Chapter 17 Cartier
CARTIER
I don’t know how, but we settle into a routine, snuggling up inside the sweeping mansion in front of roaring fires, with mugs of hot chocolate and heaps of marshmallows on permanent standby.
It’s the stuff of Hallmark movies. A beautiful home, a sky filled with snow, our own personal library, and enough kindling to keep us warm for a century.
All that’s missing is the smiling faces of our families sitting around the TV in reindeer sweaters, choosing their favorite chocolates from the Christmas tubs, and wondering what they can eat next.
Oh, and fairy lights.
“We should decorate the house for Christmas,” I declare one morning, sitting at the breakfast bar in the kitchen, hugging a blanket around my shoulders while Andrej scrambles eggs with smoked salmon.
It isn’t cold, but the continuing snowfall outside makes it feel as if the house is twenty degrees colder than it actually is.
“Christmas?” He removes the pan from the heat to prevent the eggs from sticking to the bottom while he ponders the suggestion.
“Yeah, you know, big guy in the red suit, white beard, squeezes down chimneys carrying a sack filled with gifts.”
He grins. “I know what Christmas is.”
“Funny, for a minute there, I thought you were going to tell me that you never had a Christmas tree when you were growing up.”
“We did.” Andrej stirs the eggs, turns down the heat on the stove, and sets the pan back down. “But the holidays are traditionally celebrated a little later in Russia. The Julian calendar is two weeks behind.”
“Does that mean that you got to celebrate it twice? Once in Chicago, and then again here?”
There’s still so much that I don’t know about Andrej’s childhood, but whenever I try to talk to him, he seems to clam up like an oyster protecting the pearl in his center.
“Christmas was banned in Russia for most of the last century. My grandparents used to celebrate the holidays with us in the States. I guess it was a difficult habit to break once the ban was lifted.”
“Banned?”
I study the way the muscles in his back ripple while he’s cooking. The taut muscles in his ass. His solid thighs. My pussy tingles, and I can feel the damp patch spreading through my panties. If Mika could see me now, she’d start asking me for tips on how to maintain a state of permanent arousal.
Jeez…
“That’s terrible. All those children who didn’t get to experience the excitement of Christmas morning.”
Andrej ladles fluffy eggs onto hot buttered toast. “You don’t miss what you’ve never had.”
I’m not sure how true that is. I never had him in my life until a couple weeks ago, but I recognized the distinct ache between my legs that he has rubbed away.
He might’ve replaced it with an Andrej-shaped ache in my chest, one that’s just waiting to turn into the crushing despair of emptiness when this is all over and we have to return to normality.
But I knew what I was missing from all the romance novels I liked to read.
I just never acknowledged how much it hurt before.
“So, there isn’t a Christmas tree in the house?” I ask.
He sets two plates on the counter and sits opposite me, digging into his food with a silver fork which is probably, you know, real silver.
I’ve noticed this about him since we’ve been holed up in Narnia.
He eats when he wants to eat without conforming to any kind of regular routine.
If he’s thirsty, he drinks. When he’s tired, he closes his eyes and sleeps, although I swear he has the hearing ability of a hyper-sensitive dog and sleeps with one eye open.
“There are plenty outside.”
I glance at the window, at the snowflakes that haven’t abated since we arrived. Or at least since I woke up from my drug-induced stupor.
“Let me guess, you have your own Christmas tree farm.”
He laughs, and the sound makes my heart flap about like a chicken who spotted a gigantic pile of buttery sweetcorn on the ground.
“Not exactly.” He gestures to my plate with his fork. “Eat.”
And I do. Not because he’s the dominant Bratva sex god and I’ve instinctively adopted the submissive role within this relationship. But because something about the way he calls me his ‘good girl’ literally has my pussy purring like a cat and rolling over for belly rubs in an instant.
“Can we bring one inside?”
We haven’t spoken about when it will be safe to return to Chicago.
When I woke up and discovered that I was in Russia, I’d have done anything to escape and get back home.
But now… It feels as if I was always meant to be here.
With Andrej. In the middle of winter. Snowed in, warm and cozy, the rest of the world spinning on its axis while ours stands still.
Maybe this was the universe’s way of throwing us together. I don’t know.
But I do know that it’s December, and regardless of where we are, if I’m living out some weird Bratva Hallmark movie, I’m not doing it without a Christmas tree. And fairy lights.
“You want me to chop down a fir tree?”
My pussy rears her pretty head at this suggestion. “You have an ax?”
And Andrej grins at me as if he knows exactly where my thoughts are going with this. Of course he does. The guy doesn’t miss a thing.
“I can find one, Cartier. If that’s what you want.”
Now I have an image of him in an open flannel shirt, chopping up wood in the middle of a forest like Lady Chatterley’s Lover. I lick my lips.
“Yes, you can come and watch.” He flashes me a lopsided smile. “I might even let you stroke the ax if you’re a good girl.”
I shovel scrambled eggs into my mouth and swallow without chewing.
Our faces are rosy from the cold by the time we haul the ten-foot-tall tree inside and through to Andrej’s childhood den at the back of the house.
This is where we spend most of our time when we’re not in the library, or the bedroom, or any of the other rooms where Andrej has pulled me inside so that he can fuck me on the rug in front of a roaring fire.
His men drag a huge terracotta pot into the room from outside, and we wedge the tree between piles of snowy-wet rocks to prevent it from drying out.
I stand back and check that it’s straight.
Andrej joins me, his arms snaking around my waist from behind. He nibbles my ear. “I never knew it was such serious business choosing a tree for the holidays.”
“It’s the most important part.” I twist my face around so that our lips are almost touching.
I feel sad that I’m not planning the holiday celebrations with Mika and Gianna like we’ve done for the past few years.
But another part of me, the part that has already accepted that we’re not leaving Russia anytime soon, wants to make our time here special for Andrej.
I want him to experience my version of the holidays.
“Can you take me somewhere to buy decorations?”
“Cartier…” He wrinkles his nose and squeezes me tightly. It means that he’s about to let me down. “I don’t think that’s such a good idea.”
I swivel around in his arms, our hips touching, the bulge in his pants pushing against my abdomen. “Why not? What’s happened? Has someone tried to find me?”
“Don’t panic. It’s nothing like that.”
“What is it like then?” Thoughts of Gianna and the twins in danger flash before my eyes, and my pulse races. “Whatever it is, I want to know, Andrej. How can I—”
He shushes me with a kiss, his fingers threading through my hair and tilting my head backwards. His tongue drags down to my neck, hot and damp, and the tingling reaction between my legs is instantaneous.
Traitorous fucking pussy.
“Stop.” I shove him away from me, and his face reappears in front of mine. “Tell me.”
Before he can speak, footsteps reach us from the hallway outside the den, and the door crashes open. Ivana comes in then, carrying so many shopping bags that I can’t see her legs, only the black Doc Martens with snow clinging to the chunky soles.
She’s followed by two of Andrej’s men, also carrying bags and cardboard cartons.
They set their loads down in the middle of the room and eye up the tree in the corner critically.
“Is that everything?” Ivana asks, arms folded across her chest.
“Andrej?” I look at him for answers, and his wide grin tells me everything that I need to know. “They bought decorations?”
“You said you needed fairy lights.” He shrugs. “More times than I can count.”
But I’m already on my knees on the floor, pulling stuff from bags and boxes, squealing at every glitter-soaked purchase, oblivious to the sparkles forming a circle around me and decorating Ivana’s shoes.
“Angel hair.” I hold up a packet of shiny silver spun glass strands. “You found angel hair.”
Ivana checks out the decorations with narrowed eyes. “Andrej told me to get everything that I could find.”
There’s no emotion in her voice, but I’m too excited to pay much attention.
“Thank you. This reminds me of Christmas when I was a little girl.”
Maybe it’s the wrong thing to say because she starts backing away towards the door. The men have already slipped away, I notice now. Christmas decorations clearly don’t come under their remit. Even when the boss orders it.
I stand up, still clutching the packet of spun glass strands to my chest. “Thank you, Andrej.”
I want to say so much more, but he slides his cell phone from his pocket, checks the screen, and when his eyes meet mine, I already know that I’ve lost him to whoever is on the other end of the call.
“I’m sorry, Cartier.” He shakes his head. “I need to deal with this.”
I get it. His family’s business isn’t on hold because he’s in Russia. Life continues for everyone else, and plus there’s the little matter of Yuri Asimov and any other enemies the Ivanovs might have lurking around in the shadows outside of this winter wonderland to take care of.
Ivana goes to follow him from the room, but I stop her. “Will you stay and help?”