Chapter 20 Grace
GRACE
Every part of my body is sore from one of the most intense sex sessions I’ve ever had in my life.
Never thought it was possible to black out from orgasms, but it seems like it is possible with Maxim.
And then this morning when I reached out for him our bodies knew exactly what the other needed, again bliss.
The hottest thing was watching him stuff his cum back inside of me.
I’ve never been this kinky in my life, but Maxim brings out the bad girl in me.
Getting out of the shower, I dry myself and get dressed into another sundress and no underwear because let’s be serious, I’m just going to end up back on his dick.
Food first then dick as my stomach rumbles angrily.
Walking out of Maxim’s bedroom, I head down to the kitchen and grab myself a banana—I’m going to need the potassium for recovery—then make my way down the corridor to where Maxim’s office is.
I wonder if he will bend me over his desk again?
“Book the helicopter and the jet. The safest way is if we don’t tell her family she’s coming. Make sure there is no way anyone can trace your movements on this one,” Maxim shouts down the phone angrily.
I still at the doorway. Did he say, my family? Is he sending me home? Tears well in my eyes. Has he had his fill of me and is now throwing me away? Back to your family, like you wanted. I don’t understand the sudden change. Did I come on too strong? Am I too kinky for him? Is he disgusted by me?
“Grace.” He gasps, seeing me standing there at his office doorway.
Wrapping my arms around me to protect myself I ask, “Are you getting rid of me?”
“Fuck, Wildcat, no it’s not like that. I’m trying to protect you.” He curses getting up from his desk and rushing over to me, where he pulls me into his arms and hugs me tightly.
“I heard you say I’m going back to my family,” I ask him through my tears.
Maxim wipes my tear-stained cheeks. “Dmitri called earlier. He wants you back.”
My entire body stills hearing the news. No, Maxim promised. He told me he was never sending me back to Dmitri. I try and pull myself out of his arms. Was this all a lie? Did he make me fall in love with him to send me back to a monster?
“Don’t touch me. You promised. You said you would protect me. You lied,” I scream at him.
“Baby, what are you talking about? I am protecting you. I’m sending you back to your family.”
Everything stills. What did he say? I try and shake the last edge of my panic from my mind.
“I would never send you back to him. How could you think such a thing?” he says as hurt falls across his handsome face.
“I thought ...” I look up at him.
“Never. You are mine. Now come here,” he calls, opening his arms for me.
I go willingly as I wrap my arms around him tightly. I’m going home. I’ll get to see my family. Hug them. I’ll be safe.
“Wait, what about you?” I say, pulling out of his arms.
“I’m not coming, Wildcat,” he says, cupping my face.
“But I’ll see you again, won’t I?”
Maxim looks over my shoulder before looking back at me, his face is somber.
No. No.
“I’m not going without you. Please, Max, don’t make me leave. I’ve only just found you,” I say, thumping his chest.
“I told you I would do anything to protect you. This is me protecting you.”
“No, please don’t leave me alone.” I sob as I slap his chest.
“I have to. I can’t risk Dmitri finding you.”
“Will you call me?”
He shakes his head.
“You were just going to send me on my way today and never see me again?” I scream at him.
“I’m trying to keep you safe, Grace.”
“I’m safe with you.”
He shakes his head again.
“Was this all a lie?” I ask, waving my hands in the air. “You made me fall in love with you for what?”
Maxim stills.
My hands come to my mouth as I realize what I’ve confessed.
“I fucking love you, Grace Clark,” he says, grabbing me by the base of the neck and pulling me close to him so our foreheads touch.
“And that’s why I’m doing this. You have my fucking dark heart.
It’s yours. You are it for me, Grace. I never thought anyone could love a monster like me until you came along, Wildcat. ”
Tears are streaming down my face as my heart breaks into two.
“When it’s safe. I’ll come find you,” he whispers.
“How long will that be?”
He doesn’t answer me.
“Tell me, dammit,” I scream, thumping his chest.
“I don’t know.”
“You don’t fucking know? You’re just going to say goodbye to me and that’s it? You’re ripping my heart out, Maxim, and I don’t even get a say in it.”
“I can’t ask you to choose me, Grace. Not against your family.”
“I would though,” I say sadly, letting my hands fall.
Maxim shakes his head. “I’m not worthy of that decision.”
He is to me. Maxim’s the only one I feel that’s ever understood me. How can I go back to a life that I don’t remember? I’ve changed. I’m not the same Grace I was when I left all those months ago.
“I don’t want to let you go.”
“Baby, you must. Please, I need to know you’re safe, otherwise I can’t do my job.”
His job? “You’re going to kill Dmitri?”
“I will, but not yet. I need to find out what he knows about my sister and Anna. And I need to help find the other jewels.”
“You’re not going to send them back to the Bratva, are you?”
Maxim shakes his head. “Not after what you’ve told us. I was thinking of sending them back to your family. Helping their fight to find them.”
My eyes widen at his words. “You would do that?”
“I’d do anything to make things right for you, Grace. If I could turn back time and change the night you and your sister met those two I would.”
“Then I wouldn’t have met you.”
“I would have found you,” he says, giving me a wink.
“I may not have been so accepting of your job if I hadn’t gone through what I had.”
“This is true. I would have brought you around with my tongue.”
My face drops. No more magic tongue. I wrap my arms around Maxim again and squeeze him tightly.
“This isn’t goodbye, Wildcat, I promise you that. I’ll come find you when the time is right. Please trust me when I say I’m coming back for you,” he tries to reassure me, and I believe him. I squeeze him even tighter, not wanting to let him go, but I know now it’s inevitable.
“Ready to go home?” Sergei asks, giving me a warm smile as he fiddles with the helicopter’s controls.
Looking back up at the villa, I see Maxim’s shadow in his bedroom window.
I wipe the tears from my eyes as I say goodbye to this man.
A man I fell in love with in the strangest of situations.
I trust that I’ll see him again; however long it takes for Dmitri to be brought to justice, I’ll wait for him.
The helicopter starts, and we move away from the ground, my eyes never leaving the dark figure in the window until I can’t see him anymore.
I’m going home, but I left my heart with him.
Sergei flies the helicopter to an airport where he lands it and exchanges one aircraft for another as we step aboard a private plane. He walks me to my seat, and I take it, sinking into the buttery soft leather before curling up into a ball.
“He’s probably drinking himself into a stupor as we speak,” Sergei states as the flight crew close the aircraft and we begin to taxi. “I’ve known that boy since he was seventeen years old, he’s like a son to me, and I’ve never seen him fall for anyone like he has you.”
“Is that supposed to make me feel better,” I tell Sergei as my lip trembles and I try to hold in my emotions.
“Oh, sweetheart, I don’t want to see you cry. I told you this because I need you to believe he’s not giving up on you. That he will be back, I can promise you that,” the old man reassures me.
“You don’t think he’s going to forget me?”
Sergei chuckles. “Never.”
Guess that makes me feel better as I curl up into a ball and eventually fall asleep, exhausted from the emotional rollercoaster today has been.
“Grace, wake up. You’re home.” Sergei shakes me awake. I wipe the drool from my mouth and rub my eyes. “We’ve landed in Ibiza. You’re going to have to get a move on as I have to be wheels-up again in ten minutes.”
Oh.
“There’s a taxi waiting for you.” Sergei points to the bright lights as he escorts me toward the car.
“Here is the money for the driver.” He hands over a wad of Euros to me then gives me a tight hug.
“I’ll see you again soon. I know it,” he tells me as he holds the door open for me, giving me one last smile before closing the door and walking back toward the plane where he turns and waves.
“I’ll take you home, Miss,” the taxi driver says as he starts the car, and we leave the airport.
Staring out at the landscape doesn’t feel right.
I miss the rolling green hills of Tuscany compared to the rocky ones of Ibiza.
It all feels wrong. The taxi pulls up at the familiar iron gates.
I peel a couple of notes and hand it to him and watch as he drives away.
I notice the security camera pointed directly at me and wave, hoping someone is watching and comes and gets me.
The gates eventually open and I can see my family at the end of the driveway, running toward me.
I do the same. My sisters are the first to reach me, pulling me into their arms. Everyone is screaming, crying, throwing a million questions at me, pulling me, touching me. They’re in shock.
“Where’s my baby? Where is she?” Mum sobs as she pushes through the crowd and pulls me into her arms. “You’re home, you’re really home.” She squeezes me to death.
“I can’t breathe, Mum.”
“I don’t care, darling, I’m just glad you’re home.”
“Baby girl.” Dad tries to pull me from Mum’s vice-like grip, and
she eventually lets me go so I can hug him.
“Let me look at you?” my mother says, giving me a once over. “Are you okay? Did they hurt you? Come, we must get you some food you must be starving,” she says, grabbing my hand as she drags me across the driveaway.
“Mum, I’m fine. I was well looked after. I ate good food.”