Chapter 25
“You were quiet tonight.” Kaz’s voice reverberates through the silence of the car. “My brothers are going to think you’re not happy with me.”
Rain mists across the windshield, blurring the city lights as we make our way home. Kaz is driving tonight. Outside, the night appears crisp and clear, while inside the car there’s a heaviness that weighs on my chest.
“I was distracted. Your lawyer still hasn’t been able to get his hands on the will?”
“Apparently, the papers weren’t filed properly. He’s looking into it.”
“How can they not be filed properly?”
His grip tightens on the steering wheel.
“My uncle paid someone off, didn’t he?”
“Or nothing was ever filed to begin with because they didn’t think you’d go looking.” He pauses a beat. “We’ll get it, don’t worry,” he says.
He glances at my lap where my phone is cradled in my hands.
“Who are you texting this late?”
“Melody. I just want to be sure Tommy got to bed all right. I hadn’t expected us to be at your brother’s house so late.”
Dinner turned into dessert, which flowed into drinks and a card game that Megan and Vee had to explain several times before I could play unsupervised.
“Has Melody had trouble putting him to bed before?” He shifts gears seamlessly as he takes us closer to home.
“No, but I’m worried.”
“I know,” he says quietly. “He’s safe. No one is getting to him.”
“I thought agreeing to this marriage was going to protect him. I thought being able to move here permanently to be near him was the silver lining in all this, but all it did was give them more leverage.”
“He’s safe,” he repeats.
I pick up my phone when Melody’s message lights up on the screen. Tommy’s fine. He’s asleep.
“He really loves his room, by the way.” I tuck my phone into my purse. “Thank you for that. For giving him his own place.”
Kaz grips the steering wheel harder.
“I know you don’t have to let him stay with us.”
“He’s a little boy. He shouldn’t be used as leverage by fucked up grownups.” He says this with such force, I think he’s speaking from experience.
“When Alexander mentioned your mother’s phone call, you seemed tense. Do you speak with her?” I tiptoe toward the subject of his parents.
“Not often. She’s in Russia,” he says.
“Yes, Megan mentioned that. She also said your mom won’t ever come back here?”
His knuckles whiten. “She hates this country. She has no pleasant memories here.”
“Weren’t you and your brothers raised here?” I ask softly. What sort of mother would suggest having her children didn’t qualify as pleasant memories?
“She wasn’t the motherly type.” He rolls his shoulders. He doesn’t need to say anything else; I understand exactly what he means.
She did her duty, gave her husband sons, then went on about her life.
“Did your parents have an arranged marriage?” I swallow, glancing out the window as we pass through the thick iron gates blocking Kaz’s drive. “Like ours?”
Silently, he pulls the car to a stop in front of the garage. The hum of the engine cuts short after Kaz parks, and I reach for my door handles. He places a hand on my knee, squeezing to get my attention.
“Our marriage is nothing like theirs.” He scrubs his hand over his mouth.
He seems like he needs a moment. Like he’s not sure if he wants to go into details or not.
“My father used us against my mother when she angered him. Eventually she realized it was better to be free from all of us than to fight him.”
“But they were forced to marry, just like us, right?” I press gently.
He pauses. “No one forced me to marry you, Sienna.”
I pull back. “What do you mean? I thought you had to, in order to bring peace.”
“It was already over, the fighting. I could have told them no, and the truce probably would have still happened.”
“So you married me purely to get back at my family? You wanted to hurt them by hurting me. But you didn’t realize they don’t care about me at all, did you?”
“I wasn’t going to hurt you,” he’s quick to assert.
“You were going to humiliate me, make my life as miserable as you could. I’d complain to my uncle, my cousins maybe and there would be nothing they could do about it. They’d have to watch while you took their money, ran their businesses out of town, and neglected one of their own.”
“It wasn’t one of my best plans. I admit.”
“If my family cared about me at all, it would have worked. But I guess you got screwed in the end.”
He grabs my hand. “No. I don’t think I did.”
Before I can say anything, a loud clap of thunder erupts, vibrating the car.
The garage door opens, and one of Kaz’s men stands in the attached doorframe.
“We should probably get inside before it really starts to storm,” I say, slipping my hand from his grip.
His jaw tenses. He doesn’t like being interrupted, not even by mother nature.
After he pulls into the garage and cuts the engine again, he grabs my arm, stopping me from getting out. He drags me toward him, crushing my mouth with his own.
Urgency laces the kiss. His hand sinks into my hair, holding me firm. He kisses me until a moan escapes, until my eyes want to cross from the desire he pulls from me, until my brain skids to a stop.
“Do you remember the rule for our bedroom?” His voice heavy and dark.
“Yes, sir.” I bite down on my lip, fighting off a giggle.
It should be studied. This ability he has to get into my head and take control with such ease.
“Good.” He releases me and climbs out of the car, waiting for me to come around so he can lace his fingers through mine.
As we enter the house, the man who’d opened the garage door whispers something to Kaz. The tension is back in his jaw, and he lets go of my hand.
“I have to deal with something. Go up, I’ll be there soon.”
“Sure. Okay. I’ll just check on Tommy first.” After hanging up my coat in the closet, I head upstairs.
Tommy’s dead asleep. His favorite toy foam gun rests on the bedside table within reach, and his favorite comic book lays open on his stomach. I move the book onto the table and turn off the lamp.
He’s safe.
Nothing can touch him here.
Once in our bedroom, I kick out of my shoes and bring them to the closet. I strip out of my clothes and realize my robe is hanging in the bathroom. Since I have to wash my face and brush out my hair, I head there.
When I bring the towel away from my face, my heart slams into my sternum. Through the mirror I see him.
Kaz stands in the doorway. Anger twists his expression.
My robe. I haven’t put it on yet. My entire back is on display.
“Kaz.”
“What happened to you?” He grabs my shoulders when I try to turn around and twists me until he can see the scars.
“How did I not see this before?” His fingers trace the marks.
“You’ve never looked at my back before.” I turn around and frame his face with my hands. “It’s okay. They don’t hurt.”
“What happened?” he demands.
“My brothers.” I lift a shoulder. “Kaz, it was a long time ago.”
“Tell me.”
“When I was in high school, they had friends over, swimming in the pool. I wanted to join them, so I put on my swimsuit and jumped in. Marco told me to leave, I refused.”
“He hurt you because you wanted to swim?”
“No. He hurt me because he wanted to hurt me.” I correct. “He and Michael dragged me from the pool over to a tree while Tony grabbed a bunch of cords from the pool house. They tied me to the tree.”
He stares at me a moment. “There’s more.”
“They let their friends—I was fighting so hard to get loose because they were throwing rocks at me. One hit my head, not hard enough to actually hurt me, but it scared me. The marks are from the bark cutting into my back. All my wiggling around cut me all up.”
“And your parents?”
“Dad said they were just being boys and not to make a big deal out of it.” I take a deep breath.
He pulls me into him, wrapping his big arms around me. The loud chaos of my past quiets in my mind, planting me firmly in the present with his protective embrace.
His hands roam down my sides, griping, claiming. The soft drag of his palms turns my shiver into a full body ache.
Gripping my hips, he spins me to face away from him. He slides one hand into my hair, fisting it at my scalp. His mouth trails over my bare shoulder, then my neck. When his lips find my scars, my breath catches in my throat.
He presses a kiss into each of the raised marks, like he’s healing them. When he pulls back and finds my gaze in the mirror, there’s something different in his eyes. The rage that had been there before has been replaced with seething deeper, something more meaningful.
Protection.
Possession.
Passion.
“No one will ever hurt you again, Sienna.” His chest vibrates against my back as he makes his vow.
Tightening his grip in my hair, he drags my head back until my throat is exposed. He runs his tongue along my jaw.
“Bed. Now.” His voice is thunderous in my soul, but probably barely audible.
It doesn’t matter. My body wants him. My heart needs him. It’s a dangerous game, this push and pull of ours, but I’m too engrossed in him at the moment to care.
I can dissect it later.
“By the count of three or there will be consequences.” He releases my hair. “One.”
I take off running, nearly tripping on my own feet as I hurry to the bedroom.
“Two.”
I dive onto the bed, slipping at first on the edge and then have to jump onto it again. By the time, I get to the middle of the bed, I’m laughing and breathing hard.
“Thanks. That was the most ungraceful moment of my life.” I press my hand to my chest, feeling my heart trying to escape.
He stops at the edge of the bed, his eyes meeting mine in a tractor beam intensity.
“Obedience from you is always beautiful.”
He unbuttons his shirt, yanking it free from his pants as he rips it from his body.
Every fiber of my body jolts awake. My mouth dries, but it’s the only part of me that does.
“Spread your pretty thighs, sweetheart.” His voice dips even lower, his eyes get even darker.
My body gets even hotter.
Laying back against the pillows, I do what he says, spreading my legs for him.
He licks his lips as his eyes settle between my thighs. “Now touch yourself. Show me how you do it when I’m not home.”
I could lie. I could pretend I haven’t brought myself to climax every night he wasn’t home, because it was too hard to sleep with such need going unfulfilled.
But I know what he wants.
What I need to give him.
“That’s right, sweetheart. Play with your pussy. Such a pretty pussy.” He unbuckles his belt, jerks down the zipper and shoves out of his pants.
I wet my lips at the sight of him springing free from his clothing.
“Don’t stop.” He climbs onto the bed and kneels between my thighs. He wraps his hand around his thick shaft, stroking himself while watching me play with my clit.
I reach out to him to touch him, and he slaps my hand away.
“I didn’t say you could touch yet.”
“You’re not playing fair.”
“Who said this is fair.” He smiles, and it’s devastatingly hot. “Give me your fingers.”
He leans forward and drags my hand up to his mouth, sucking in my fingers and licking them clean. Our eyes are locked on each other while his tongue lashes across my fingertips. A moan from deep in his chest, vibrates against my fingers.
Dropping my hand, he runs his hands up my thighs, over my hips, and up to my face. He hovers over me, staring deep into my eyes like he’s trying to find salvation there.
My skin is on fire.
Abruptly, he slinks back down my body, shoves my thighs open even further as he drops to his belly. Hooking his arms beneath me, he lifts me up and eats me like a man starved.
“Oh, god.” I sink my hands into his hair, and he makes a low guttural sound.
I lift my hips up further, rocking against his mouth. His fingernails dig into my ass. I whimper with approval, toes curling into the bedding.
His teeth scrape over the hood of my pussy, he sucks my clit hard, and I writhe beneath him like a woman gone mad. When he slaps the inside of my thigh, I roll my head back and moan.
Grabbing hold of my hips, he rolls to his back, dragging me to straddle him. At some point I will have to compliment him on his smooth manhandling skills, but right now I’m silenced by his cock pressing against me.
“Go on, sweetheart, take it, put it in.” He bucks his hips upward at me.
Wrapping my hand around his thick, hot shaft, I position the head of his dick at my entrance.
Patience not being one of his strengths, he unleashes a growl as he thrusts up at me, filling me as he yanks me down on him.
“Good girl,” he moans as I move my hips. “Fucking ride me.”
He slaps my hip, my ass, bucking up at me the entire time.
“Harder, baby, ride me harder.” He moves his hand to between my thighs, making my clit brush his fingers as I continue to ride him.
He makes another sound, this one filled with desperation and need.
I ride him faster, matching his thrusts as he continues to slam me down on him.
“Fuck, sweetheart.” He wraps an arm around my waist and again I’m tossed onto my back.
He thrusts into me.
“Kaz, oh fuck, Kaz, harder, don’t go easy.” I wrap my leg around his waist.
He lines up our gazes. “Never.”
He slams his mouth over mine, shoving deeper and harder into me until we’re both moaning and moving with each other.
His lids lower. He wants something.
“Tell me you’re mine.”
“I am, Kaz. All yours.” His to hold and his to break.
He thrusts harder. The headboard slams against the wall.
I grip his shoulders. A thin veil of sweat covers my body. My skin is hot. My lungs burn.
He leans over me, his chest pressing against mine as his pelvis grinds into me.
“That’s my girl. My good fucking girl,” he growls in my ear. “Come for me, Sienna. Come hard for me.”
Like a match to a gasoline can, my body explodes. I scream his name, repeating it over and over as though the cadence will somehow grant me eternal life.
He bucks harder, fucking me through every wave of my orgasm until he climaxes. He comes with the roar of a lion, arching his back as he drives into me one last time. Spilling himself inside me.
After the storm has passed, he leans down, kisses me—a soft, gentle kiss. It’s filled with promise I hadn’t hoped to consider days ago.
He lifts himself from me and rolls to his back, pulling me to cuddle up beside him. My hand splays over his chest where his heart beats as hard as my own.
My body aches from head to toe. My lungs burn from my frantic breathing, but I’m so damn content I can’t be bothered to think about it.
Ours may not be match made from love, but we have this. Passion. And a lot can be built on that.
A knock on the door disturbs the softness of the moment.
“What do you want?” Kaz yells maneuvering the blankets so they cover us.
There’s a long pause.
“You left your phone in your office. You have a call.” One of the men shout from the other side.
I pull the blanket up to my chest, covering myself as Kaz sits up.
“Fuck,” he grumbles. “Whoever it is, I’ll call them back later.”
“Kaz.” There’s a long pause. “It’s Elana.”