Chapter 8
Alexei
Standing in my father’s office window, adjusting his cuff links on my wrists, is such a surreal scenario for me that I feel dizzy.
Because he is dead and I am here. I am a candidate to head the family.
This is a revelation that hasn’t escaped me.
It just hasn’t seemed important because Scarlett is here.
I am married to Scarlett Force.
“Are you having second thoughts?” she whispers from the doorway behind me.
I steel myself before I look at her. If I don’t keep a tight lid on my emotions, I’ll get lost in the idea of being married and forget all about our other responsibilities.
There’ll be time later for a honeymoon period, but this is not it.
“Never.” I turn to look at her over my shoulder, frowning. “We’re already married. Legally, it’s done.” I put my fingers to my chest, even though I know it makes me look pompous. Fuck. “In my heart, more importantly, it’s done.”
“So…no second thoughts. Good. That’s good.
” Scarlett saunters in, hands behind her back.
I can see she’s been giving me space to grieve in silence.
It’s all I can manage right now, to move in the direction of murdering Chet and Jonas.
If I could give up chasing Papa’s murderers and walk away with my family safely, I might do that.
To keep Scarlett safe, I’d forgo getting vengeance for my father.
But Chet and Jonas are never going to stop being threats.
They have to die for us to live, period.
So it has to be done and it has to be done now. Even without Burt’s conditions, it’s an urgent necessity.
“But maybe you’re having some thoughts about your dad?
” Scarlett wonders aloud, running her finger along the edge of the desk.
I know she was in here early this morning, scrubbing on her hands and knees.
Scarlett thought I was in the shower, so she probably assumed she could do it without me seeing.
I saw anyway.
She tried to make it clean for me. Sanitized.
I snap the black latex glove against my wrist.
Scarlett wasn’t just cleaning. She was doing it in my too-big t-shirt, her ass hanging out and her plump pussy on blatant display.
Wearing a pair of my gloves on her own hands.
Using pre-moistened disposable wipes which is not a particularly efficient way to clean.
Not that it mattered, what with the optics.
Not that it would ever matter, with the purity of her intentions.
Someone more skilled than she was in here before we ever arrived, eradicating all the evidence. This office has never been so clean. So sterile. Papa’s scent has been wiped from existence, that pleasant mix of cigar smoke, paper, and ink. It’s gone forever. Lost.
Is there such a thing as too clean? Possibly.
“You know me so well already, wife,” I reply, turning back to the window and looking out at the trees.
When we first toured this property together, me and Papa, I liked it.
I was excited to leave New York and move here.
What a strange thought. “Papa and I were supposed to step away from all this nonsense. Spend more time together. The family was going to let him retire. It’s not an offer they make to just anyone. ”
Scarlett’s footsteps move across the room, pausing between me and the desk at my back.
I’m staring out the glass at the spot where I crouched on the roof with my phone that horrible night.
If I’d done a million things differently, I might’ve saved Papa’s life.
If I had backup then the way I do now, there’s no doubt in my mind that he’d have lived.
“That’s going to be us, Alexei. Pavel might not have been able to realize his dream, but we will.
I’ll do right by my father-in-law by getting his son away from a life of murder and bribes and crime.
I’ve always meant to tell you that even though we only met that once at Lem’s engagement party, I liked Pavel.
Your dad was the only person there not looking at me like a blight or a fuck.
” Scarlett pauses and then adds, “besides you, obvs.”
I close my eyes and tilt my head back, holding in a wave of emotion that starts with grief but ends with a wash of warm affection.
The attraction part was easy for me and Scarlett.
Instant, really. I had a hard-on while getting robbed.
Seems like our budding romance is equally swift, powerful and unstoppable.
Yes. God, yes. My greatest dream is a romance to rival my parents’ marriage.
“You say such big, bold things like it’s easy and natural but perfectly sincere.
” I force my eyes back open, allowing a single trapped tear to escape.
I use a gloved finger to brush the drop from my cheek, realizing as I stare at the wetness that I’m not disgusted by it the way I normally am.
Dropping my hands to my sides, I turn around to find Scarlett studying me with a critical gaze.
I smile at her, taking a step forward.
She takes one back in response.
My arteries dilate and my veins constrict, a very primal response on my part.
“If you’d save a random girl from the river out of a sense of honor alone, then what might someone like you do for the people he loves?
” Scarlett lifts a brow, running her fingers through her unbound hair.
It’s beautiful like this. Wild. It frames her face in perfect blackness, a cloak of dark silk. “Big, bold things like that?”
“I was pulling you from that river, thinking the word mine.” I laugh because it’s true.
My eyes sweep her body, from her bare toes on the floor of Papa’s office to her manicured fingers, curled in the fabric of my t-shirt in a way that betrays the tension between us.
“My dying wish was you, Scarlett. Just like Ash shows you in his gaze what’s really going on inside his heart, so you do the same for me. ”
Her jaw drops, like that’s an insult instead of a compliment.
“I have an amazing poker face, Marie.” Scarlett purposely backs up so that when I come up on her, she’s got nowhere to go but the desk. She lets me trap her up against the side of it, the gloved fingers of my right hand dragging smooth latex up her equally smooth leg. She’s blushing.
I push harder against her shields, seeing if she’ll bring them down for me. Let me in. I want all of her, frantically. I want to know her spirit as intimately as I know her body. I need that.
“It’s not the expression that gives you away though, is it?
” I wonder aloud, tracing the muscle in her thigh with sweet, little strokes of my fingers.
An aching tease that leaves goose bumps.
“Ash is the most talented actor I’ve ever seen.
You saw him for what he is anyway. I looked at you and felt the same.
We share a propensity to get obsessed with the things we want.
No matter how dangerous they are to obtain.
No matter how unrealistic. No matter what we have to do in order to get them. ”
My hand tightens on the hem of Scarlett’s oversized sleep shirt.
“Definitely no second thoughts. Got it.” Scarlett is doing an admirable job of trying to distract me from my grief (which only makes me love her more) and also of trying to change the subject.
Feelings are a difficult subject for her.
Her dark eyes are fixed on my hand where it’s tightened in her shirt.
“Where are your pants?” I wonder shamelessly, lifting the fabric up to reveal a pair of red satin panties with bows and lace—panties she was definitely not wearing while cleaning.
She put them on for me. To entice me. My skin gets hot and tight at the thought as blood rushes to one single point in my body.
“And surely you don’t wear such exquisite underwear on a normal basis? ”
“Nah, I pretty much do,” she admits with a loose shrug, one hand planted on the desk on either side of her.
Not quite sitting on it. Not quite standing.
Scarlett is trapped between me and a heavy piece of wood.
Alone. In my father’s office. I lean forward, placing my left hand over hers.
The right is occupied with tracing the edge of those panties as they scoop enticingly over her hip.
“I’m a weird bitch, Alexei. I sleep in stilettos.
I squeeze in a manicure amongst murder. Surely, nothing about me will surprise you from now on. ”
We’re going to grow old together. It’s a promise I’ve made to myself. It’s ironclad and Scarlett understands that. We’re trapped with each other now. If either one of us tries to leave, we—
It doesn’t matter though. Because I’ve found someone that operates on my level.
“Wouldn’t it be more comfortable if you wore cotton?
” I ask, voice dropping to a whispery huskiness that I hardly recognize.
Papa would’ve teased me until I was red in the face.
My only regret in marrying Scarlett is that Pavel isn’t here to see us together.
He would approve though. Oh, he would have happily given his blessing, even considering our ages.
“More comfortable, sure. But I have an image to maintain.” Scarlett grins at me, taking hold of my wrist and pushing my gloved hand inside her panties.
My heart rate speeds. My tongue wets my lips in a subconscious flirtation.
For the first time in a long time, I’m disturbed by the idea of a glove getting between me and another human being.
Not just another human. My wife. “Put those latex fingers in me, baby. Fuck me with them, Marie.”
“Call me something else and I’ll consider it.
” My eyes are latched on hers while my fingers tease and play with her naked pussy beneath the lace and bows.
My gloved fingertips slip against the wetness at her core, teasing and circling as she shifts around and tries to push them in further by rocking her hips. I draw back, challenging my new bride.