Chapter 45
CHAPTER
FORTY-FIVE
Sia
Lettie and I were able to get Maxim to go away for dress shopping, but when it came to Val? Nothing doing. Maxim’s overprotective nature when it came to me (and his daughter) wouldn’t stand for that, but I think Lettie and I were okay with the decision in the end. Val certainly had her opinions, and it’d been nice to have another eye.
Was this all really happening?
Honestly, it kind of felt like a bit of a dream, but, even though things were moving quickly, they did feel right.
The manor when we got home looked…different. Actually, this was an understatement. For starters, none of the lights were on. It didn’t need it with the adornments of flickering candles and soft light. There wasn’t a stretch of the floor where there weren’t candles, and I had to avoid the tea lights so I didn’t accidentally kick anything over.
“Holy…” The word left my lips as my dress bag was taken from me. It took me the better part of three hours to decide on a wedding gown, but that was mostly due to Lettie and Val. My tastes were too simple as far as they were concerned.
The whole day had been fun and kind of felt like I had family. I had people who cared that I looked nice and, well, just cared.
“Told you she’d like it.” This came from Lettie, the one who’d taken my dress. She’d spoken the words to Val and Lettie had her own garment bag in her arms. She was my maid of honor. She grinned. “Dad’s in the dining room.”
I swung around, my brow lifting. I pointed to the room. “You knew he’d do this to the house?”
“Why do you think we kept you out so long?” Lettie peered over to Val who laughed. She was in on this too? Val placed her hands on my shoulders.
“ Have fun. He tried real hard with all this ,” she signed to me, and this really was a set up. I didn’t know what it was a set up for, but I got an indicator when I did head into the dining room. At least, I thought it was the dining room. The actual dinner table was missing, as well as the chairs.
They’d been replaced with pillows.
They were a handsome red and more of those candles were around. The small set up in the center had a wide berth, and I supposed I wouldn’t be guessing where I was eating dinner tonight. There were two gold domes in front of the crimson pillows and place settings on either side. The main attraction was Maxim though, who brought out two golden goblets.
And fuck did he look handsome.
He didn’t even have to try, though he had, and I never thought I’d see him in a sweater . He had it bunched above his thick forearms, his tatted muscles on display. His inky hair was in a tousle, and he smiled warmly at me upon approaching me.
“Sparkling cider,” he said, handing me a glass. I suppose even if I was of legal age to drink he knew I wouldn’t. His hand folded behind my neck. “ Malyshka .”
That was all he said before kissing me, his mouth so warm. His tongue brushed mine, and I thought I’d melt where I stood.
“What is all this?” I asked him, breathless. His nose brushed the tip of mine, and I did go weak in the knees.
“Call it a bit of a do over.” He acquired my glass after I took a sip, then placed both his and mine down to help me out of my coat. I felt not as dressed up as him in my leggings and tank, but, with the way Maxim looked at me after the coat was off, I didn’t care. He gave my shoulder the briefest of kisses before following down to my chest, and I wavered more than slightly before he pulled away.
“I’m not much for romance, but even I know you deserve much more than what you got from me in the past, Sia.” Using my coat, he made a makeshift blanket for me. He helped me sit with one hand, and when he joined me, he put both my hands in his. He kissed them. “I’d give you everything if I could.”
I had no idea what he meant until he opened up a third dome. I hadn’t seen the other one between the two place settings.
Maybe because it was so small.
I thought maybe this would be dessert to whatever was under the other domes, but dessert looked a little different than a black velvet box.
Holy fuck.
He snapped the box open too, and each candle’s warm light flickered off the diamond inside. It was an oval shape with black stones around it.
I said nothing as he took it out.
“This is what I hope to be the start of us. A true start of a life…” He smiled a little, as if to himself. His gray eyes flicked in my direction, so steely and intense. He took my hand. “A lifetime.”
I waited, but he didn’t put the ring on. He just held it and my hand.
He kissed my fingers. “That is if you say yes. If you say yes to us and yes to me. I know I’m a complicated man from a complicated world, but I’m asking you for that. I want you to choose me, Sia. I want you to have me like I want to have you for a lifetime and more if I physically could.”
Those words and the ring were still between us, and I realized what this was. He said he wanted a do over, and I guess when I initially said yes to an engagement it hadn’t been like this.
Oh my God, he’s proposing.
He was, formally. His lips turned down. “This is the proposal you should have gotten, baby girl. I love you and want to spend the rest of my life with you.”
I didn’t really know love before. I’d felt so much pain, but had wanted love, yearned for it. I wanted to belong somewhere, and I wanted to belong to someone. I may be stubborn like him and acted like I didn’t need anyone, but I did.
I did, so much.
I must have been crying because Maxim’s thick fingers glided across my cheek.
“Happy tears?” he questioned, an uncertainty in his voice I’d never heard. He smiled a little. “Or did I botch this up badly?”
He didn’t know how good he did, and I kissed him.
“I love you, too,” I said, then told him yes. I’d give him a million yeses if I could.
As predicted, not much talking happened after Maxim’s proposal. I mean, after that proposal I was hard-pressed to do anything besides kissing and getting completely naked with him.
And he looked like sin.
He smelled like it too, and I had little to no excuse to keep my hands off him after Lettie texted she’d gone out. She said she was visiting her boyfriend, but I had a feeling she’d just been trying to give us some privacy. She was so cool about all this, and I wasn’t sure I’d be if things were the other way around.
“Sia, fuck.” Maxim eased his full length inside, the two of us in his big tub. We’d had some play time around the dining room before completely not eating. He chased me around a little bit before fucking me in the kitchen.
Twice.
Now, he was fucking me in his bathtub, and even though I was sore as fuck, I needed it. His groan was deep and gravelly as he took me, and the bath water sloshed so much there was nearly as much water on the floor as in the tub. He sucked my nipple. “Fucking perfect, so sweet.”
He kept calling me that. His sweet and his baby girl.
I pushed my fingers through his inky hair, fucking him hard from above, but Maxim was never one to give up control easily. He turned the tables on me, and soon had my curls coiled around his thick fist.
He fucked me from behind with his powerful hips, smacking me flush against the tub. I trusted him to have me in this position now, and when he came with a roar, the call I let out easily tested the sound barrier.
“Oh, my God,” I said, my eyes rolling back. A low chuckle rolled into my back from behind.
“As long as you know who I am,” Maxim stated, arrogant as fuck as he laced our fingers together. He kissed me between my shoulder blades. “I love you, sweet girl.”
I felt so warm, loved, and definitely did again when he took me to bed. We didn’t fuck again, but we cuddled, which seemed even more intimate. I studied the ring he gave me while he kissed my neck softly.
“Was I too rough tonight?” Maxim asked in the dark. His thick fingers laced with mine. “You’re not sleeping. Are you sore?”
I had to smile to myself that was why he thought I was still awake. I lifted my hand, showing him why my attention was stolen. The faint moonlight in the room caught the large diamond in the center.
“I wish I’d been able to give you my grandmother’s ring, but unfortunately when my mother left it went with her,” he said, his voice changing a little. It went gruff, agitated. He pulled me in close. “You would have loved it. It was beautiful.”
This ring was beautiful. In fact, it was freaking gorgeous and more than enough.
“I love this one,” I said, no words out there for how much I loved it. I brought his arms tighter around me. “It’s perfect.”
I never recalled him speaking about his family before. Just him and Lettie.
So much I didn’t know about him.
He said that to me of course, that I didn’t know him, but I knew what I needed. I knew his heart, and that was the most important.
“You deserve something more perfect,” he said, kissing my naked shoulder softly. He hugged me close. “But I was glad I was able to give you this. It’s not my grandmother’s ring, but it’s a fine replacement. I was never able to retrieve it after everything with my mom.”
“Everything?”
“She’s gone.” His voice changed again, deep again. “Anyway, I don’t want to talk about my mother. We can talk about literally anything else but that wretched woman.”
He sounded so cold talking about her. Maxim readily had a chill in his voice when talking about nearly everything, but this was slightly different, darker.
His hold on me got stronger as well, his body tense. I didn’t know my parents. I’d been in the system longer than I could remember, but for all I knew, I could have an equally rough history with mine.
I just didn’t know.
I was so young when I’d gone into foster care, and I didn’t even have birth records. I’d been dropped off at a fire station when I’d been three. At least, that was what I’d been told.
I didn’t have any memories at all from back then, but that made sense since I was so young. My first memories were in an orphanage. I just always recalled being alone.
“How about your dad?” I asked, hoping that was a lighter topic, and I was granted relief with rough laughter.
“Certainly a better topic,” he said, making me smile too. I could hear it in his voice when talking about his dad. “My father was an immigrant.”
“Russian?”
“Yes.” He probably assumed I knew with what he’d called me. “He, myself, and my mother came over to this country when I was very young. Because of that, I’m not fluent in the language. My father was kind though. You would have liked him.”
“Would have?”
“He’s gone, malyshka . Passed,” he stated, my heart suddenly sad. “It’s just Lettie and me here, and she didn’t get to know my father either. He died before I even hit puberty.”
How sad for him. How sad for her. “Can I ask how?”
“You can.” He played with my fingers, and even though I couldn’t see him behind me, I envisioned him studying our hands. He stretched them out in the light. “He was murdered. A hit from inside the organization and by a man he trusted. My father was the man’s family doctor.”
Oh, my God.
I turned around in his arms. He’d spoken coldly about this too, but so deadpan.
He brushed hair out of my face. “Don’t be sad for me. My father was avenged. I made sure of it.”
He said a lot without saying it. Like he knew how his dad was avenged and maybe even took part.
I tried not to let that freak me out. He’d mentioned something about justice before, and the few times I’d seen him hurt people (with the exception of the first) he’d done it after they hurt me. He seemed to operate in response to action, and though that didn’t justify it, I did get it.
This man and his dark world… I found myself seeing it not so black and white, but in shades of gray. I studied his eyes. “You’re in the organization even though it hurt your father?”
“The man who murdered my father was in charge, but after his reign, a man who I consider a father stepped in. He changed things. Made things better.” His hand moved over my hip, squeezing. “I owe Natan my life. I owe him everything. He raised me after my dad died.”
“Is that the man who you met with in your office? “ I asked, remembering he had a couple meetings I’d stumbled upon, but only one had a man who Maxim seemed to answer to. Maxim had been leading that first meeting I saw, and that had been obvious. The men crowded around him like he’d been in charge, but in that other meeting another man held Maxim’s attention. Maxim sat before him respectfully like the other guy had been in charge.
“That was Natan, yes. My pakhan .” His tatted knuckles grazed my lips. “But you should probably sleep now. Sleep and no more questions.”
“Why?”
His digits brushed my eyebrows now, my lashes, until my eyes closed. “Because it might affect me if those brown eyes change when looking at me.”
I opened them. He thought something he said would change how I looked at him? He had to know it wouldn’t. I already knew a lot of the things he’d done. He’d showed me. I wrapped my arms around his neck. “You’ve already showed me who you are.”
“You don’t know the beginnings of who I am. Nor do you know my middle or end, and I hope you never will. I spare Lettie from the details, and I intend to protect you too.” He brought my head forward, kissing my brow. “Now sleep.”
He brought me into his mighty embrace as if summoning the close to this intimate conversation. He shared his heart with me, and he didn’t do that a lot.
I dragged my fingers across his arm. “Did Natan ask you to do something? I mean, back when you left suddenly.”
Maxim’s big hands braced my arms. He said nothing, just murmured for me to sleep when he kissed the back of my head. I was sure his boss had asked him to do something. And whatever it was had changed things.
It’d made things different.