Chapter Thirty-One
In which Ava's wedding night is much better than her ambush wedding.
Ava…
Back at the mansion, I manage to get loose from Dmitri and Roman long enough to scurry into the master bathroom, turning on the water full blast before sitting down on the edge of the tub and sobbing. It feels ungrateful and selfish to cry where Dmitri can hear me.
Oh, the irony… I used to think the most stressful thing that could happen to me would be finding a naked stranger sleeping on my couch.
Now I wake up, wondering if this is the day they'll finally get me.
The faceless "they" who lured me into the electrified hell of that apartment.
Worse, is this the day someone will die because of me?
My careful little routines and rituals that I've built to keep my head straight don't seem to work now, these new fears and uncertainties washing over me like a tsunami, sending me spiraling down into a current I can't swim against. My medication isn't helping much with all the intrusive thoughts that scatter me into a hundred different directions.
I've started interrupting people again without thinking, and then trying to backtrack and understand what they said. Dad used to hate that.
"Are you a fucking idiot? Pay attention!"
Now, I'm married?
Leaping to my feet, I clutch my phone, pacing.
What do I tell Priya? Or my mother? Do I even tell my mother?
How long do we have to stay married? Why did he marry me, really?
I should check to see if Priya has texted me.
Should I text her? What about my passport can I fly back into the US now that my last name is Morozova?
And the saddest thought. If Dmitri had asked me to marry him because he loved me, I would have said yes in a heartbeat. Instead, I'm still a thing to protect.
"Focus," I whisper. "One thing at a time."
"Sit back down." I do.
"Stop crying." It takes a while, but I do.
After a few deep breaths, I wait for my hands to stop shaking. I picture the bits and pieces of me flung in all directions returning, putting everything back together again more or less in the shape of Ava Blue.
Ava Blue Morozova.
Stay focused, I think. On here and now.
"Are you fucking stupid? Pay attention!"
I'm not fucking stupid, Dad.
I am overwhelmed and I'm going to sit here and marinate in the steam until I can force my brain into a single train of thought again.
***
When my face is washed, hair brushed and I look - more or less - back in control, I head back downstairs to find a conspicuous lack of… people. This is a twenty-thousand square foot mansion. There are guards. Maids. The butler guy. Magda, the cook.
I follow the sound of whistling to the kitchen, a massive room with two pantries, multiple fridges, and ovens and…
Dmitri. He's chopping something at the gray granite counter with unsettling speed and precision.
His jacket's off, tie gone and he's rolled up his shirt sleeves to show off those colorful, vivid tattoos snaking up his forearms.
"Where is everyone?" I ask, pausing in the entryway.
"I gave them the night off," he smiles at me devilishly. "I wanted to make you a late-night supper. You'd be surprised at how forceful I had to be. Especially with Magda."
"She didn't trust you in her kitchen?"
He nods at a stool and I take a seat. "She's not going to say it out loud, of course."
"Of course not." My lips twitch. "You, about to be the mighty Pakhan? I'm sure her survival instinct is well-honed by now."
His hand works the knife with dizzying speed, the muscles in his forearms flexing under his skin.
"Why did you kick them out?" I ask, blurting it out with no thought, which is becoming more of a problem every day. "Are you worried they'll hear my screams on our wedding night?"
He fixes me with the filthiest possible grin. "No. I'm worried they'll hear mine."
I howl with laughter, and then everything feels good again, even if it's just for now. "Can I help with dinner?"
He pushes a plate of cabbage over to me. "Chop this, would you? Fairly thin sliced." He offers me the razor-sharp butcher's knife properly, handle first. As I reach to take it, my diamond ring flashes in the light from the overhead pendant, nearly blinding me, it's heavy on my hand.
"You're looking at that ring like it's a barnacle you're not sure if you can scrape off," he says wryly, continuing to chop the pile of beef in front of him.
"Oh, I'm pretty sure you would've welded it to my finger, if you thought you could get away with it." He raises a haughty brow at that and I shake my head. "I'm kidding. Every time I look at it though… You could see this rock from space. My hand is almost unrecognizable."
He puts his blade down, picking up my hand. "I see the same long, graceful fingers," he says. "The same cuts on your index finger and your thumb. Please tell me those aren't from your own scalpel or I'm going to lose a lot of confidence in you."
"Ironically, no, though that happens," I laugh. "I cut them on a tin can that I was trying to recycle."
"That'll teach you to give a shit about the environment," he says, going back to his work.
"What about you?" I ask. "How did you manage to achieve butcher level skills? You're working that cleaver like a maestro."
For some reason, he finds this amusing, laughing quietly.
"What?"
"Nothing in particular," he chuckles. "I was just thinking about my last visit to a professional butcher's shop." I smile at his odd moment of humor as we finish making dinner.
***
There is no question. I'm going to sleep with this man tonight. He knows it. I know it. I want to.
Even so, as he leads me into the study after dinner and there's already a blaze going in the fireplace and a big soft rug in front of it, I raise my eyebrow at him. "That confident you were going to get lucky on your wedding night?"
"Well," he smiles modestly. "You must admit that the shchi - the cabbage soup - was excellent and the beef shashlik was sublime. I have noticed that a good meal seems to weaken your defenses."
"Already, you know me too well," I admit. "Though I think you're also forgetting your deadly skill with forearm porn."
"Forearm what?" Dmitri laughs.
Trailing my fingers along the bare skin below his rolled-up sleeves, I say, "Forearm porn. All muscled and veiny… Your ink. The fact that you seem to be able to keep a tan even though I haven't seen you out of a suit once?"
"I see." His grin is just one level below a smirk but it's still hot. "I appreciate any opportunity to weaken your defenses, so by all means…" He unbuttons his shirt, his gaze never leaving mine. "Keep watching."
The conceited bastard.
"I'm not looking," I say, keeping my gaze directly on his icy blue one.
My eyes - those traitorous assholes - drop anyway, looking at the strong column of his throat, his pectorals, as his calloused fingers unbutton that expensive dress shirt.
His sculpted abdominals ripple as he pulls his shirt off.
And my slutty lower half throws away any attempt at self-respect, my undies are instantly drenched.
Dmitri is insanely hot, but certainly not untouched. His broad shoulders are littered with scars and there's something that looks alarmingly like a scar from a stabbing on the left side of his ribcage. Two round indentations that I'm fairly certain are bullet wounds rest above his hipbone.
"You know, for someone so high up in your family's 'corporation,'" I say, making the little quotation marks with my fingers, "It seems like you get hurt a lot."
Dmitri shrugs, making even that look elegant. "True leadership means never hesitating to do the dirty work yourself. You must lead by example, or lose the respect of your men."
My fingers reach out without any conscious thought, stroking the smooth lines of his biceps and shoulders. "Did you ever want to do anything else?"
"That was never a thought or a consideration," he says without hesitation. "This is who I am."
"If this wasn't who you were, is there something else you would've chosen?"
He gives a cynical half smile. "I would have chosen not to lead."
"Really?" I ask. "That's hard to picture for a man who's so comfortable giving orders."
"When my orders could lead to my people's deaths, I would choose not to have to make them.
But that's cowardice." His fingers run through my hair, examining the strands.
"Like my father, I will make decisions that are always in the best interests of our family and the Bratva.
But that doesn't mean I won't lay awake at night questioning if there had been another way. "
It's so quiet here, only the faint crackle of the fire, even the traffic outside muted to a faint buzz.
"Will you do that tonight?" I ask.
"What do you mean?"
"Will you lie awake tonight, questioning your choices about us? This marriage?"
His hand slides up my back, pulling my zipper down slowly, the warm line of his fingers brushing against my skin. "No," he says huskily. "I will never question anything having to do with you and me."
"You smooth bastard," I blurt. He laughs before bending his head and kissing me, kissing me hard enough that when his arm slides around my back and lifts me up, my shoes drop off my suddenly limp feet.
Even though I know this is madness and we've only known each other for a few months and he's doing it to keep me alive, I don't think I'll ever regret it either.
For however long it lasts.
***
The firelight plays over his skin, making the dragon on his arm coil as he moves inside me.
I thought somehow taking him would get easier, but each time, like the first time, his cock is thick and stinging.
It confuses me that I could be aroused from such a burn but it's all part of it; the heat he stokes inside me, the feel of his shaft pushing against every soft and sensitive inch.
I'm so full. Filled to bursting and each time he thrusts it seems to push a bit more air out of my lungs until I'm breathless and moaning.
"Chertovski krasivo, moya soroka. So fucking beautiful, my magpie."
Dmitri growls, his hand wraps in my hair, coiling it around his fist and he pulls my head back so he can kiss down my neck.
"Sinking inside you deep, it feels…" His head tilts back, the tendons in his neck straining.
"It's fucking sweet. So tight, the heat of you wrapping around my cock. So good for me."
I kiss his Adam's apple, his shoulder. When he thrusts especially hard, I shriek and bite his bicep. He laughs breathlessly, pulling out and flipping me over facedown, putting a pillow under me before pushing back inside.
"You belong to me, don't you, little magpie? Every perfect inch of you." He runs his tongue up my neck, tasting my sweat and I groan, balancing on one hand while the other flails up behind his neck, gripping him, holding on for dear life. "You're mine," he rasps in my ear. "Say it."
It's not real, this mansion, this life. This perfect man. But I can pretend tonight that this dream can last. "Y- yes," I manage. "Yours."
He wraps an arm across my chest, slamming into me harder, murmuring words in Russian, his voice dark and raspy.
Going back on his heels, he pulls me with him, tilting my head to look down at where we're joined.
His fingers spread my swollen lips wide and I see his cock plunge inside me, thick and glistening.
A huge swell of need hits me and I clamp down tight, wanting to keep him inside me, for this moment to hold still, crystalline and suspended, giving me a chance to slow down and feel it all.
When the heel of his hand rubs hard on my clitoris, I shriek helplessly, arching my hips as he holds me still, filling me with heat and his low, broken groan sends me crashing into an orgasm, too.