by Zoe Blake
This was all wrong.
I opened my eyes, and I gazed around his bedroom. Look at his place. This must be what Batman’s bedroom looks like. It was all sleek and new — and very grey — the walls, the bed covering, the electronics. Lots of grey. And who had windows like this in their bedroom? I mean I knew we were higher than most buildings, but still!
I thought of my cozy little apartment over my jewelry shop. Refusing any additional money from my brothers beyond what they were spending to help me set up my business, I had spent countless weekends going to flea markets, garage sales, and thrift shops to find all the eclectic pieces that cluttered the shelves and tables. None of the furniture matched, and I liked it that way. I guess it felt like the home I never had growing up.
My childhood home had been a fortress. Since it was more of a showpiece for my father’s business and my mother’s social ambitions, it was never much of a home. We could never leave toys lying around or even put our artwork on the fridge. My brothers were several years older than me and my parents couldn’t be bothered, so I spent many countless hours playing alone in my bedroom. And even that wasn’t much of a sanctuary. My mom had it decorated like she wanted, so they never allowed me to put my own toys on the shelves or posters of boy bands on the walls.
I didn’t have any happy memories of my own, so I filled my new apartment with the discarded memories of others. Old photos of great-grandparents that I liked to pretend were mine. Cookie and biscuit tins from the fifties, which covered the tops of my kitchen cabinets. Slightly yellow lace doilies on every surface. And color… lots and lots of color. I also loved fresh flowers. I never went to the grocery store without buying a fresh bunch each week. I guess after working with cold metal all day, it was nice to climb the stairs to my warm little apartment and see color and a little bit of nature.
I looked at the alarm clock by his bedside. It was already early morning. Gregor and Damien would expect an update from Mikhail. They would want answers about last night. They weren’t alone. I did as well, and this time I would not let them put me off. This time, they were going to tell me all about the family business, every detail. I had earned a right to know.
Carefully, I moved one leg out from under the covers and put it on the floor. I then shimmied my hips to the edge. Thank God Mikhail wasn’t the cuddling type. He was lying on the other side of the enormous bed with his arm still over his eyes. I had to suppress a giggle at the thought of a man like Mikhail wanting to spoon with me after sex.
Especially the uncontrolled, taboo sex we'd just had.
Holy shit, that was intense.
It was a helluva way to finally lose my annoying virginity and certainly beat the pop culture version of some awkward fumbling in the back of some boy’s used car.
I mean, it’s no great surprise. After that kinky spanking he had given me a few years ago, I knew then he liked it rough. But hell, I don’t think some of what we just did was even legal in some states.
The spanking.
The dirty talk.
The sex toys.
It was all straight out of a sexy movie. Although I had always fantasized about such things, I never thought people actually did them in actual life.
I placed my other foot on the floor and slowly raised my shoulders up. I had just pushed the covers off my hips when I was snatched backwards. Before I could blink, I was flat on my back with a large angry male straddling me. Mikhail grabbed my wrists and forced my arms over my head.
“Where do you think you’re going?”
So I guess that answered my question as to if he was asleep or not. I should have known better than to think a former soldier like Mikhail would just blissfully fall asleep next to me as if he didn’t have a care in the world. He probably usually slept with his eyes open, standing up, and only for a few minutes at a time.
It was too crass and beneath both of us for me to say 'you got what you wanted.'
“I… I… thought we were done?”
His sapphire blue eyes appeared black in the darkening light.
“Done?”
I could feel his cock harden as it pressed against my stomach.
“Does that feel like we’re done?” he growled as his head lowered. He scraped the edge of his teeth along the column of my neck, soothing the sting with small licks. I raised my hips to grind against his own.
“That’s it, babygirl. Let me in. I promise I’ll make the pain worth it.”
I was already embarrassingly wet as he forced his thick length into my still sore pussy.
God help me, I liked the pain, and he totally made it worth it.
An hour later, I was lying on my side, with Mikhail holding me from behind. Spooning me. Who knew? Could I be wrong about him?
“Mikhail. I know you don’t want to hear this, but I really have to go. My brothers are going to be extremely worried about me.”
Mikhail gave me a kiss on the shoulder before rising out of the bed. “You’re right. Besides, the sooner I tell them about us the better.”
“Us?”
“Yes, us.”
I twisted the sheet between my fingers. “I don’t think there’s any reason to rush telling my brothers.” Nothing had changed in three years. There was no way they would be okay with me being with Mikhail. They had made it clear it was a non-starter with them, although they had never given me a solid reason.
Mikhail crossed around the bed to my side. Standing before me, he used his finger to lift my gaze. It wasn’t necessary. There was no way I was going to stare straight ahead. With my short stature and his height, his slowly hardening cock was right at my mouth. My cheeks flamed.
“Baby, what do I have to do to make you understand?”
“Understand what?”
“You’re mine. There is no going back. It’s a done deal. You’re not leaving my side, which means your brothers need to know.”
“You act like you lov — you act like you like me or something,” I stammered. I was acting like a lame schoolgirl again. Blushing over a boy. Afraid to even use the word love.
Mikhail smoothed the curls away from my face. “My adorable kroshka. We’re well past like.”
“I’m not like the women you are used to. I’m painfully shy and despite my upbringing, I’m really not the least bit sophisticated. I hate classical music and lobster. I can’t stand getting dressed up for parties. I enjoy staying in to watch movies and eating pizza and going to flea markets. I can’t speak French, bras are annoying, and I don’t even know how to play Baccarat!”
Mikhail laughed. It stunned me. He looked like a different person when he laughed. The corners of his eyes crinkled as his gorgeous mouth broke into a wide smile. I was so used to seeing his lips thin in a stern line as he kept his emotions and features in check, it was a startling transformation.
“I don’t have the first idea how to play Baccarat either, and I fully support your position if you want to give up wearing bras.”
“But….”
Mikhail placed his hands on my shoulders and pulled me upright. Cupping the back of my head, he pressed me against his chest as he held me close. With our bodies still warm from the bed, it was incredibly comforting. I just wanted to sink into the strength and promise of his arms.
“I think one of the most adorable things about you is that you have absolutely no idea how incredibly sexy and intriguing you are to me.”
I tried to pull back from his embrace to look at his face, but he held me firm.
“Me? Seriously?”
It was still too hard for me to believe.
There had to be a catch.
Another shoe was about to drop.
“Now is not the time to discuss this. We have to get you back to Gregor’s where I can keep you safe. Then we will handle the issue of us with your brothers. Now go in and take a shower. We have to leave in a half hour,” he commanded with a light smack to my ass.
The entire time in the shower, I spun the crazy series of the events of this
day over in my head. From the men who tried to kill me, to learning about my brother’s surveillance of my life, to Mikhail and me finally having sex. It was a complete tangled mess. More than ever, I couldn’t wait to ask Samara and Yelena for their advice. They would know what to do, I was sure of it. They definitely wouldn’t let a man just sweep in and take control of their lives like I was doing with Mikhail right now. The problem was, I didn’t see any way out of it. The bigger problem was, I wasn’t sure I wanted one.
I never really wanted to be with a guy who was crazy wealthy, like my family. I craved normalcy. I wanted to be with an average guy who enjoyed going to the movies and taking advantage of GrubHub restaurant coupons. I guess I always assumed Mikhail made a modest salary, which had always appealed to me. It’s not like I wasn’t accustomed to big houses and wealth. I just was never comfortable with it.
There was no denying that the money to live in a place like this probably didn’t come legally. When I learned about the more unsavory aspects of my family’s so-called import-export business, I guess I pushed to the back of my mind what those details meant about Mikhail and his position within the family business. It was so naïve of me to think that security for my brothers was just Mikhail’s day job and that he had nothing to do with their criminal lifestyle.
I gave myself a mental shake. I had enough on my plate dealing with whoever had just tried to kill me and this dramatic change to my relationship with Mikhail without worrying too far into the future. After all, having sex changed nothing. I wasn’t sure if I was going to forgive him for all the surveillance and high-handed interference in my life. We may not have a future.
There was a bag filled with new clothes resting on the bed when I got out of the shower.
Mikhail walked into the bedroom. His hair was wet, and he was dressed in black fatigues with a long-sleeve black thermal shirt. There must have been a second bedroom somewhere. Of course, there must have been. This place was probably one of those penthouses that took up half the building floor. It stood in stark contrast to my little thousand square foot one-bedroom apartment.
“Are these for me?”
Mikhail nodded. “It’s amazing what you can get delivered nowadays. I need you to be wearing something more appropriate than a babydoll dress on the off chance we run into more trouble.”
I looked into the bag, then back at him. Adjusting my towel, I shyly averted my gaze.
Mikhail chuckled. “I’ll give you some privacy to change.”
I let out the breath I had been holding. It was silly, really, given what we had just done in his bed, twice, three times if you count the time he — no, I couldn’t start thinking about all that again.
Reaching into the bag, I pulled out a pair of black cargo pants and a black turtleneck. Feeling rather naughty, I put them both on without putting my panties and bra back on. They fit perfectly. I walked back into the bathroom and caught sight of myself in the mirror.
I kind of looked like a badass.
I had never dressed all in black before. I always thought Samara and Yelena looked so fierce when they did so. Like they could tackle anything that came their way. Too bad I didn’t really wear makeup. For the first time, I was a little curious what I would look like with bright red lipstick on. I fluffed my still damp curls and continued to stare at my reflection. I couldn’t find a hair dryer, which meant my hair was going to dry in a riot of wavy, strawberry blonde curls. Usually I would tame it up in a messy bun, but I was glad I didn’t have a scrunchie on me. I liked the idea of my hair appearing wild and teased out. It fit with my outfit, giving me an odd surge of confidence.
Maybe this wasn’t so much about Mikhail and what he liked.
Could it be he was seeing something in me I was only just now recognizing?
It was funny. When we first met, Yelena informed me my zodiac sign was a Leo and that according to my sign, I was supposed to be dramatic and bold.
It always bugged her I was the exact opposite.
She used to tell me to embrace my inner lion.
I told her the signs were wrong.
She would always say the signs were never wrong.
Maybe she was right.
I couldn’t wait to see Yelena and tell her.
Roar!
Chapter 17
Nadia
Mikhail was at the dining room table preparing his equipment when I emerged from the bedroom. The familiar scent of gun oil filled the room as he reassembled a gun.
I looked down at the weapon. “Is that a Mossberg 500?”
Mikhail hesitated. “Yes,” he finally answered.
In a lame attempt at a distraction and to relieve the tension in the room, I picked up the box of ammunition he had on the table. “Brenneke Maximum Barrier Penetrating 12-gauge shotgun slugs,” I said as I read the package. My laugh had a high-pitched, tinny quality which showed my nervousness, as I joked, “Are you planning on shooting through a cement wall?”
“A brick one, actually.”
“Seriously?”
Mikhail nodded. “I suspect it may have been some hired hacks of the Novikoffs who attacked you. If I’m right, his sons hold late night events in their father’s house when he is out of town. According to my intel, they sit with their backs to the wall and drink their father’s vodka and smoke his expensive cigars. If we need to send a message to them and their father, I want to be prepared.”
I was oddly pleased he had shared that information with me. I was half-expecting him to just brush me off. “Are you going to use a Range-R?”
Mikhail put down the gun he was holding and turned his full attention to me. “Of course.”
A Range-R was a sophisticated motion detector which could read the slightest movement through any kind of wall. If a guy was breathing inside a closet deep inside of a house, the Range-R would pick it up. Unlike in the movies, heat sensing detectors did not work through walls.
I continued, “You’ll have to get within a hundred yards.”
Mikhail’s brow furrowed as he continued to scrutinize me. He answered carefully, “That’s the plan.”
I shook my head. “This is the wrong ammunition. Do you have any of the Special Forces Short Magnums?”
Mikhail sat back in his chair. He tossed an arm over the back and stared up at me, a bemused smile on his face. “What is happening here?”
I flipped my hair over my shoulder and smoothed down my black turtleneck, embracing my new badass persona. Tilting my chin in the air, I asked, “Why? Are you impressed?”
He nodded. “Yes… and a little confused.”
It wasn’t a big mystery. When I was a little girl, virtually the only time I got to spend with my much older brothers was when they sat around the kitchen table cleaning their guns. They often talked about velocity, caliber, trajectory, barrel rifling, and the like. I would sit there and listen as I watched them take each gun apart, clean it, and reassemble it. Sometimes they would even let me polish the rifle barrels. Of course, I was naïve enough to believe it when they said they were using the guns for hunting and target shooting. I didn’t realize they meant of human beings.
I shrugged. “I learned from my brothers.”
Mikhail flipped one of the shotgun slugs between his fingers as he considered what I said. After a moment’s pause, he responded, “You’re wrong. These have thirty-five hundred feet of pounds energy with a sixteen hundred-fifty velocity straight out of the muzzle.”
“Exactly. It will punch an immense hole in the wall but will lose much of its forward momentum doing it. The Special Forces short magnums are slightly less with only a fourteen hundred-seventy-six velocity out of the muzzle but will create a smaller hole allowing for a more precise hit.”
Mikhail’s eyebrows shot up. “Actually, you’re right. I’ll switch to the short magnums.”
I felt a surge of pride.
Mikhail moved to stand before me. He cupped my jaw and bent down to nibble at my lower lip. “Do you have any idea how fucking sexy you
are right now? If we had the time, I would toss you up on this table, spread your legs, and make a meal of you.”
Oh. My. God.
It was too much. After growing accustomed to his cold and distant intensity over the years, I couldn’t deal with this new, aggressively possessive Mikhail. Nervously laughing, I stepped back, breaking his embrace. “Too bad there are a bunch of homicidal idiots after me, and possibly my family, right now.”
He shrugged as if I had just said too bad the sun wasn’t shining. His casual demeanor toward the threat against my family could only mean it wasn’t an unusual occurrence. It was a chilling thought.
He rubbed the back of his knuckles down my cheek. “The moment I put a bullet in each of their heads, I’m carrying you back to my bed and not letting you leave it for a week.”
How romantic, just what every girl dreams of hearing her boyfriend say.
In all the times I'd imagined Mikhail and I finally getting together, it was never like this. Never over a table of guns, casually chatting about murder. I envisioned slightly awkward dinners with my brothers, with them teasing Mikhail about dating their little sister, and lazy Saturday mornings strolling around the Eastern Market sipping coffees. It really was jarring how deliberately obtuse I had been over the years about both my brothers and Mikhail. The signs were all there. I just hadn't wanted to see them.
After last night, I had no choice but to accept that I was not just the little sister of the Ivanov brothers. I was a member of the powerful Ivanov mafia family. And apparently now the girlfriend of one of their top enforcers. The problem was, I wasn’t sure I wanted to be. How could I have gotten this so wrong? It’s like all this time I'd been thinking of Mikhail like he was Kevin Costner from The Bodyguard, all silent and strong and brooding but secretly sweet and protective. Now I’m wondering if he’s more like Mark Wahlberg from Fear, all intense and possessive and maybe a tiny bit homicidal.
Maybe I wasn’t being fair to him. It had been a rather extreme twelve hours between the wedding, the break-in at my shop, him murdering three people, us finally having sex. Technically, not just sex, more like mind-blowing, completely twisted, crazy orgasmic, spank-me-again, pound the sheets sex. Maybe I needed to wait till things calmed down? Maybe he was just in some kind of high alert, extreme soldier mode after the attack, and he’ll go back to being the strong, silent, sweetly protective Mikhail I had built up in my imagination.