I want children.
I want a true marriage.
Yakov might concede on the marriage aspect, but the rest, I don’t think he will really ever accept.
It seems like just moments later that Yakov is at my desk, asking me if I’m ready to leave. I nod quietly and grab my purse and my uneaten container of lunch before stepping up to his side. He takes my container out of my hand and then frowns down at me.
“You didn’t eat your lunch?” he asks.
“I… I got busy,” I shrug.
“We’ll go straight to dinner before we head home,” he announces.
“To dinner?” I ask with wide eyes.
“Yes, to a restaurant. What are you in the mood for, hmm?” he asks as we step inside of the elevator.
I’m too shocked by the fact that he’s asking me what I want to answer him. I can’t believe he’s asking me what I want. I’m stunned, completely and totally, one hundred percent stunned.
“I can’t read your mind, Ashley. What do you want to eat?”
“It doesn’t matter. Whatever you feel like,” I say. I know that it’s a cop out as soon as the words slip my lips.
“No, you’re not doing this. Tell me what you desire to eat,” he grunts as we walk out of the elevator and toward the front doors of the building.
“Italian,” I blurt out.
I don’t necessarily want it, but Yakov doesn’t particularly care for it, and I’m stupidly testing him.
He stops and turns to face me, a smirk firmly planted on his lips. He wraps his free hand around my waist and dips his head, lowering it so that his lips almost touch mine.
“If my pchelka wants some Italian food, then that’s exactly what she’ll get,” he murmurs before his lips brush mine in a whisper of a kiss.
He hurries me into the car and then jogs to his side before sliding in and merging into traffic. I’m busy thinking, freaking out, and chewing on my bottom lip, too busy to notice that the silence is deafening.
“Are you regretting choosing me over him?” he asks after a few minutes. I lift my head and turn to face him.
“Never, I just… this is so different,” I whisper.
“In a sense, we’re starting over, you and me. Our past is still part of us, but this future is going to be different than what we had,” he says.
It’s as if he can read my mind. I smile, unable to speak because he’s left me completely breathless.
I love him.
I have loved him since the moment he wrapped my dirty body up and cared for me in a way that nobody had ever done before. The way he has always looked at me, and the way he’s always made my heart flutter and my belly clench.
There is no other man for me. I don’t know how I could think it would be possible to leave him, to not have him at my side, not now that he’s here and he’s being more open than he’s ever been before.
We arrive at a small Italian restaurant, and I’m surprised that he knew exactly where it was. I look at him with confusion and he shakes his head.
“Just because it isn’t my favorite cuisine doesn’t mean I don’t know where to go and what’s good. Kirill and I came here once several years ago. It’s small and quaint, but the food is excellent,” he shrugs.
He doesn’t say anything else as he gets out of the car and then comes to my side and holds out his hand to help me. For the first time in our relationship, we walk into a restaurant alone—together.
Maybe things are going to be different between us.
I close my eyes and exhale with nothing but hope to guide me through this journey into finding a new us.
The restaurant is dim and somewhat romantic, complete with checkered tablecloths and melted wax candles. Yakov moves his hand from my lower back to my hip, pulling me closer into his side. I lay my head on his shoulder and wrap my own arm around his middle.
Cuddling.
I have never known this man to cuddle outside of aftercare when he would push me in his playroom. This is different, though. This is a public display of affection, and I couldn’t stop the smile from spreading across my face if I tried.
“How many?” the young girl behind a podium asks.
“Two,” Yakov murmurs as his nose skims the top of my hair before he presses his lips against me in a kiss.
“Right this way,” she says as she begins to walk toward the back of the restaurant.
It’s darker than the front, sexier, and cozier. She directs us to a booth and Yakov guides me to my seat. To my astonishment, he sinks down beside me instead of across the table.
“Do you need a wine menu?” she asks.
“A bottle of pinot noir,” he says, ordering for me. She nods and turns away. “You’ll like it. It’s a red, but it’s sweeter than other reds. I know you enjoy your white wines, but if you’re going to eat a red sauce dinner, you’ll want red wine,” he murmurs.
“What if I want a lighter sauce, like an olive oil sauce?” I ask, straightening my back.
“You may want it, but I’ve had the lasagna, and it’s quite possibly the best I’ve ever tasted in my entire life,” he shrugs.
I want to argue with him, but this isn’t controlling; this isn’t him ordering for me because he wants to control everything about the evening. This is him knowing what’s good at a restaurant and wanting me to experience it.
“Do you want lasagna?” he asks, arching a brow.
I love lasagna, I really do, but I would normally avoid it because of the calorie content. I chew on my bottom lip a little as my eyes scan the open menu in front of me.
“We can order a few dishes and share,” he whispers as he takes the lobe of my ear between his teeth and gently tugs. I feel it between my legs, my pussy pulsing with need.
“Sure,” I whimper shakily.
“What do you want?” he exhales against my ear.
Him. I want him. I want him filling me and claiming me, making me sweat and scream. That’s what I want.
“Lasagna, maybe some gnocchi, and eggplant parmesan?” I ask as my voice wavers.
I’m about to turn around and straddle him. He’s sitting too close to me, and when his hand wraps around my thigh, pushing my skirt up slightly, I close my eyes and try to contain my moan.
I don’t even hear the waiter arrive, or listen to him order our food. All I can do is feel his hand slowly sliding up my leg, and then his hand cups my center.
“Jacob,” I whimper.
“We’re going to talk, but if I have to talk, I want your warm cunt enveloping at least a part of me,” he grunts as he slides the center of my panties over before two fingers fill me.
“I won’t be able to concentrate,” I breathe.
“You will, because this is a serious conversation. This is a conversation about our future,” he mutters as he continues to slowly fuck me with his fingers.
It’s so gentle, and so sweet, and absolutely everything I’m not used to with him. I adore every achingly slow second of it.
“Okay,” I sigh.
The feel of her hot cunt around my fingers is enough to make me come in my slacks. Combine that with her breathy whispers and her heaving chest, and I’m about two seconds from fucking her in this booth, not giving a single fuck who sees it.
I place a kiss on the center of her throat, a habit I started when we first met. She wasn’t just in a cage when I found her, she had been restrained. One of her restraints was around her neck. Her beautiful, slender neck was extremely raw, bruised, and battered. I kissed the center of it, every day, and will probably continue to do it until the day I die.
“I like how we are now. This shift, I don’t want to go back to the way we were; but I don’t want you to resent me or regret wanting me back,” she says, confidence laced in each word as her hips slightly lift to meet my fingers.
I push my fingers completely inside of her, but instead of gliding them out, I leave them there, filling her before I speak.
“I like this, too. Your newfound confidence is sexy. I’ll never regr
et having you in my life or at my side—ever. There are still things I need though, Ashley,” I announce.
“What will you need?” she asks as her pussy clenches around my fingers.
“I’ll need control in bed. I’ll need to play rough from time to time. I’ll need obedience on important issues,” I say.
“What else?”
I furrow my brow, not quite understanding her question. Instead of asking her to clarify, I wait until she does.
“Do you need me to be your slave? I can understand if that is something you desire, but I don’t think I want that anymore. That, to me, is a big deal,” she whispers tilting her hips.
I move my fingers inside of her in a come hither motion while staying completely planted, to the root.
“I never needed a slave. I only ever needed you,” I cup her cheek with my free hand and run my thumb along her full lower lip before I continue. “You were so broken when I discovered you. I didn’t want to traumatize you further. The sex will always have aspects of roughness and floggings, control and spankings, but the rest of it I did for you. To keep you comfortable and help you acclimate to being a person again, instead of an object. Never once have I seen you as anything other than my Ashley.”
“You never took me anywhere in public. You were always so ashamed of me,” she whispers.
Her words gut me—completely destroy me.
“I have never been ashamed of you, not once. I knew crowds would make you anxious and I thought that it would be frightening for you to be about in public. I kept you inside to protect you,” I murmur.
“You weren’t ashamed or being selfish?” she asks with wide eyes.
“I didn’t say I wasn’t selfish. I am extremely selfish. But ashamed of you? Never,” I grunt as I slide my fingers from her pussy as the waiter sets our food down in front of us.
“What about children and marriage? I don’t want you to just agree to those things to appease me,” she announces, straightening her back.
I take the wine glass in my hand and sip it. It’s not vodka, but it’s still flavorful. I set my glass down and turn to her.
“I never wanted children, and you know why, because I didn’t want my father’s bloodline to continue. Yet, Emiliya has children and they’re not evil. Maybe mine wouldn’t be either,” I shrug.
It’s a notion I have been mulling over the past few days. A baby with Ashley would be a beautiful child. I can only hope that it would have all of her personality, and none of mine.
“Our baby wouldn’t be evil because we would only show it love,” she whispers.
It breaks my heart. I said such hurtful things to her when I left her. I don’t know how I could do that to this delicate creature.
“You might have to give it extra love if I can’t show it properly,” I murmur.
“Jacob, you’ve shown me more love in the past two days than I’ve had in my entire life. Plus, the way you brought me back after everything that I’ve been through, twice—you are going to make a fantastic father one day; but I have to know if you’re agreeing because you want to keep me, or if you’re agreeing because it’s what you want.”
I’m agreeing to children because she wants them. I’ve never thought about them in my life. I decided when I was ten years old that I didn’t want any for myself. I never wanted to bring children into the cruel world I knew. No child deserved it.
I glance over to her, hope shining in her brown eyes.
“I want to keep you, but I want you to be happy. I love my nephews very much, so I will love our child. Whatever you breathe life into, I’ll love with my whole heart, Ashley.”
That answer must be good enough for her because she doesn’t bring the subject up again. Instead, we spend the rest of the evening eating and drinking. She’s pleasurable to be around. When she’s relaxed, as she is now, she’s simply breathtaking.
I can see the differences in her. Though she’s still quiet and shy, her true personality is shining through. She’s relaxed, and when she speaks, I find myself intrigued by what she has to say and what she thinks. She’s not my slave anymore. She’s a woman I want to talk to, to get to know inside and out, to have at my side.
I ask her about her duties for Kirill and what she’s been doing these past months. It’s an easy conversation, and I’m glad for it. She tells me that she’s spent a lot of time on the beach, and I wonder if she’ll miss it terribly when she comes back to the city with me.
Once we’re finished eating, we head back to the apartment. Ashley’s smile is lazy, and she’s obviously tipsy. It’s a side of her I haven’t seen before, and I’m enjoying it. She reaches over once I have the car in park and grabs hold of my leg.
“Are you going to finish what you started?” she murmurs.
“What’s that?” I ask, arching a brow.
“You know,” she pouts. It’s adorable as hell.
“I don’t. I’m sorry.”
“Jacob, please,” she whimpers.
Her pleading is music to my ears, and I decide that this is what I want us to be.
This, right here.
Enjoying each other without anything in the way, without rigorous control or constant lessons and teaching.
Just being together. Perhaps with some rough play mixed in, too.
I WATCH AS YAKOV walks around the car and opens the door for me. Rather than holding out his hand to help me out, he picks me up and carries me like a bride toward my apartment. I giggle and bury my face in his neck, enjoying the way his scruff scratches me.
“You should grow a beard,” I announce out of the blue.
“A beard?” he asks, arching a brow as he walks up to the door. I fish my keys out of my purse and unlock it from his arms.
“A beard,” I nod in my inebriated state. “I’ve heard they’re wonderful,” I whisper as my cheeks pink.
“Wonderful?” he questions, with a smile tipping his lips.
“Tatyana talks a lot,” I grin.
Yakov lays me down on the bed and shakes his head as if I’m being ridiculous.
“What does she like about it so much, pchelka?” he asks as he starts to strip his clothes off.
My mouth waters at the sight of his chest, decorated in the blue ink of his many tattoos, as he drops his shirt to the floor. My eyes skirt his ink, the dome of his church piece that takes up his entire torso, it’s intricate and beautiful. Then my eyes move up to the epaulette’s that decorate each of his shoulders from the base of his neck to the edge of his shoulders, on each side.
I know that there are more tattoos that cover his back, and his knees, not to mention the ones that litter his arms and tops of his hands and knuckles. But standing before me, shirtless, I’m rendered speechless, as I have always been when it comes to his body. Yakov isn’t built big and broad like Mika, but he is packed with long, lean muscles that makes my breath hitch every time.
“You know,” I murmur as he begins to unbutton my blouse.
“I really have no clue what you’re referencing, Ashley. You’ll need to explain this to me,” he chuckles as he continues to slowly undress me.
I can feel myself growing wetter and wetter with each slow movement of his fingers against my skin as he removes my clothing.
“Against her skin,” I mutter, completely and totally embarrassed.
I wish that he would just drop the subject. I wish I hadn’t drank that last glass of wine so I would have kept my mouth shut.
“Like against her arm?” he asks as he scrapes his stubble against my forearm.
“No,” I grind out through a clenched jaw.
“Oh, then against her neck, maybe?” he says as he nuzzles me there.
I let out a moan and wrap my hand in the back of his head, twisting my fingers in his thick, black hair.
“Maybe against her tits?” he mutters against my skin as he shifts downward and scrapes his chin against my peaked nipple.
“Jacob,” I sigh.
“Mmmm,” he moans before he sucks
my nipple into his mouth and flicks it with his tongue.
“Maybe against her belly, too, then?” he asks as he abandons my aching breast and presses his lips against my lower belly, just above where I crave him the most.
“Probably,” I breathe.
“Or maybe, just maybe, she likes the way it feels against her pussy,” he grunts before he buries his face there.
My back arches off of the bed as he sucks my clit deep into his mouth. Yakov’s hands slide under my ass and he holds me up to him, devouring me with every stroke of his tongue, every nip from his teeth, and every moan that comes from deep down in his throat.
“Jacob,” I gasp.
He doesn’t respond except to fill me with his tongue, fucking me with it before he returns his attention back to my clit. I bury my fingers in his hair as I move my hips against him, climbing toward my release. He pulls away from me right before I crash over and succumb to my climax.
“On your stomach, pchelka. I want to see your perfect ass tonight,” he mutters as he kisses my stomach before he gently bites me.
I do as he requests and roll over onto my stomach. I start to lift my hips and rise to my knees, but he grabs the globes of my ass and squeezes.
“Yakov?” I ask, turning around to look at him.
“Sshh, I’m just admiring,” he mutters.
“Please, I need you,” I whisper.
I feel his cock glide against my center, coating himself with my wetness before he wraps his hands around my hips and lifts me up. I don’t get the chance to rest my knees on the bed. As he’s rising to his own knees, my lower half is suspended in the air. Then, he thrusts his cock deep inside of me.
“I love you, Ashley. Don’t forget that. You’re mine. You’re going to be my wife and the mother of my children,” he grinds out through a clenched jaw. I can’t respond, my eyes are too busy rolling in the back of my head.
Yakov continues to slowly thrust in and out of me, and I feel myself climbing toward my release, again. Then he releases my hips and I’m lying flat on the bed, my legs spread and his body between them. I feel him shift so that his chest is pressing against my back, his lips brushing my shoulder. His hand slides between my body and the mattress so that his fingers can stroke my clit.
Living for the Badman (Russian Bratva Book 4) Page 12