He gives me a smile full of hope, and he really is handsome. I won’t fall for him, though. Not after I’ve been with Misha. “When Matteo announced that he was marrying Angelina, I hoped I’d see you, even if you were dating someone else. When I found out you were single, I couldn’t let you slip through my fingers again.”
I stop outside the door, and move away from the sidewalk to let other people walk around us. “Why didn’t you tell me?” I demand. Not that this changes anything, but I thought that he just picked me at random. I had no idea he actually wanted me. Not only that, but he’d wanted me for a decade.
“I didn’t want to burden you with my failure. I just wanted you to be happy, and not be reminded of the past.” He smiles, and kisses the top of my head. “Don’t worry about then. We’re together now. We’re going to be happy in the future, together. Everything is going to be perfect my light, my Chiara.”
We enter the church, where I’m supposed to take part in a celebration of my faith. I feel like a fake, a phony. He’s wanted me since we were kids, and I’ve despised everything he stands for. Now he sees us as some kind of epic love story, and I’m a prize he’s finally won.
All I can think of is Misha.
Chapter Fifteen
Misha
I wonder what I’m doing, sitting in the alley behind Chi’s house. I decided earlier I wasn’t going to see her anymore. My father could take his carefully thought out plans and shove them straight up his ass.
That was before I found her at the church, holding hands with her fiancé.
Her fiancé.
As I watch the light go out in her bedroom, I can’t push the thought out of my head. She’ll be married to him in two months. It’s what her father wants, and he’s willing to blackmail her to get it. It’s also what my father wants, for the love of my life to be married to someone else. He wants to use her, and me, to get information about the Moretti family. So this is where it has to end.
I’ll just go inside and tell her I can’t see her again. I’ll explain my father’s plan, and she’ll understand. I walk up to her back door, and as I’m pulling the tools I use to pick locks out of my jacket pocket, I wonder if I should have just texted her to ask to see her. I wonder if she would let me in, after she spent the evening with her good looking fiancé. They were at a church, sure, but the way he was staring at her made it obvious he wants her.
I reach out and turn the knob, and the door opens. She really shouldn’t be leaving it unlocked. I close it quietly behind me, and lock it. Then I make my way silently up the stairs. Thankfully I carry a tiny flashlight everywhere I go, because I could trip over a pair of shoes on her floor and break my neck.
When I’m inside her bedroom, I inhale the scent that is Chiara. She’s here, in this room, in her bed. She’s close enough that I can walk over and touch her.
“Misha,” she murmurs.
My chest feels like it catches fire. She says my name like she actually hopes it is me. I hear her move, and her bedside lamp comes on. I’m standing near her bed, uninvited. I shouldn’t be here.
I’ve told myself I would run without her. She probably won’t have a bad life with Frankie. They would probably have half a dozen dark haired Italian babies. Her father would be happy and her sister would be safe from Dante.
So why is the lustful look in her eyes making my hands shake? Why is just the sound of her voice making me hard? Who am I kidding? I was hard when I fingered her on the back of my motorcycle, and I’ve been hard ever since.
“Are you going to just stand there? Come to bed,” she says, and lifts the sheet for me to join her.
“Chiara…” Her name sounds so beautiful, and yet so foreign. It’s elegant and exotic. “We should talk.” Even as I say it, I’m moving closer to her.
“We can talk in bed,” she counters, and gives me the sexiest come hither look I’ve ever seen. Damn, I want every inch of her.
“You were holding hands with your fiancé just a few hours ago,” I remind her. I can’t hide the anger in my voice, not so much at her but at the situation we’ve been placed in by our fathers.
“Did you come up to my bedroom to complain and act jealous?” She drops the sheet and reaches for the lamp. “Or did you come up here to make all of my fantasies from today come true?”
“Chiara,” I moan. She has to know what she’s doing to me. Damn I’m so fucking hard just standing near her bed my dick might bust through my jeans.
“Mikhail,” she whispers in response. “Is it like Michael?”
“Yes, treasure,” I reply.
“I like that endearment,” she mutters. “I like that I’m your treasure.” I hear the faint sound of the sheet sliding down her body.
All of a sudden I’m removing my clothes. And since I can’t see in the darkness of her room, I leave them in the floor where I take them off. They probably lay atop her own discarded clothing. My shoulders shake at the thought of our clothes laying in her floor together, and the idea that I am actually going to crawl into her bed with her. I’m going to be naked in her bed, beside her. I can barely believe it.
Before I touch the sheet to climb in with her, I remember why I came here. I sit down, suddenly upset at myself that I am so eager I immediately strip when she asks me to. “Chiara, I came here to tell you something, and it’s very important that you listen.”
She moves around on the bed and I feel her little hand on my thigh. God, I want her. I can’t fathom how far I’ve fallen for her, and how fast it happened. I can’t leave her. She has to come with me. Her lips touch my skin, just below her fingers. How am I supposed to think with her touching me there?
“I don’t want to hear anything you have to say, except maybe, ‘Yes, there treasure.’” How is her voice somehow even more sexy than normal? How is she the one coming on to me? Why in the hell am I just sitting here, and not making love to her?
I have to tell her. And she can decide what she wants to do when she knows. “My father set me up to fall for you. He wanted me to fall for you so he could blackmail you for information on the Moretti family.”
She stops touching me, and immediately pulls away. She’s troubled, I can tell. “How could he know we’d connect? I hit on you in that bar. He couldn’t have known I’d be attracted to you.”
“He told me to stay away from you, and he knew I’d fuck up like I always do.” I can’t believe I’m sitting here naked and hard with the only woman I’ve ever loved, and we’re not going to have sex. This is my fucking luck. “We can’t see each other again. You know that right?”
I hear her moving, and I think she’s moving away from me. Then I feel her body as naked as I am against my back, and her arms wrap around my shoulders. Her voice is right against my ear when she says, “Can’t we have tonight? I don’t want to think about our fathers, or Frankie. I just want to touch you, and feel you. I just want to be with you.”
I shiver as I feel her breath against my skin. I have to remember it forever. “Tonight, and it’s the last time. Right?”
She sighs, and I feel it on my skin and in my heart. She kisses one of my shoulders, and I think of the tattoos there. I received them after my fifth paid kill, which was probably someone in her family. Her mob family at least. This is so fucked up on so many different levels. How could I ever possibly think it would work out between us?
“What if I don’t want it to be the last time, Misha? What if I want you again?” I shake my head, but I also tip it to the side to allow her lips to explore my skin. “What if I call you after I’m married, and ask to meet you at some cheap motel? Would you do it?”
I twist around to face her, and suddenly she’s on her back on the mattress and I’m on top of her. She spreads her legs for me and I thrust my hips, shoving my already rock hard cock against her slick center.
“I am never, ever letting another man touch you. Do you understand me?” I growl against her neck.
“Yes, Misha,” she answers as she wiggles her hot body again
st mine. “Just you.”
My hands roam over her body, and my lips kiss her cheeks and her neck. “I’m not playing, Chi. I’m taking you away from here. We’re gonna be together.”
“Yes, please,” she whispers breathlessly. “I’m yours, Misha.”
I move my hips slightly, to get the head of my throbbing cock against her tight little hole. “I’m taking you, Chi, and I’m keeping you. You’re mine.” I thrust into her, taking her hot little pussy once again without a condom. I could lose myself in her. She’s so soft and warm, and so ready for my big cock. And she’s so fucking tight I have to stop before I come immediately.
“Please, Misha,” she murmurs, and rubs her hands down my back. I can’t stop the quake that takes over me. She wraps her legs around my waist, and sighs my name as if I’m hers. “Misha.”
She just asked me if I’d fuck her after she’s married, and now I’ve got my dick deep inside her, bare. As if I can get her pregnant. As if she’s mine. She’s not mine, though.
“No!” I cry out, and slide out of her. “No, Chi. You’re not mine.”
“Fuck!” she exclaims, and rolls away from me. She turns on her lamp again, and grabs a bottle of water off her nightstand. She sips it as I watch. I take her in, the regal line of her neck, the sweep of her shoulder, the beauty of her profile. She’s perfect. How could I not want her, need her, kill to have her.
Then she turns her emotional eyes toward me, and I am crushed under her sadness. “I just want something that is mine, Misha. I want something that I choose. Why can’t you understand that?”
“Because we can’t choose, treasure. Our lives have been decided for us.” I try to look away, I really do, but her cloudy-sky colored eyes captivate me. I reach out to gently stroke her arm. I expect her to flinch, to pull away from me. Instead, she leans into my touch.
“Can’t we pretend?” she asks, as she inches closer. She gives me a wicked smile, and her eyes rake over my body, pausing at each tattoo. Each drawing permanently etched in my skin is part of my history, a reminder that I am an Ivanovich. She doesn’t shy away from them. “You can be the senator’s gorgeous but rebellious son.”
I don’t want to play this game. I don’t want her to be anyone but who she is. And I only want her. My fingers stray up, to her dark brown hair that’s weaved into a thick braid. “I just want you, Chiara, my treasure. I’ll never pretend you’re someone else.”
She exhales, and I watch her lips part. Then she licks them. Is she trying to push me past the limits of sanity? “Then take me Mikhail. Make me yours.”
I’ve already been inside her without the condom, and the last thing I want is anything between our bodies. But I can’t even think about getting her pregnant. Just being with her is putting her life at risk.
“Misha,” she whispers, and reaches for me. This moment in time, this amazing feeling of being wanted by the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen, is worth dying for.
But it’s not just about me. It’s about protecting her until I can figure out a way for us to be together, and protecting her in every way. “I’ll be right there, my love,” I assure her, as I leave the bed to search for my jeans. I find a condom, open it, and roll it onto my member. One day soon I won’t have to. She’ll be mine.
She smiles brightly when I return to her. She’s my light in the darkness, my hope for the future, my reality in this world full of bullshit. She is everything to me, and I’m never letting her go.
I position myself between her glorious thighs, while staring deep into her lovely eyes. “I don’t know why I ever thought I could leave you,” I mutter as she touches my chest. Just that small touch drives me wild. “I could never breathe without you.”
“We’ll find…” she starts, but my fingers find her nipples, and she inhales roughly. “You smell incredible.”
“I…” I kiss her quickly before I can say it. I love you. I think it as I bury myself inside her light. I repeat it in my head in the same rhythm I use to make love to her. I chant it to the beat of my heart pounding in my chest.
I know she’s close when I feel her muscles clench around me like a vise. I know she’s going to reach her climax because of me. I know she aches for release.
But what happens after?
I stop, still inside her, and her entire body shakes. I pull away from our kiss, and she moans, “Please Misha.”
My breathing is ragged. I’m just as close to exploding as she is, but I need this. I need for her to know. “I love you.”
She gasps, and I kiss her deeply. I don’t want her to be confused, and unsure of what to say. I don’t want her to worry about not knowing me long enough, or her sister’s safety, or her father’s betrayal. I just want her to know how I feel. And I do. I love her with every beat of my heart, with every ounce of my blood, with the weight of my worthless name and everything else I am.
My entire being is screaming it as we both reach those soaring heights.
I don’t want to crash.
But I know I will.
Chapter Sixteen
Chiara
He said I love you. Frankie hasn’t even said that. He’s slowing his pace while moving inside me. He’s kissing me, gently and full of feeling. He’s showing me he loves me with his body. It’s heady, and scary. I want him, I do. But do I love him? It’s too early to know. I want to run with him, but I can’t go. I was being selfish when I asked if he’d have sex with me after I was married. But I can’t see any other way for us to be together.
He slows to a stop, and moves his mouth to kiss my cheek. After we come back down, I’m reminded that I shouldn’t be doing this, that it’s wrong, that I’m engaged to someone else. But every time I’m with Misha the guilt lessens. He’s so careful with me, so caring, I can tell he feels something for me. Love? I don’t know if he knows me well enough to say it’s love, although I don’t know what’s inside his head.
“I got swept up in the moment, and I couldn’t stop myself. I shouldn’t have said it.” He’s kissing my neck, and muttering in my ear. It’s sexy as hell, but his words make me tense up. He moves so he can look into my eyes, and says almost forcefully, “I meant it, treasure. I just don’t think now is the right time. I’ve had time to get to know you. You’re still learning about me.”
I smile in reply, because I am learning a lot about this man. He’s a giving lover. He’s considerate. He’s obsessively clean. And he’s hot as hell. Like scorching hot. The whole hired killer thing should be a bigger negative, but I’m starting to not even think about him that way. The ink he’s wearing should be a bigger reminder, but his beautiful face and sexy body overshadow the tattoos.
“I like what I know,” I admit, as I reach out to caress his cheek.
“I don’t know why. I’m filth,” he groans as he moves off the bed and walks toward my bathroom. I hold my breath, because I know mine is so much messier than his. He says nothing, though, as I hear the commode flush, then water running. He’s in there for several minutes, and I’m wondering if he’s shoving my make up into a drawer. Then he opens the door, glances into my bedroom, and places his hands firmly on his hips. “We’re going to need separate bathrooms.”
I roll my eyes and chuckle, but I also reach for the sheet to hide my embarrassment. I don’t have men in my bedroom, so I don’t have to worry about anyone seeing it, but I should have known he’d come tonight. I mean, I left the door unlocked hoping he would.
“What is this stuff? Exfoliating sugar face scrub? Spot treatment? Vitamin E face oil? Moisturizing wrinkle cream?” He picks them up one by one and stares at them. Then he opens them and sniffs them. He’s nearly six and a half feet of prime cut beefcake, manhandling my beauty products. And it’s the sexiest thing I’ve ever seen.
“I have dry skin, and pimples…” I inform him. Not that it’s any of his business what I put on my face.
“But you don’t have wrinkles,” he insists, and turns toward me. Damn, he’s beautiful.
“And I don’t
plan on getting them, either,” I reply impishly.
Then he finds a tube of body lotion and squirts some out. He rubs it into his hands then pulls them up to his nose. “It smells like you.”
“How did you get so organized,” I ask, as I watch him perusing my things. “What makes you keep everything so neat?”
“I dunno… I just feel in control when everything is in its place.” He flips off the light and returns to my bed. At least I had the forethought to change the sheets. He climbs in beside me, pulls me into his big strong arms, and lightly kisses my forehead. “I love you. I treasure you. One day soon we will be together. I swear to you, my love, no one will tear us apart.”
I close my eyes, and listen to his heart beat and his breathing. Misha is what I never knew I needed.
*****
I awake to the sound of my phone ringing. “Misha?” I say, as I roll over toward the table. I look around the room and find the bathroom empty, and his clothing isn’t laying in the floor. He’s gone again, just like he was after the first night we spent together.
I grab my phone, and sigh loudly when I see it’s my mom. “Hello, Mom,” I say when I answer.
“Sweetheart, I need you to come over and stay with your brother and sister. I just need a break, Chi, and I know you’re off today.” I suppress a groan, and stretch. I still feel a slight soreness from our lovemaking, and it feels so comforting.
“Sure. Let me shower and I’ll be right over,” I say. It’s not like I’m doing anything else. I have no idea where Misha is, or what he’s doing. He slips in and out so quietly, I would never have known he was here last night if I wasn’t watching for him. And the only way I saw him was the flashlight he carried with him.
“Thank you, sweetie. Can you pick up some bagels on the way? You know what we like.” Mom hangs up quickly after that. I’ve spent many Saturday afternoons this way, giving my mom the respite she so desperately needs. This is why I returned home, after all.
War (Bratva and Mafia Chronicles Book 1) Page 10