches me, her eyes wary.
“I don’t know. They say drugs, but we don’t mess with drugs.” She’s about to talk, when I hear rushing feet, and then the front door of the apartment, which I left open, bangs back against the wall. “Stand behind me,” I grunt as I take her hand and walk back out of the kitchen and into the lounge, which now has five policemen rushing through it towards me.
“Put your hands where we can see them,” one of them says as he points his gun at us.
“Don’t point that gun at my wife,” I state, my anger rising as I feel her hands fisting against the back of my jacket. I won’t have her afraid when there is no need to be.
“And I said show your hands. That goes for you too,” he says as he waves his gun at Ruby. I swear if he doesn’t lower that gun, I’m going to make him eat it. Her hands leave my back, and I know she is lifting them in the air, which has my anger rising another notch. She shouldn’t have to go through this.
“Now you,” the policeman says as he inclines his head towards me, “move over there.” I take a couple steps towards where he wants me, feeling Ruby’s heat right behind me. “I didn’t tell you to move. You stay there.”
“Leave her out of this,” I argue.
“We will if you will do as we say.”
I take a couple more steps and then stop. I can still reach Ruby if need be in a hurry. “Why did you leave when we told you to stop?” he asks as he walks closer to Ruby, which has me tensing.
“I wanted to be here when you came here.”
“Really, is that all?” the policeman says sarcastically. “Well, forgive me if I don’t believe you.” He takes one more step and then raises his hand to take hold of Ruby’s arm. I see her tense body as she takes a step back.
“Don’t touch her,” I growl angrily as I start to walk back towards her, but immediately there are three policemen wrestling me down to the ground. If they think they’re going to get to her with me here, they have another thing coming.
“Calm down, or you’re going to get hurt,” one of them says as he struggles to hold me, but I don’t pay attention as I continue fighting forward.
“Dimitri, stop. It’s okay.” At Ruby’s urgent cry, I freeze and encounter her terrified look. “It’s okay, stop struggling.”
“Don’t touch her,” I say again as I look at the son of a bitch who was about to put his fucking hands on my wife. I can see his suspicious look, but he nods and lifts his hands into the air.
“You behave yourself,” he says, and then looks at Ruby. “Sorry about this, ma’am, but I’m afraid we’re going to have to look through your home. Do you mind taking a seat over there for us?” At his courteous attitude, I relax somewhat, but that doesn’t mean I won’t kill him if he changes his mind. Ruby glances at me before she moves towards the couch. I try to shrug the three men off me, but they still hold me down tight.
“Let go of me,” I mutter, but to no avail. The others start to rummage through everything. Fifteen minutes into destroying the apartment, two of the assholes holding me down leave to go help, while the one left holds a gun at me. Stupid asshole, I can get that gun away from him in seconds and shoot him with it if I wanted to.
I hear something else breaking and look towards the living room where one of the guys is rummaging through the side table. What the fuck does he think he’s going to find there? “Do you really have to break things?” Ruby says with exasperation in her voice. The asshole turns towards her, a smirk on his face as he picks up a crystal vase that Ruby bought just last week and then lets it slip. The vase shatters on the floor, which has Ruby gasping in anger.
“Oops, it slipped,” he says sarcastically, and then turns away to continue his useless search. I look over at Ruby and see the hurt in her eyes. This is exactly what she doesn’t need right now, when she was coming out of her shell and starting to communicate with other men. Just yesterday, when Vlad came over to discuss a gun deal with me, Ruby spoke to him out of her own free will without him speaking to her first.
When I catch her eye, I wink, and she shakes her head in hopelessness. “It will be over soon, sweetheart,” I murmur, and get prodded in the back with the gun.
“No talking,” the asshole mutters, but takes a step back when I look around and glare at him.
“I need you to open your safe,” the main guy says as he walks into the sitting room. I run down all the things I have in there in my head, looking for anything they might find that they could prosecute us for. Standing, I start to follow him, and then stop. Looking over my shoulder, I see Ruby’s eyes following me. “I’ll be right back,” I appease before following the inspector down the corridor to our room.
When I walk in, the first thing I see is one of the motherfuckers holding up one of Ruby’s panties. “Son of a bitch, take your filthy hands off my wife’s clothes.” To his credit, he drops the panties back inside the draw, which I
see has been rummaged. I will have to buy her all new undergarments. I will not have my wife wearing things some perv has been drooling over.
“Did you find anything in there?” I ask sarcastically.
“Enough. Let’s get this done.” The inspector says as he points at the safe in the walk-in cupboard. I have Ruby’s file in there, which I wish he wouldn’t see. Also some money and jewellery, but besides that, there is nothing related to work. Walking over to the safe, I open it and then step back. If they rummage through Alexei’s home as they are doing mine, he is going to have a fit. There is going to be heads rolling for this. There is a reason Alexei has police officials in his pocket, and if they can’t warn us of raids like this one, then he is going to want to know why, like I want to know.
“Quite a lot of money in here, isn’t there?” he says as he looks over at me.
“That’s what a safe is for,” I mutter.
Then he pulls out the file on Ruby and opens it. I see him scan through it, but at first, I can tell he doesn’t know what he is seeing until he turns the page and encounters her photo. His eyes lift to mine and then down again, and he closes the file, placing it back where it was, and closes the safe.
“We are out of here,” he calls, which has the cop still rummaging through draws nodding and then walking out.
I enter the sitting area. This time, I walk towards Ruby. Standing behind her, I place my hand on her shoulder and bend down to kiss her cheek. “They are leaving now. It’s okay,” I murmur, feeling the slight tremor moving through her body. The inspector approaches us, a frown on his face.
“Sorry for the disruption. I will ask that you stay here until we are done,” he states with a pointed look at me.
“You know you’re not going to find anything. This was just an excuse to snoop and see what there is,” I say, which has him shrugging but not answering as he turns and walks out, finally leaving the two of us to an empty ransacked apartment.
Mayhem: Bratva Fury (book 3) Page 10