by Renee Rose
She rolls her eyes. “Of course you do. Because women can’t be trusted to keep their own documentation.”
Against my better judgment, I reach into my travel case pocket and pull out her passport. I don’t trust her not to run, so it’s probably a terrible idea to give it to her, but we’re going to have to learn to trust each other at some point. I hand it to her. “I trust you, sugar,” I lie.
She blinks in surprise then studies me suspiciously before putting it in her purse.
I pull out my wallet and take out a credit card and hand it to her. “You can use this if you need it. Vladimir already closed the accounts on the cards your father gave you.”
She frowns. “He did?” She shakes her head. “What an asshole.”
I nod my agreement. “Do you trust him to take care of your mother?”
She goes still and gives me a sidelong look then slowly shakes her head. “No. I think my dad must’ve been losing his mind when he cooked up that arrangement. All of the arrangements.”
“Meaning you don’t trust me, either?”
She shrugs. “It feels like punishment. I was never the sweet, doting daughter he wanted me to be. Why else would he pin me to the one guy in his organization who has the biggest reason to hate me? He must be cackling from the grave right now.”
I make a non-committal sound and look out the window. Do I hate her for what she did? For lying about me and getting me thrown out of Igor’s cell?
Maybe I did when it happened. It solidified my feelings about women as lying, manipulative pains in the ass. I don’t know if I still do. Yes, I think she’s a petulant and spoiled mafiya princess, but I also know she is exactly what Igor made her.
Is it possible she’s not in any danger, and this was just Igor’s final punishment to us both? That he enacted some kind of rich irony to couple us together after we fucked each other over so well last time. That his money is not actually what’s putting Sasha in danger, it’s the glue that keeps us bound?
I suppose.
But I doubt it. I know the workings of the bratva. This is one of Igor’s many machinations, yes, but I still believe it was because he trusted me to keep Sasha alive.
He wasn’t sure about the men he kept closest to him in Moscow.
“I don’t hate you for the past,” I say, finally, still looking out the window. “But I’m not above punishing you.” Igor planted the seed that I would exact retribution with her. After experiencing how pleasurable it was to spank her gorgeous ass, I’m not inclined to let her off the hook.
I sense a shiver run through her. I steal a glance where she sits beside me. Her pouty lips are parted, and I see a flash of both excitement and vulnerability. A glimpse of that beautiful, underloved teenager, desperate for attention from any quarter and seeking it from me.
But the moment she realizes I’m looking, her mouth snaps closed, and she lifts her chin. “Maybe I’ll be punishing you,” she sniffs.
Fuck.
Me.
Maybe this all was Igor’s big, sick joke.
Sasha
Maxim pays someone at the curb to take our bags and check us in, so we can go straight to the security line. There, he pays someone for us to cut in line.
I’ve forgotten how nice it is to travel with a powerful man. It’s not that I didn’t have money in my purse when I went back and forth between California and Moscow. But it wasn’t the same. I’ve been sheltered my whole life. My years at USC were off the charts fun—having freedom and developing friendships—but I was still just a college student. I had no power.
I didn’t know how to grease wheels or who to bribe. But maybe that’s only a secret club for men, anyway. Women rely on their beauty to get special favors. It’s always worked for me.
My minidress gets me plenty of attention. Honestly, it’s way more something I’d wear to go out dancing at a nightclub than something to travel in. Ditto on the platform sandals. I wore it to get under Maxim’s skin, still under the impression I’d be able to talk him out of dragging me to Chicago.
But here I am in the airport showing way too much skin. Oh well, I might as well own it. I toss my hair and cock a hip, pretending I’m a movie star, and that’s why we get to cut in line.
Maxim loops an arm around my waist and draws me closer to him. My breast brushes against his chest, my nipple puckering in my bra. My panties are still wet from his spanking in the car.
I arch a brow but don’t pull away. I was expecting a rebuke or the crankiness my father used to show when he thought I looked slutty. I like Maxim’s response quite a bit better. “Staking your claim?” I purr.
“Damn straight.” He looks around. “It’s either that or kill every man who looks at you, and I don’t think that would go over in an airport.” He gazes down, standing taller than me, even in the platform heels. “I seem to recall you have a streak of exhibitionism in you,” he says.
I blink, startled by the observation.
“So I figure I’d better accept it, or I’ll spend the rest of my life mopping blood from the floor.”
I’m even more surprised by his chosen response. Do I have a streak of exhibitionsim in me? My mother always said I was a show-off. My father told me to stop begging for attention.
But Maxim doesn’t say it like it’s a character flaw. He makes it sound like a kink. Something sexy and hot, not cloying and weak.
I fight to swallow, suddenly remembering why it was I fancied myself in love with Maxim when we were in Croatia. Because he actually sees me. He pays attention. He may be the only man in my life who looked past the red hair and pretty face. Even when I didn’t know who I was, he seemed to. I remember sitting on the deck, watching the dolphins play in the water as we played cards and listened to music together. While my father was smoking cigars with his men or screwing my mother in their cabin, Maxim was the only one who noticed my existence.
That was why I offered myself up on a platter for him.
Like an idiot.
“As long as everyone knows you’re with me, we have no problems, sugar.” He pulls me closer, angling my body into his, so his thigh comes between mine like we’re doing a sexy lambada on the dance floor. “You have it, you might as well flaunt it.” He gives me a wink, and I melt even more.
Damn him.
I squeeze my inner thighs together around his thicker limb. It would serve him right if I left a wet spot on his pant leg.
He doesn’t seem to mind a bit. His hand strays lower, rounding over my ass. “They can look all they want,” he murmurs. “And you can give them a show. Just as long as they don’t try to touch.”
The security officer calls us forward and checks our tickets and passport. Maxim keeps me tucked at his side. My skin tingles with the nearness of him, but more than that, a strange satisfaction filters through me. Knowing Maxim’s proud I’m with him is a new sensation. Granted, it’s just because I’m pretty arm candy—exactly what my mother was to my father—but I still like the feeling. There’s an intoxicating power to it. One I guess I’ve been seeking my whole life but rejected every chance of having because I refused to ever give myself to a man. I played the cock-tease, baiting the hook and then casting them back in the ocean.
Now, I have no choice. I belong to Maxim. And in this instance, he doesn’t seem sorry about that fact.
That doesn’t mean I’m going to lie back and spread my legs for him. It doesn’t mean I’m going to play nice or be sweet or any of the things my medieval father expected of me. But things could be worse.
My husband thinks I’m hot and will let me flaunt it.
Fabulous. Because that is the one thing I’ve always enjoyed and been good at.
Chapter 4
Maxim
“I’m not having sex with you,” Sasha declares again in Chicago after I lead her by the elbow, past my boss and his pregnant lover and the rest of my suite-mates into my bedroom.
She’s unimpressed by the grandeur of the Kremlin—the name the neighborhood gave to
Ravil’s twenty-story building with a view of Lake Michigan. I don’t bring women home to my suite a lot, but they usually drool over the penthouse I share with the upper echelon of the brotherhood—the more than half a story made into our private bratva mansion.
“Worried you can’t satisfy me?” I toss at her.
For an instant, I see her confidence slip, like I poked a wound. Right—probably the one I left when I rejected her back on that yacht in Croatia. In a flash, though, she covers it with a sniff and a toss of her long red mane. “As if,” she throws back, going to stand by the wall of windows to look out at the lights of the boats out on the water. She’s been speaking English since we got on the plane, and apart from the light accent, she sounds exactly like an American college student.
Despite it all, despite what she did to me, I still feel protective of her. Maybe because I saw the way her father treated her. Saw the beautiful, hurt teenager desperate to be loved.
She may be an adult now, but I still see through her bravado.
I set her suitcase on my dresser and walk over. “I didn’t mean that, caxapok.” I lightly touch her upper arms, insinuating my body against her backside without quite making contact. Close enough, so I can feel her little intake of breath. See the goosebumps that raise on her neck. Relish the subtle heat from her body. “It’s my job to satisfy you.” I lower my head and brush my lips over her shoulder. “And believe me, doll, you would be satisfied.”
She stops breathing.
It’s not that I’m dying to consummate this marriage. Although Sasha is hot as fuck, and the chemistry between us is still explosive. I’m just thinking sex might take the edge off. Give us a place to start.
She hates that her father traded her like he was selling a thoroughbred horse. She hates that he picked me, the man who humiliated her right when she was coming into her own sexuality. She especially hates that I control her purse-strings now.
I’m not so thrilled with being saddled with her, myself. But Igor won my loyalty when he saved my life and took me under his wing as a young man, and that loyalty didn’t die when he banished me.
I’d love to park Sasha in some apartment and pretend she doesn’t exist, but I can’t. Her life’s in danger, and I’m responsible for keeping her safe. So like it or not, we’ll be in each other’s faces. Likely for the rest of our lives.
So we might as well make the best of it.
“Not happening.” Sasha’s shut-down is weakened by the wobble in her voice, the breathless quality of her words.
My dick punches out against my zipper. I slip my hands under her arms to coast down her sides. Her body melts back against mine. I splay one hand over her belly, bring the other to squeeze her breast. “You’re mine now, Sasha,” I murmur against her ear. “You might as well enjoy the benefits.”
Her knees wobble. I flick my tongue against her ear, draw her earlobe between my lips and suck. I find her nipple beneath the padding of her bra and pinch it.
She grips my hands and tugs them away, spinning to face me. “Not happening.” Her pupils are blown, cheeks flushed. “I want a separate bedroom.”
I shake my head. “Not happening.”
A seconds-long staredown happens. I can see her gears churning, and I doubt I’m going to like whatever they produce.
“I’m never having sex with you,” she asserts.
“Oh, I think you will. But it won’t be because I force you, sugar. No, you’ll be begging me for it. And I promise you’ll enjoy it.”
For some reason, that promise seems to make her confidence slip for a flash, but she lifts her chin. “Dream on, my friend.” She tosses her hair and heads to the en suite bathroom. I hear the bathtub start, so I undress and crawl in bed. I didn’t let myself sleep on the sixteen-hour flight, knowing we’d arrive in Chicago at night, so I’m fucking exhausted. I watched the movies they showed on the flight, but Sasha watched her own entertainment on her iPad—episode after episode of Downton Abbey. I don’t know why it surprised me, but it did. When I asked, she said she loved historicals.
I guess I thought she’d be watching something insipid. Some stupid romcom thing. But I have to remember she studied theatre. It makes sense she has a thing for period pieces.
I leave the bedside lamp on and doze off, waking when she emerges.
Naked.
I mean, completely naked—no towel wrapped around her, just her pale skin and—aw fuck—the most beautiful pair of tits I’ve ever seen. I get fully hard before my gaze has even traveled lower, past the soft mound of her belly to glimpse her—Gospodi—bare sex.
Either she shaved for me in there, or she’s been recently waxed.
Fuck. Me.
“What are you doing?” I ask as she walks over to the bed and pulls the covers down to climb in.
“I sleep naked,” she says.
First of all—bullshit. Yerunda. Second, she’s not going to play this sex manipulation game with me. Not again. It ends now.
“Sugar, you climb in this bed naked, I will fuck you so hard and so well you won’t walk right tomorrow.”
She freezes. Her nipples tighten like bolts, and I see goosebumps race across her skin. She straightens and cocks a hip, one hand on her waist. “You said you wouldn’t force me.”
I shrug. “If you want me to hold back, caxapok, you keep your clothes on. That’s all I’m going to say.”
We lock gazes. Her perfect breasts lift and lower with her rapid breathing. Whatever she sees in my face must tell her I’m not fucking around because she turns away. “Fine.”
I watch the twitch of her gorgeous ass as she struts to the dresser. I think she’s going to open her suitcase, but instead, she opens and shuts my drawers until she finds one with my t-shirts. She pulls on a soft cotton undershirt and comes to bed. No panties. Just my fucking white shirt. She crawls in with her back to me.
All I can think about is that bare fucking pussy within reaching distance. How much I want to push open her knees and lick her until she screams. Give her everything she wanted from me all those years ago.
I flick off the lamp. “You’re playing a dangerous game, Sasha.”
“It’s the only one I know,” she says into the darkness.
Her words pierce through my irritation at her cock-tease, the haze of testosterone, to land somewhere in my chest with a sharp jab. The honesty of her answer cuts me off at the knees. Of course, it’s the only one she knows.
Sex is the only weapon she’s been taught to wield.
This is why I need to work harder to disarm her. I roll on my side and loop an arm around her waist, dragging her backward until her ass meets my lap. With great effort, I will my erection down as she stiffens and stops breathing.
I kiss her shoulder. “You’re mine now,” I tell her softly. “Which means we’re on the same team. Stop fighting me.”
She continues to hold her breath. I feel her belly flex against my arm, and then she lets out her breath on a sob.
I pull her tighter. Aw, fuck. She just lost her father, with whom she had a complicated relationship with at best. She got married off like a medieval bride to a guy she doesn’t trust not to break her.
She sucks in her breath and holds it again.
“Let it out,” I murmur against her nape. “You’ve had a hell of a week.”
She doesn’t breathe, though. She keeps holding it until my own lungs feel like they’ll burst out of sympathy, and then she wallops me in the eye with her elbow.
“Blyat.” I release her, but she turns in the darkness and strikes out at me again.
My reflexes fire too quickly, and I catch her wrists, holding her captive before I realize she needs this tantrum. I let her go, and she attacks me, sobbing as she pummels me with her fists. She must not want to hurt me, though, because she picks up a pillow and uses it, instead, to whack me over the head and shoulders.
I let the blows fall, listen to her sobbing breath and whimpers until they slow, then I take the pillow from her. “Enough.
” I pin her wrists down beside her head, my body blanketing hers.
She whimpers again, an angry sob. My mouth crashes down on hers. She tastes of tears and toothpaste. I slide my lips over her softer ones, dragging her lower lip into my mouth, then going at it again, flicking my tongue between her lips.
She kisses me back, moaning softly into my mouth.
I catch myself grinding in the notch between her legs, and I stop myself. This isn’t about sex. I’m not going to force that issue. I just want to give her the connection she craves. Bind the two of us together with something besides bitter words and an ugly past.
Our lips twist and tangle. I slow the claiming.
“Enough,” I murmur again, possibly more to myself than her, and force myself off of her. I slide once more to her side, rolling her to face away from me and looping an arm around her waist. “Go to sleep, caxapok. We can fight more in the morning.”
Her breath rasps quick and frantic for a few more minutes then slows to normal and eventually into slumber.
Only then do I let myself drift into a much-needed sleep.
Chapter 5
Sasha
Maxim gets up first, waking me as he climbs out of bed. I pretend to be asleep. I don’t know why—I guess because I’m not ready to face him.
Not after last night.
The way I broke down in front of him. The way he kissed me. At least it was dark. I didn’t have to look into his handsome face after he’s seen so much of me.
The real me, I mean. Not just the naked me.
I hear the shower turn on, and the urge to run comes over me.
It’s a literal urge—I’m a morning jogger—but also an emotional one.