Chapter 19 Cartier
CARTIER
I curl up underneath the covers of the huge four-poster bed, knees drawn up to my chest. I try to picture my parents going about their life like a regular family, grabbing breakfast before beginning their morning commute to work, leaving me with a nanny during the day, planning the evening meal for the three of us. As a family.
Only it’s all make-believe.
They were Bratva. I was the daughter of a Bratva Pakhan. The daughter of a killer.
My eyes remain dry despite the heaving emptiness inside my chest.
How can I shed tears for people I never knew?
“I’m Cartier Black,” I mutter to myself, reaffirming my place within the universe. “I’m not an Asimov.”
But there’s no conviction in my tone, because I don’t even recognize the person lying in a bed that belonged to a rival Russian family, wearing clothes purchased for me by a Bratva underboss with money that he probably made from sacrificing people along the way.
I’m a healer, not a killer. I chose my profession because I want to help people. So, why did I have to go and fall for a guy who knows how it feels to take a life?
I roll over onto my other side. I can’t get comfortable. The memories feel all wrong: lumpy, and hard, and misshapen. My body feels out of sorts too, no doubt the after-effects of being sick earlier coupled with too many rounds of grilled cheese smothered in sweet chili sauce.
Eventually, I must doze off, because when I open my eyes, my back feels stiff, I’m still wearing yesterday’s clothes, and daylight is spilling through the window.
I miss Andrej’s presence beside me in bed. I miss his warm breath on the back of my neck, his arm around my waist, the gentle sounds that he makes when he’s dreaming. Even fully submersed beneath the covers, I shiver without him.
“You told him not to follow you,” I remind myself.
Fucking idiot!
In the cold stark light of the moment, it felt like the right thing to do.
I needed space to think about what he’d told me, to clear my head, figure out what to do about it.
The information matched up with what Yuri Asimov had said, and I hadn’t realized until that moment how desperately I wanted that man—my supposed uncle—to be wrong.
Because if Andrej’s father killed my biological parents, how can I be with him?
They’re murderers. That’s what the logical part of my brain is yelling at me now that I’m awake.
But how can I be without him?
This is what my heart is yelling straight back at my prefrontal cortex.
Time doesn’t exist inside our winter wonderland, but it feels as if I’ve known Andrej Ivanov for a lifetime. Or rather, it feels as if my life reset itself the moment he walked into that hospital room, and my heartbeat got all erratic on me.
Nausea crashes through me as I sit up in bed and swing my legs over the side, feet searching for the fluffy slippers that Andrej gave me. I must’ve picked up some kind of bug, or maybe I ate something that unsettled my stomach. I realize at the same time that I’m ravenous.
I head downstairs to the kitchen in sweatpants and an oversized hoodie. The room is empty, but I noticed the bodyguards stationed upstairs and at the end of the hallway. I peer outside and find a security team posted around the grounds.
I fill a mug with black coffee from the machine, add a couple spoons of sugar, no cream. I make toast and slather it with butter, then go back to the refrigerator for jam. I’m craving sugar this morning. My body must be trying to replace what it lost when I was sick yesterday.
Armed with toast and coffee, I make my way to the den and get cozy on the couch, switching the TV to Netflix using Andrej’s VPN. I play the first Christmas movie that I come across, The Christmas Inheritance, and sit back.
It beats thinking.
I doze on and off. My brain feels like mush, my limbs are heavy, and my skin feels sore to touch. I think I’m fighting off a cold. I can almost hear Mika’s voice telling me: That’s what you get for lying in the snow.
But how I feel fades into insignificance when Andrej finally enters the den. His skin is gray almost, his lips narrow and blue, and there are dark circles underneath his eyes. He’s wearing a thick sweater, but I can see him shivering inside it.
“Andrej?” I lift the blanket and pat the cushion for him to come and join me. “What’s wrong? Are you sick too?”
He sits beside me, and I tuck the blanket around him, finding his icy hands beneath it. I instinctively rub them to warm him up, and a lazy smile spreads across his face.
“I could get used to this.” His chattering teeth give him away though.
“Where have you been?”
“Outside. I took the night shift with Ivana.”
“Why? What are you not telling me?”
Andrej sits back against the arm of the sofa, spreads his legs, and pulls me between them, pulling the blanket up to our chins despite the heat of the roaring fire. Instantly, his erection presses against my lower back, and my sex responds by soaking through my panties.
Staying away from Andrej is going to prove impossible.
Unless I join a convent and devote the rest of my life to God.
Even then, I’ll still have my memories of him spreading my legs wide and licking out my pussy…
Maybe I could be hypnotized into forgetting him.
Then he nuzzles my neck, his front teeth nibbling on my earlobe, and my nipples reflexively harden. Scratch hypnotherapy. Muscle memory will let me down every time.
“You haven’t answered my question.” I wriggle against him, and his erection nudges my spine, begging me to turn around and give him a blowjob.
I almost succumb too.
Me and my traitorous body.
“I’ve told you all I know.” His hands slip underneath my sweater and find my nipples. “So ready for me, baby.” His voice is husky.
“I missed you in bed.” It’s the truth. There’s no point even trying to deny it.
I extricate myself from his arms, turn around, and kneel between his legs, arching my spine, and dragging my pussy over his erection. His pupils darken as he grabs my hips to hold me in place.
“I could fuck you right here.”
“What’s stopping you?”
I lick his face, dragging my tongue slowly across his stubble, along his jawline, and stopping at his ear. Because, by this point, my pussy is in control, and I’m not arguing with her.
“I thought you were angry with me.”
“I was.” I go back to his mouth and part his lips with my tongue. “I am.”
“If this is you being angry, I must find more ways to annoy you.” He sucks the end of my tongue, dragging it into his mouth, and my pussy throbs with want.
I pull away and press a warning finger to his lips.
Then, pulling the blanket over my head like a tent, I shuffle backward along the cushions until my face is directly above his groin.
I unzip his cargo pants and free his cock.
It’s the only part of him that’s warm, and I grip the base, licking him like a popsicle, lapping the head with the flat of my tongue, and sucking up the pre-cum oozing from the slit.
“Warmer?” I ask.
“You have no fucking idea.” His voice is muffled through the blanket.
I think I do, but I don’t say it out loud. Because my nausea is forgotten now that Andrej is here. It’s as if my body reacted to his absence during the night with aches and pains that have magically vanished with our bodies pressed together underneath the blanket.
And I wasn’t the only one who was affected. Andrej is no longer shivering. He is totally relaxed, shifting his hips and freeing his balls from his boxers, trapping me between his legs.
I open my mouth wide and take his head, massaging his shaft with my hand.
“Deeper, baby. You can take more than that.”
Fighting the gag reflex, I kneel closer so that his cock slides down the back of my throat as I lower my mouth onto him.
“Deeper.” His hands find my nipples, pinching and squeezing and eliciting a soft moan from me when they sting.
Tears trickle from the corners of my eyes, but I don’t stop.
Andrej sits forward and slides one hand inside my sweatpants, his fingers slipping inside me and opening me up.
“You’re fucking dripping. Did you keep yourself wet for me?”
I can’t answer. He doesn’t want an answer.
He pumps my sex with his hand, his movements growing faster as I suck harder.
“You’re gonna make me come, baby.” His voice is ragged. Then, “Not like this.”
He pulls out of my mouth, and in one swift movement, he’s off the sofa and kneeling behind me. My sweatpants are around my knees, my naked pussy exposed to the warmth of the flames hissing in the fireplace, and his cock is deep inside me.
Andrej leans over me and twists my face around so that our lips meet. With his other hand, he works my slick onto my clit, grinding his shaft around my sex.
“Come for me, baby. We’ll fucking come together.”
“Don’t stop,” I breathe between panting.
“I’m never going to fucking stop. You’ve got me, Cartier, and I’m never going anywhere.”
I don’t know why, but his words draw fresh tears to my eyes. “Promise?”
“Promise.” His dark eyes are wide open. His breath is my breath. “Are you going to come?”
“Yes.” Breathless. My orgasm is there, just waiting for him to say the word, like he trained my body to respond only to his touch.
“Now, baby. Let’s do this.”
His tongue fills my mouth, and it’s the signal for my orgasm to explode. I feel his hot cum shooting inside me as his body shudders against mine until we collapse into a sweaty pile on the sofa.
I’m still panting, my face pressed against the sofa cushions, when the door to the den opens, and Ivana says, “Do you need anything else?”
Andrej raises his head above the back of the sofa. “No, go get some sleep.” He pauses, then, “Thank you, Ivana. For everything.”
I don’t move until the door closes with a gentle click. Andrej’s face is close to mine, his eyes gleaming with mischief.
“Do you think she knew?” I whisper.
“She knew.”
I slump into the cushions. As if Ivana needs another reason to dislike me, and just when I thought that we were getting somewhere.