Chapter 22
NINA
Ican’t stop admiring the gorgeous ring. The antique gold band is textured with intricate vine leaves, and the iridescent diamond winks even in the low light of Art’s bedroom.
This is insanity, of course.
We can’t get married. One conversation can’t erase everything that we’ve been through. We’ve grown apart, in different directions, and I don’t know if anything can bring us back together.
But I can’t bring myself to take off the symbol of our engagement.
“It wasn’t an accident, was it?” I stare at the ring even as I ask the question that’s been on my mind for months.
Art has changed, in the years we’ve been apart, and I’m only starting to understand how.
I’ve never known him to be desperate. Obsessed. Vulnerable. I saw all of that in his eyes, in that moment when he thought I’d kept Ava a secret from him.
“What wasn’t an accident?” He runs his fingers through my hair absentmindedly.
“When we saw each other at the bar.”
“I never said it was an accident.” Art’s hand stops beside my face, then he smooths the strand back against my head.
“Right, Art. Be a lawyer right now if you want. You know what I’m saying.”
His eyes smolder, burning gold and blazing blue. I can’t look away.
“Then say it, Nenoka. What exactly are you accusing me of?”
“Stalking me. Buying the hospital where I worked.”
“Oh, baby,” he chuckles, the sound low in his throat, as he wraps an arm around my waist and pulls me against him. “That’s only the start.”
Art runs his teeth from my ear all the way down to my shoulder, making me shiver.
“I’m not telling you everything, because I don’t think you could handle it.”
His voice turns dark and compelling.
“But I do know what you can handle right now.”
Art places a hand on the back of my neck, and pushes me forward onto the bed.
“What do you say, Nenoka? Shall we seal the deal?”
He presses himself against me, and I gasp at the feeling of how hard he is, my back arching so that I can grind against him. I want him. I always want him, so much that I can hardly breathe with it, so much that even the thought of being with another man makes me feel sick.
“I think that normally happens after the wedding,” I gasp, out of breath as he trails his hands over my thighs and up to the waistline of my panties. Every touch makes me lightheaded and weak, yet I crave more.
“A bit late for that.” I can’t see Art’s face, but I can hear the smirk in his voice as he yanks the fabric down my thighs. “But I’d do it again.”
“You don’t feel like I’ve trapped you into this?”
I hear Art removing clothing behind me. He pulls my hips back on the bed, notches himself at my entrance and pushes inside me with a groan before he answers. I grip the sheets as my pussy stretches open to take his girth, letting out a sigh.
“You think I’d be disappointed to be trapped with you? Baby, learning Ava was mine was the best news I’ve ever had. If anything, I think we should trap each other into this more.”
He rolls his hips inside me as he speaks, working his cock in until I’m relaxed and open for him.
“Oh yeah? How?” I reply.
“By putting another baby inside you, right fucking now.”
Fuck.
That low growl combined with the powerful thrust of his hips makes me needy as hell.
I didn’t expect Art to have a breeding kink. But as soon as the words leave his mouth, we’re both more feral for each other.
I grind my hips back against him to take him deeper, and he grips my ass for leverage.
Then Art slams his full length into me, making me sob with pleasure. I can feel every inch of that thick, beautiful cock stretching me out. I love it. I need it.
There’s no room for anything but thoughts of Art and his cock when he takes me like this.
My clit aches for attention, my hardened nipples rubbing against the bed with every thrust. I dip a hand between my thighs, unable to resist.
“Are you touching yourself while I fuck you, baby?”
“Y-yes,” I gasp, barely able to get a word out as the pleasure builds inside me.
“Because you want me to knock you up again?”
“Yes,” I cry, gripping the sheets as Art pounds me from behind.
“Good,” he groans, leaning forward over me, his chest pressed against my back, as he continues to slam his cock inside me.
“Take.” Thrust. “It.” Thrust. “Just.” Thrust. “Like.” Thrust. “That.”
He finishes inside me with a low grunt, and I melt with pleasure into the bedsheets, Art kissing my neck and shoulders before he finally rolls off me.
“So.” Art pulls me so I’m facing him. “Will you marry me, Nina?”
I bite my lip. He watches carefully, brushing over my mouth with his thumb. His eyes are so warm, so open right now, that they remind me of summer sunshine and the ocean.
“I’m not taking your last name, and neither is Ava,” I say slowly.
A grin spreads across his face.
“Fine. You did raise her for the first five years of her life. But everyone in the Bratva will call you Nina Petrova anyway.”
I raise a finger to my chin in mock thought. “And… I don’t want us to be exclusive.”
Art freezes. Blinks twice. Then his brows come together in utter confusion.
“What?”
“Haven’t you ever heard of an open marriage?”
I’m teasing him, but he is fully serious. There’s something addictive about provoking him until he is nothing but dark instinct.
“Do you need a reminder of what happens to men who touch you, Nenoka?”
I shudder at the reminder.
His voice turns ice cold. “Because, you should know, it’ll be worse when you’re my wife.”
I shove him off me. I am not turned on because he is threatening to kill people. I’m better than that.
But I can’t help the hot chill that runs down my spine when he continues talking, deep in thought.
“I think I’d start with the parts of them that have touched you. Obviously, the cock, but I think that should be the finale, don’t you?”
He rolls over, propping himself up on one hand as he looks at me coolly.
“The fingers are where I would begin,” Art says finally, his face dark.
“One by one, starting with the tips, or maybe even just the skin. Then the tongue, so they can’t even scream properly.
I would eradicate every part of them that knows you, Nina. ”
A ridiculous notion, given he’s the only man who’s been inside me.
“You’re absurd. I’m going to the bathroom to throw up now,” I announce.
“No, you’re not,” he says with a smirk. His eyes pierce me like a needle, like he’s taking a biopsy of my every thought.
I growl with frustration as I leave the room to take a shower, and he just chuckles.