Chapter 12 Mikail #2
Mouth slightly ajar, her eyes sparkle brighter than the rarest gems, her mind running miles per hour, thinking about what I will do to her.
The brain is a sexual, erogenous organ just like her nipples and clit.
I won’t stop until I learn them all, as if it’s my duty to know her from the inside out.
And I will take full advantage of that, driving her mad with pleasure, bringing her so high she questions if she’s still alive.
I don’t just want to be her man but her god—in and out of the bedroom.
“Is this a date?” she asks, knowing she can try, but I won’t go back on my word, my smart woman.
“Yes.”
She glides a finger down my chest, glancing at me from the corner of her eyes. “Have you been on a date before?”
“No.”
Her eyes widen into two bright pools, swallowing me whole. “Another first?”
“You’ll get my lasts, Dahlia. That’s incomparable,” I say it like a vow, the billions of stars lighting up the sky, my witnesses.
Looking down, she fidgets with her fingers. “I…”
I grip her chin, forcing her to look at me. I need her to believe me.
“No woman could be you. No woman came close to meaning something or having anything of mine. There’s nothing in me you haven’t made yours,” I assure her.
“Swear it,” she breathes out, eyes glistening with pure emotion.
“I swear,” I say without thinking, the oath cementing into my bones.
She palms my chest as if communicating with my heart. “Would you let someone else have me?”
My heart rate spikes in response. The thought alone unleashes a rage inside of me that could level the world to nothing but dust and skeletons.
“You wouldn’t.” She nods more to herself. “Good.”
Why deny the undeniable?
“That’s not good at all, baby girl.”
She cups my face. Her eyes bore into mine as if gauging my reaction. “I want two kids. Preferably a boy and a girl.”
She calls me cruel, but she’s the cruel one, painting this perfect family image in my head.
“How many do you want?” she asks, her sweet voice hypnotizing me into wanting it all with her and so much more.
I arch a brow at her, and she giggles.
However many she wants to give me, and she knows it.
It’s so easy to get lost in this dream I fully submerge in until I will choke on it. Insanity, that’s what it is. I want her out of this life, and she wants to bring my heirs into it.
She brushes her nose along mine, murmuring, “Two then.”
Her hand moves to my chest, toying with the first button. I can’t find it in me to stop her. Yet she still glances at me for permission. She seduces me all right, but again, she wouldn’t need much when I am constantly yearning for her. This woman owns me. I just pretend it’s the other way around.
Leaning back on my palms, I jerk my chin to her, basking in her attention. “Go ahead. You’ll see it, anyway.”
The spark in her eyes undoes me.
She slowly unbuttons the first one and moves to the second, but she loses patience, which elicits a chuckle from me. Ripping the shirt open, she reveals my chest.
She gasps, blinking, tears gathering in her eyes.
Most of my arms, chest and back are covered with tattoos. One arm sleeve is a distorted clock bleeding into a lion, with a crooked steel crown, stars, and roses peppered in between.
On my upper back is the brACON tattoo—a cross with a rose in the middle.
On my other arm is a skull with hollow eyes from where snakes crawl out, blending into a bleeding dagger, each drop for one of my kills to emphasize the tallies I carve into my skin. Black shadows connect all the tattoos, emphasizing the dark world I rule.
But what she can’t stop looking at is my chest, where a dahlia flower reigns. A few petals scatter around as if blown by the wind, each one engraved with a small letter inside of them to spell her name. Under the flower lies my palm, holding it like an oath to protect, to serve, to love.
Tears stream down her face as she cups her mouth. I love her tears when I have my way with her, but out of it, they fucking kill me.
I drag her to my chest, holding her as she sobs quietly. Her tears, each and every one of them rip me apart.
I knew that tattoo would trigger her emotions.
“It’s beautiful,” she hiccups.
I brush her tears away, asking softly, “You like it?”
“I love it.” She slumps in my arms, and I caress down her back until she calms down.
“Now I have to get one too,” she murmurs.
My jaw sets in a hard line. “Don’t blemish my skin.”
“Is that so?” she asks, the brat slowly rising.
That request is nonnegotiable. She’ll learn that when it comes to her body and heart, they’re fucking mine. My possession.
I grip her chin and make her look at me. “It’s my body, my skin, my holes. What I say goes.”
She gulps, glimpsing the man she so desperately wants to have. That side of me is uncivilized, more savage than human.
She pokes her tongue out. “Fine.”
I shake my head at her, tsking. “Such a brat.”
She giggles, not apologetic at all. “Your brat.”
Isn’t that true?
“Why didn’t you tattoo your fingers?” she asks, reaching over to pick the wine glass.
“I don’t have to flash who I am to everyone.” Whoever doesn’t know me, better pray they never meet me.
She lifts the wineglass to her lips, taking a small sip. “Your reputation precedes you?” she asks, her tone playful.
The reddish succulent juice trickles from the corner of her mouth, and I gather it with my thumb, bringing it to my lips. It doesn’t even come close to her sweet taste.
“I worked hard to earn it.” And by work, I mean killed, annihilated, slaughtered.
“So modest,” she says, not bothered by the line of my work.
She places the glass down, her focus returning to my body.
I smirk, and she caresses each intricate tattoo as if mesmerized. “No wonder you never take off your shirt…”
It wouldn’t take much to connect the dahlia flower to her.
“Your brother knows about it.”
Her chin shoots up, eyes rounding into huge globes. “What?”
“I wear on my back my loyalty to him and our cause. But I wear my oath to protect you on my heart,” I say matter-of-factly.
Red colors her cheeks, the flush of anger striking. “You hid it just from me?” She slaps my chest, trying to get away.
Good luck with that. Too fucking late now, baby girl.
I have a vise-grip around her, easily bringing her back down onto my lap. “It would only give you hope…”
The fight leaves her, and she lets out a heart-shattering sigh. “And God forbid, you’d let me think my feelings are shared, that you felt something more than…”
I kiss the top of her head, wanting to comfort her, but also make her see my one truth.
“I’ve never had trouble showing you I love you from the very beginning, Dahlia.
That’s nothing new. New is the part when that asshole tested me by leaving me alone and unsupervised with you.
” I grit out, my loyalty split between my brother and my woman.
“Don’t worry,” she says through a broken smile. “I would never come between you, Mika.”
The thought doesn’t sit well with me. I am ecstatic for Enzo, being in love, finally happy, and starting a family with the only woman he has craved to the point of madness.
That doesn’t mean I am not furious at him enough to pummel his face in.
I could have all of that if it weren’t for the promise he made me swear once he saw how close we were when I brought Dahlia back.
Overcome with guilt, I rushed to vow I’d never touch her.
Never be more than another brother to her.
I never thought that oath would come to be my downfall—my biggest regret.
If I am a king, it’s the king of regret.
That breaking my word could cost me my life. But fuck, I returned from a horrific event that thrust me onto a completely different road.
I had to seize power and become the Pakhan, burying everything else under piles of duty and violence. Trying to dim her call, squish what I knew from the moment she mouthed it’s okay and I ripped through her virginity.
That she was mine.
That I was hers.
That we belong together.
Alive until the day you betray. That’s what is written in Russian above the skeleton tattoo. Yet, I don’t give a shit. If this is my only chance to have her, so be it.
When Enzo finds out, he can put that fucking bullet in my head. I won’t stop him.
“You’re worth it, malishka,” I whisper in her hair before switching to Russian. “Umeret’ za tebya. Ved’ ya vsegda zhil tol’ko radi tebya.” To die for. As I have only ever lived for you.
She stiffens in my arms. She doesn’t know Russian, but surely she picks up on the tone.
Screw this. We’re on a date. No place for things we can’t change or what-ifs leading to open ends. All we have is this moment. I am going to savor it like I intend to do her.
I can’t change the past, and I might not be here to shape the future. But for as long as I have, I will give her everything she desires. So, she never forgets me—carrying a piece of me forever. Selfish till my last moment.
Plucking a grape from the charcuterie board, I bring it to her mouth. “Open.”
She chews on the succulent fruit, and I feed her another one. “Good girl.”
Using my tongue, I catch the juice as it glides down her chin, bringing it back to her mouth where she swallows.
The atmosphere heats with combustible lust that threatens to incinerate me. My cock throbs behind my zipper, raw need unfurling inside of me. It’s so potent, it blackens my vision. I can barely restrain myself.
I don’t know who seduces who. I don’t even care.
My desire wins, and I cup her face, kissing her until we both gasp for air.
That glazed-over look is my new favorite as she cranes her neck to the darkening sky above, twinkling like millions of lit candles above our heads.
My patience evaporates. My control splinters, and I brush my lips against her neck. “This is the only time I’ll ask. May I take you?”