Chapter 10
CHAPTER TEN
WREN
I can’t sleep. Growing up, I never really could. I guess the hole in my heart was too big.
But at least here, in Sire’s home, our home, my eyelids grow heavy. I can almost close them, but Sire’s still downstairs talking to his brother, Axel.
Is it the buzz from the best day ever, or something else that’s making me wait up for him?
Finally, I hear Sire open and close his front door. I listen to him set the shopping bags down before his footfalls thud over the wooden floors. I hear him close his bedroom door, and minutes later, he’s taking a shower.
But I don’t hear his erotic, muffled groans that do something to my body. I don’t hear anything until a soft knock on my door startles me.
“Wren? You awake?”
“Yeah.” I sit up and turn on the lamp beside my bed. “Come in.”
He opens the door. Standing in the threshold with his damp hair, he’s wearing a white T-shirt, light grey sweatpants, and a worried look. “Can we talk?”
“Uh, sure.” I reach to throw the sheets off.
“No.” He signals for me to stop. “Stay there. Let’s just, uh…” He gestures to the corner of my bed. “May I?”
“Sure.”
He’s acting weird. He sits quietly for a long time, keeping his distance with his hands clasped together. His distant stare is locked on the wall in front of him, and I think … he’s praying?
He makes me worry, “Sire? What’s wrong?”
A soft smile lifts his lips as he glances at me. “That’s the first time you’ve called me by my name.” He huffs, “And it’s not even my real name.”
“Is this when we start giving answers? Like, what is your real name?”
“My birth name is Sergei Kholodov, the first son and heir of Ruslan Kholodov, the head of the Bratva, the Russian mafia, but let me go first.”
My shock lasts two seconds because he hits me with…
“Nannie’s real name was Nannette Banks. Right?” he asks, and I nod, feeling my world start to unravel. “And her son’s name is Waylon Banks? Right?” Tears well in my eyes. “And he’s the meth dealer who funneled you into the human trafficking ring where I found you?”
“Where you rescued me,” I mutter, letting my first tear fall.
“Wren…” He reaches for my foot under the blanket, gently grabbing it like he’ll never let me go. “I know about your child services file. I know all the cruel reasons you never had a home, how you were never held, how you talked to God and butterflies when you were a little girl.”
Tears blur my vision. “I still do.”
Barely, he smiles before his face falls. “I know that after Nannie died, her home was involved in a meth bust, and then it went up in flames.” He squeezes my foot. “Did you set that fire?”
I lift my chin, tears spilling down my cheeks. “Damn right I did.”
“But Wren, it was your only home. You had no place else to go.”
“Nannie never would have wanted her home used like that. She loved her son but wouldn’t enable him. She had a restraining order against him.”
“But he took possession because you weren’t eighteen when she died, though her home had been left to you.” Sire pauses, searching my eyes. “Did he kill his mother?”
I can barely speak through the rocks choking my throat. They burn. “Technically, no. But they fought about her leaving the home to me and not him, and I think it caused her so much stress that it was my fault that she…”
A sob breaks my voice. Embarrassed, I cover my face with my hands.
“Come here.” Sire gets up and sits beside me. Pulling me into his strong arms, he holds me against his chest. The compassion is so new to me that nineteen years of pain break me into a thousand pieces.
I’m a girl in his arms and a grown woman, too. Everything I’ve held in for so long collides, and I don’t know how long I cry. I just finally let it out. I finally have someone who doesn’t yell at me to stop crying, who’s not pushing me away.
Nannie was loving, but she wasn’t affectionate. She was mountain-strong and gave that gift to me. She taught me to fight back.
But in Sire’s warm arms, I don’t have to fight. With my cheek on his chest, and his big hand caressing my head there, even though I’m snotting his T-shirt, I hug him, too, and he holds me even tighter.
“You have a home now, Wren,” he whispers into my hair. “This is your home, too.”
I pull back, my vision blurred, my breath huffing, “But you just met me.”
Gently, his thumb brushes a tear away. “We both know we’ve just begun.”
My heart stutters, happy, but, “You don’t know what I did.”
“Oh, Angel.” A sweet smile plays on his lips. “You have no idea about me, either.”
“You’re a mafia man of God. Got it.”
“And you poisoned Waylon’s men, didn’t you?” He’s grinning at me like he’s impressed, not appalled. “How did you do it?”
I force a smile through tears. “You need to marry me first.”
“Oh?” He raises a brow, amused. “Do I?”
“Yeah, so you can’t testify against your wife.”
Gently, he brushes another tear away. “Damn, you’re a sweet, sharp surprise around every corner, aren’t you?”
“I’m not always sweet. Yes, I did some things to survive, but I don’t want you to kill him.”
“He deserves it.”
“Not Waylon, I mean Alan.”
“Who’s Alan?”
I swipe my wet cheeks. “Alan is Nannie’s grandson.
Waylon’s son. The minor who was busted, too.
He’s caught up in that life with his dad, and it’s not his fault.
Alan has an addiction. He needs help. But if you go after Waylon, you’ll find Alan, and I worry he’ll be so high he won’t know what he’s doing. He’s always worked for his dad, and…”
It’s no use drying my cheeks. More tears fall. “It would kill Nannie. Like her heart in heaven would break. I already feel like it’s my fault she died, and if something happens to her grandson because of me…”
“Okay.” He wraps around me again. “No one is dying tonight. Let’s catch our breath. We’ll talk about this tomorrow.”
“Okay,” I mumble against his chest. His really hard chest. For a minute, I soak him in until I sigh, “God. You’re like a hot, marble statue.”
His chuckle rumbles against my cheek. “Oh, Angel. You have no idea how hot and hard I am touching you.”
The rushing tickle to my core is instant. I’m not shy, not with him holding me and every emotion flooding my senses. “I’m making you hard?”
“You’re making me everything.”
“Did you mean it?” I linger my hand down his back, wishing he wasn’t wearing a T-shirt. “That we’ve just begun?”
I should stop doing his laundry so he’ll have nothing to wear.
“Listen to me, Angel.” His voice sounds gruff; his lips pressed to my ear. “With everything I know about you now, you’re mine, Wren Chapel.”
I want to surrender to the burst of hope his claim gives me, but “You’re not judging me for what I did?”
“Never. I realize now, we’re a lot alike.”
“Hmm. It’s kinda like we belong together.” I trace my fingertip over his pec. “What brilliant, young woman said that recently?”
He chuckles. “Yes, argument won. Signs received. Prayers answered. I just need to tell you some things. And I need to go slow with you.”
“Why?” I try to keep the impatience out of my voice. “Can’t we speed things up?”
I’m wearing his dress shirt. But it’s thin enough for him to feel how hard he makes my nipples. I arch into him, rubbing them against his abs, my lips steaming over the thin cotton covering his nipple, too. “I want you. Please fu—”
“Fuuuck, Wren.” His hold on me tightens. Fisting my hair, he yanks my neck open, his hot lips trailing down my flesh, making a moan crawl up my throat. His whiskers tickle, following the same path back to my ear. “Angel, don’t tempt me. I want to hold you tonight.”
“Hold me?”
“I read your file, and everything you never had. Wren, I’m going to give it to you; everything you want.”
I rise, pressing my lips to his ear. “I only want you, Sire. I’m yours.”
His growl is instant. His strength, overwhelming. He forces our bodies back until we’re lying on the bed, and he’s braced on top of me, my heart racing in this position, my legs opening for him, but he nuzzles his furrowed brow to mine.
“I’m serious, Wren. Don’t make me lose control. I’ve been praying for restraint with you. Give me at least one night to hold you. That’s all we’ll do.”
I cup his face, tears welling in my eyes. “But I’m afraid, because holding me means everything to me.”
Softly, he kisses my palm. “I know. I’ve never done it, either.”
“You’ve never spent the night with someone?”
“No.” He stares down at me, his voice rich with depth. “I’ve never held someone knowing that I’ll never let them go.”
Now they fall. The tears and my heart. “You’ll never let me go?”
“Never, Angel.” He kisses a tear trailing from my eye. “If you ask me anything in my name, I will do it.”
He quotes scripture, and I smile. “Sire, don’t ever let me go.”
“Wren, don’t lose faith in me.”
“Never, I promise.”
Softly, he kisses my cheek before he says firmly, “Now, roll on your side and stay under the blankets.”
“Why?”
He reaches over and turns off the lamp. “So, I won’t feel your soft skin against mine, and completely lose control, and do every dirty thing I want to do to you.”
I chew my lip, joy dancing through my veins. Flipping to my side, I know I won’t sleep, and I don’t need to. I only need this—Sire, gently wrapping his big arm around me, his warmth, his manly scent, his heavy muscles engulfing me. His lips brush the top of my head, his nose nuzzling into my curls.
I could cry right now, at what this means to me, for Sire to hold me, but I fear if I do, I’ll never stop, and as a child, I cried enough.
I’m a woman now who deserves this joy. Smiling, I sigh into the pillow, “I feel you.”
He kisses my hair. “I should think so. I’ve got seventeen inches on you.”
He means our height, but I wriggle my ass against his erection. “You sure do, Stallion.”
“Wren,” he growls lowly.
“That’s what I’m going to call you: my stallion.”
“Shut up,” he says softly. “That’s what I’m going to tell you to do right now.”
“Why?” I tempt.
“Because I’m going to make you mine, and when I do…” He grinds into me, and I gasp, feeling his full, frightening size pressing against my ass. “I want to breed you, Wren, not break you.”