Chapter Fourteen
In which Liria recalls the awkwardness of the Morning After.
Liria…
Boston is huge as well, and beautiful, but there is something about the crackling energy I feel here that's fascinating.
My fingers move over my thighs, covered by my pink summer dress, following a piece of music I've been trying to finish for a year.
I would wake up sometimes with a piece of it in my head and I'd race down to the piano and play it, committing it to memory.
My finger still, and then go idle on my lap. There's no piano anymore. All the things that defined me as someone who had value are gone. The only value I seem to hold now is that my last name is Krasniqi and I was good for sealing the deal.
Looking up. I catch Alexsey staring at me. "What were you doing there?"
I've had just enough wine tonight to be brazen. "Just picturing the path my feet would take to escape your loft and then, the city." I smile sweetly.
Alexsey gives a gruff chuckle, scratching his stubbed chin. He doesn't seem particularly offended. But then, my nice manners rise and smother my resentment.
"Thank you for standing up for my mother tonight," I blurt out. "I should've thanked you earlier for your family's intervention." It's true. This is the first time in my life where I'd seen Father back down. I'm sure he's going to make me pay somehow for witnessing his humiliation.
Rotating his left shoulder, Alexsey winces, wrinkling his brow.
It's so fast that I almost miss it before his face is set in passive lines again.
"Roman and I believe it would be more effective to have a Morozov contingent guarding your mother.
There's no reason for Dritan to be inserting his presence anywhere on the Eastern seaboard.
He shouldn't have an excuse to keep his people here. "
There it is. Of course, it's just another part of the game.
"I see," I say evenly. "Well, thank you all the same." I lace my fingers together, clasping my hands tightly and stare out the window until the car pulls up to Alexsey's loft.
It's an odd intimacy, going through evening rituals with this man who hates my guts. We have to skirt around each other, slipping off shoes, and turning off lights. I go up the stairs ahead of him, and I'm acutely aware how close he's following me.
He's probably staring at my ass, I think crossly.
Then, I remember all the things he did with said ass that night in Boston, squeezing and biting it, pulling my cheeks apart so he could see himself thrusting into me from behind.
He left me a perfect bite mark on one cheek that kept me from wearing a swimsuit for a week.
I open my door in a hurry and it nearly bounces off the wall. "Good night, then," I say quickly. I'm about to close the door when he puts his foot out, blocking it.
"No questions about why I was covered in blood tonight?" His head tilts, as if he's trying to figure me out. "You didn't seem surprised."
I think of the gore-streaked halls, the screams of injured men at my father's estate and I shudder. "That was nothing. A simple shower, and you're all pristine again."
As for me, my memory will remain blood-soaked for the rest of my life. Alexsey hums thoughtfully, pulling his foot away from the door. "Good night."
***
I wake up to the deeply unwelcome, aggressive buzz of my phone, vibrating so hard that it rattles off my bedside table and I have to roll halfway off the bed to grab it in time.
"This is how I find out?"
It's my cousin Caroline. "I have to fucking find out from my idiot brothers that you flew into New York and got married?
Yeah, Bobby just mentioned out of the blue, 'Oh yeah, Liria is in New York getting married to one of the fucking Morozovs.
' All casual like. What happened? I thought you had more time? "
"Time and the Morozov Bratva wait for no man. Or woman, in this case," I say, slumping back against the pillows, covering my eyes from the unseemly glare of the morning sun.
"Which one did you marry?" she asks. "I know there are three sons and then a couple of cousins, right?"
"I married the third Morozov son, Alexsey." His name sounds strange on my tongue, awkward, like I shouldn't be saying it.
"Is he hot?"
"Really? That was your first question?" I reluctantly drag myself off my obscenely comfortable mattress with a groan. "Not 'hey, is he taking the whole trying to murder his whole family out on you, Liria? Are you okay, Liria? Was it the most humiliating experience in your lifetime'?"
"Oh shit," Caroline groans. "What the hell am I thinking? So, I'm guessing there's not gonna be any big wedding at The Four Seasons?"
"Oh heavens, no," I chuckle bitterly. "Nor did I expect one. Let's be honest, this is an arranged marriage, meant to cement an alliance, that's it. Alexsey was gracious enough to share with me that I was the last asset to be signed under ownership."
"Wow he's a fucking charmer," she says. "So, I take it that they're still holding it against you? Even though you were in no goddamned way associated with this nightmare?"
"Oh, I have hangover face," I groan, looking at my reflection in the mirror.
I have sheet crease marks all up and down the left side of my face and my hair looks like a badger slept in it.
"Alexsey has a good reason, though," I say.
"My cataclysmically stupid brother fucked over our entire Fare with that ambush.
But Luan did the worst damage to Alexsey, he lost his hand during the firefight when he was trying to save his parents.
I don't know the details, but I don't know how his left arm is still attached to his body. "
"Shit! That's the one they married you to?" Caroline clicks her tongue, "So, essentially you're fucked, right? This is a match made in hell."
"Oh yeah," I agree. "The man is a demon with excellent orthodontia."
I tell her who Alexsey is. That he was that mysterious man who gave me the most incredible night of my life three months ago.
At the time, we'd talked about it, giggled about it.
I refused to give her many details, which she held against me for some time.
But when she convinced me to go back to see Beauford, and act like a grownup, she came with me to Beacon Hill for moral support.
Three months ago, in Boston…
I handled that night with Alexsey with all the grace one would expect from a woman with limited sexual experience and a smorgasbord of high-octane sex.
I woke up to the first pink streaks of dawn with a smothered screech.
Every single muscle in my body burned. My skin ached.
My center was so sore that I wasn't sure I would ever be able to sit down comfortably again.
A small, satisfied grin curved my lips. It was worth it. Every bit of it.
After the first time, which was like some insane erotic rodeo, we had sex again.
This time, he was gentler, he ran those big, rough hands of his over my skin and whispered filthy things in my ear, how beautiful I was, how much he wanted to corrupt me.
Again, in the shower. He hoisted me up with my back pressed against the tile and his thick thighs bracing me, bouncing me up and down on his cock.
"This is just like in the movies," I'd sighed, feeling his chest shake against mine as he laughed.
"Real life feels pretty good," Alexsey said, kissing me.
"No, I'm pretending this is a movie because in real life, it's far more-" I gasped at a particularly deep thrust. "In real life, we'd probably slip on this marble tile and end up in the ER with compound fractures, naked and having to explain how this happened."
Laughing, he'd stopped, pressing me against the tile as the water streamed down on us. I wrapped my arms around his neck and laughed, too. It was so nice, this moment, having this man inside me, his blue eyes bright with amusement.
Then, just before dawn as I was dozing off, he lifted my thigh over his and slid into me again.
"Is this all right?" he whispered, kissing my neck.
"Mmm…" I smiled dreamily, no longer capable of functional speech.
I think he fell asleep inside me because when I woke up, he was holding me against him, his half-hard cock pressing against my ass, his arm thrown over my waist. I could feel his breath against my neck.
Edging slowly out of bed, I stood indecisively.
Should I take a shower? Should I make breakfast?
Should I just lie here, after brushing my teeth and attempting to do something with my smeared makeup, until he woke up and made the decision for both of us?
His phone buzzed, rattling slightly. It was on my side of the bed, because there had been a lot of swapping spots last night. A text came up.
How was your night "Beauford?" ?? Did you at least tell her your real name before you gave her the night of her life?
I'd heard the phrase, "My blood ran cold," many times, though I never fully understood what that meant.
I did then. It felt like my blood settled in my veins, sluggish, my heart slowing and my brain numb.
I gave a convulsive shiver. So, he was playing with me?
I remembered the guy he was with - likely related based on their resemblance - laughing at him after he'd introduced himself to Eleanor at the fundraiser, handing her an insane amount of money.
Has this whole fucking thing been a joke?
A fifty-million-dollar donation is a hell of a lot to invest just to trick one naive girl into bed.
I'd had a couple of boyfriends, one in college, but we rarely went out, I had to be very careful that word didn't get back to my father.
The other one was a composer in residence at the museum.
He was European and wore scarves un-ironically.
The sex had been nice, which is a word I know no man wants to hear in relation to his bedroom skills.
So, no, I didn't have a broad range of experience.