by Abbi Cook
I don't know the answers, and for the first time in my life, I'm okay with that. I'm also looking at my life as something only I control. No mother constructing a reality for me. No husband keeping me in the dark. I am as I am by nature.
Free and no longer willing to live in a gilded cage.
And at twenty-seven, I have my whole life ahead of me. What I make of it will be all mine.
Chapter Fifty-Nine
Natalie
I awake at the touch of someone’s hand on my cheek. Focusing my eyes, I see Alexei sitting beside me on our bed. His dark gaze studies my face, like always, searching for an answer to a question he hasn’t voiced yet.
Gone for nearly a week, he’s a sight for sore eyes, even ones that have only been open for a minute or so. “When did you get back?”
He remains silent for a few moments, still studying me, before he smiles in that way that’s part sweet, part sexy, and purely wicked. “About an hour ago. I wanted to let you sleep, so I sat in the nursery with Alesia.”
The mention of our daughter’s name forces the last remnants of sleep from my head, and I sit up straight in bed. “Where’s Claire? Isn’t she with the baby? Did something happen?”
Alexei cradles my cheek in his strong hand and instantly calms me. “She’s fine, little bird. Your sister was there when I got back, but I told her to go enjoy herself in town for a few hours. I wanted to have you all to my own.”
“But what about the baby?”
“She’s been fed and she and your sister are enjoying a beautiful Saturday in the village. Don’t worry. They’ll be back in a little while. In the meantime, I want to show you how much I’ve missed you, little bird.”
Pulling me to him, he brushes his lips against mine, teasing me. “You’re all I could think about the entire time I was gone. Do you know how much I wished I could be here with you?”
His hand slides along my jaw and encircles my neck, instantly arousing me. Closing my eyes, I let a tiny moan escape from my throat as his hold on me tightens ever so subtly.
“How long are you home for?”
“I don’t know. Don’t think about that. All I want you to think about right now is how good it’s going to feel when I’m inside you in about ten seconds,” he says with sensuality dripping off each word.
Opening my eyes, I see him begin to undress. As he shrugs out of his shirt, my gaze settles on the two black birds tattooed above his heart, two little birds to symbolize me and our daughter.
“Ten seconds? I guess we’re bypassing foreplay.”
He unzips his pants and takes his hard cock out to stroke from base to head. “No need for foreplay. I’ve wanted you from the second I finished my job. Unless you need it.”
As I shake my head, knowing how much I want him, he slides his hand up the inside of my thigh and drags a single finger through my wet pussy. I don’t need anything more than to feel the touch of his hands on my body to want him more than I can express.
“Mmmm…my little bird wants it bad.”
Alexei makes quick work of my nightgown and drags me by the ankles to the end of the bed. His gaze roams over my body as desire and need flash in his eyes. Pushing my thighs open wide, he spreads me with his thumbs so every intimate inch of me is there for him to see.
I reach out for him, to taste his lips on mine, but that will have to wait. Now, he’s focused on one single thing—burying his cock inside me. With a single sharp thrust of his hips, he slides into my wet and waiting pussy, filling me up completely and taking my breath away.
His fingers press into my hips, holding me fast to the bed when I try to arch my back. “Does my little bird want something?” he asks in a low voice before thrusting his hips and filling me again.
“More…all…harder,” I whimper, each word strained from need.
He releases his hold on my hips and slides his hands up to my breasts to roughly cup them, pinching my nipples hard between his thumbs and forefingers. I cry out and arch my hips to take every delicious inch of him. The harder he pounds into me, the more I want him to fuck me harder.
“God, Natalie. I missed you so much,” he says as he slides his hand up to my throat and squeezes, knowing how much I love when he does that.
He only calls me by my real name, and not the term of endearment he prefers, when he’s angry with me or when he lets his defenses down and shows the real man behind the hard façade he likes to hide behind. When he’s like this—open and sensual like only he can be—I love him even more than I believed I ever could.
I watch as he fucks me with all the possessiveness inside him. His gaze fixes on my face, focused on my eyes with each time he fills me. I am his Natalie, his little bird he protects.
My release builds inside me, pushing out every other thought but the only one that matters. He is my husband, the only man who’s ever made me feel like anything but an object. He is my Alexei.
With one final thrust into me, he fills me one last time as every nerve ending explodes around his cock. Seconds later, he lets out a deep groan and comes with a look of pure pleasure.
Alexei leans down and presses a gentle kiss onto my lips before collapsing onto the bed beside me. “You’re never more beautiful than right after I fuck you. I swear you have a glow that makes you look like an angel, little bird.”
“That glow might be because I think I’m pregnant,” I say quietly into his ear.
He lifts his head and smiles. “Really?”
Nodding, I sigh. “Yes. I think so. I haven’t seen the doctor, so it’s not definite yet.” I stop and then add, “Maybe I can give you a boy this time.”
Like always when I mention about giving him a son, he shrugs and says, “Biologically speaking, that’s up to my body, not yours.”
I close my eyes as memories of Adam and how much he talked about how it was my duty to give him a son rush through my brain. I don’t want Alexei to know I even remember him and what he did.
“Why so quiet all of a sudden?” he asks before gently kissing my lips. “Is my little bird thinking of her life before?”
Shaking my head, I keep my eyes closed. I don’t want to talk about that time now.
“You don’t have to be afraid, Natalie. I won’t ever let anyone hurt you.”
I know that more than anything else in the world. Turning to face him, I open my eyes and nod, unable to find the words I want to say.
“Never forget that, little bird. I protect what’s mine. You and Alesia and any other child we have will never have to fear anything.”
Resting my head on his chest, I let out a heavy sigh as he wraps his arms around my shoulders and holds me close. I fear nothing when I’m with my Alexei. I hear the people in the village whisper about him when they see me in town. Their voices low, they talk about what they think is only rumor.
Sicario. Killer.
My killer. The man hired to take my life who chose to make me his instead. The man who calls me his little bird because when he had a choice between crushing me beneath his heel and lifting me up and holding me to him, a broken thing unwanted by her husband and left for dead, he chose to cradle me in his arms and keep me safe.
Alexei.
My name is Natalie Volkov. My birthday is October third. I'm twenty-eight years old. I live in a villa in the Tuscan countryside, and I’m the mother to a beautiful daughter named Alesia and sister to Claire.
My husband's name is Alexei Volkov. He's thirty-three years old. And to the rest of the world, he’s a killer.
But to me, he’s my savior, the one person in the world who protected me when no one else would. Until I met him, I thought I had a wonderful life filled with people who loved and cared for me. That was all a lie.
Now I know better. Now I know love and real happiness.
Because of Alexei.
My mother always said one day a wonderful man was going to marry me and I’d have beautiful little girls. She thought she arranged that future for me, but she was wrong.
; I have that life now because of me. Because when the time finally came, I took the chance my sister Lauren always wanted to take. I escaped my cage to fly free.
About the Author
Abbi Cook grew up wondering if she was different because she always wanted to know more about the villain than the hero in the stories she read. When she got older, she found there were others in the world like her and devoured their writing, loving every dark word. She’s written her own tales for years, but in 2019 she decided it was time to take the next step and publish them. She’s never looked back since that day.
Readers can find her at her website at abbicook.com, on FB and IG, and through email at [email protected]
Books by Abbi:
Captive Heart (standalone prequel to the Captive Hearts series)
Behind The Mask (Captive Hearts #1)
Beneath The Surface (Captive Hearts #2)
Beyond The Lies (Captive Hearts #3)
The Sins Duet
Covet (The Sins Duet #1)
Corrupt (The Sins Duet #2)
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