Chapter 29 Sergei
SERGEI
Much like when Natalie and I had sex the first time, she didn’t want to linger afterward. I expected her to regret it and retreat with how long she’d been avoiding me.
And I did my best not to take it personally.
She was still adjusting.
She was still skittish, but in a new way—skittish of me.
In the morning, though, when I found her looking out from the balcony at her room, watching Maisie and Anya play in the sand on the beach, I headed toward her to test the waters. To see how she was feeling about me today. If missing me would become a theme between us.
“Morning,” I said after I strode through her room and found her in the outdoor space. She leaned against the half wall, looking out.
She turned and looked me over. “Morning,” she replied.
I didn’t detect any coolness in her greeting, so I took the chance to stand next to her and watch the sunrise.
“Did you sleep well?” I asked, for the lack of anything better to say.
I was determined to keep forging ahead. Last night seemed more like a dream than reality. A figment of my imagination. We’d come together in the heat of the moment, so this felt like a test now.
Are we back to you hating me?
Or something else?
“I didn’t.” She turned, facing me, reaching for my dick.
Without any warning, without any preamble, she slipped her hand beneath my pants and wrapped her fingers around my shaft.
I wasn’t hard when I walked out here, but at the first contact of her touching me there, I grunted at the rush of desire that hit me.
The instant surge of blood draining to make me stiff and aching for her.
“I couldn’t stop thinking about repaying the favor you showed me last night,” she admitted bluntly.
Again, without any warning, she shoved my pants down. The half wall hid it all. No one on the beach could see how she dropped to her knees and took the head of my cock past her warm lips.
“Fuck.” I growled at the immediate wave of lust and need that she induced.
I gripped the edge of the wall to ground myself.
Watching her suck on me greedily, I put my free hand on the back of her head.
Pushing her faster—since she seemed to get wetter and moan loader when I was demanding like that.
Rocking into her mouth more—because she confessed how hot she thought that was when we hadn’t been able to get enough of each other.
“There’s no need to pay back a favor,” I told her, pulling out just before I shot my cum down her throat.
She pouted, eyeing me with disappointment. Saliva and my precum glistened on her lips. Her breaths shot out rapidly as she caught her breath. With how mussed her hair was from my hand on her head, she looked wild.
For me.
For this.
“Because I’m just going to want to eat that sweet pussy again and again.
” Lowering to urge her to lie back, I crawled over her on the tile floor.
Tugging at her skirt solved the issue of her hiding from me, and within seconds, I was fucking her with my tongue and relishing every wanton cry and gasp she’d give me.
“I’ll never get enough of this,” I told her as she came. Her thighs trembled as I kissed my way up her stomach. “I’ll never get enough of you.”
Hovering over her, I let her be the impatient one to line my dick up to her body.
“Fuck me, Sergei,” she begged. “Before anyone can come back. Please. Fuck me—”
I silenced her with a hard kiss and did as she wished.
Later, when Maisie was napping and Anya was out shopping, I finally succeeded in getting Natalie in bed, where we could repeat the passion that was flaring out of control.
The claim that absence made the heart fonder was looking awfully fucking true with us.
The weeks that she’d held a grudge against me and refused to be more than a civil roommate had set us up to suffer through so much sexual tension.
It all exploded now.
But as I visited her in the middle of the night once everyone was asleep, to fuck her in the shower because that was where I found her, I knew this wasn’t just sex.
She begged me to fuck her. And yes, the physical release was an excellent medium for us to be connected again, but it was more than that. It felt like so much more.
I couldn’t tell if it was because I missed her and saw a future with her that she wanted to delay or what.
I love you.
That was the fact that snapped me into focus. It was the revelation that I kept to myself. As I realized that everything seemed sharper, brighter, and somehow perfect, I quit denying the obvious.
I loved Natalie Hayes.
I loved this strong woman, with all her flaws and her big heart.
When we left the villa and returned to my penthouse, though, it seemed that the magic of being away dulled her interest in me.
While she didn’t get as icy and aloof with me as before, she maintained a little distance and wariness of me.
Almost like she’d had a lapse of judgment while she was out of her usual routine, but now that we were back home, she remembered that she wasn’t supposed to make anything easy for me.
I will wait for you.
I will be patient, Natalie.
Because I mean it. I will never get enough of you.
Even though I was ready to admit that I loved her, to confess how much she mattered to me, I would give her space and time until she would be ready to accept that truth.
Being back home came with another obstacle, another hindrance to being free to pursue Natalie on my own turf. As such, I was expected at meetings and held to the standard of pulling my weight in protecting the family.
“I’m so fucking sick of Niko Popov thinking he can mess with me,” Mikhail groused from his office as I met with him, Andre, and Roman, as well as a few others.
“That he can mess with you.” My uncle shot me a stern look. “I don’t think they even cared who Natalie was when they first tried to take her and traffic her and Maisie. But since you made enough of a claim on her, he’s hell-bent on trying to attack.”
I shook my head. “She’s not leaving. She’ll be safe here.”
While I hunt them all down. I would. I would let no one hurt them.
“And Giovanni’s being more of a pain in the ass,” Andre said wryly.
“He’s still spying on our dealers’ movements?” Roman guessed.
Andre nodded and looked ready to reply when Mikhail slammed his fist on his desk out of frustration. His son didn’t flinch, used to his infrequent bursts of annoyance and smacking something in a fit.
“It’s one thing to call you in here because I’m annoyed about shit falling through the cracks and all,” he said. “But this has to stop.”
Andre stood, sighing as he smoothed his hand over his shirt. “I’ll keep on the Giovanni angle. They won’t win or be able to compete with us for long.”
After he left, on his phone and ordering men to assist him, Roman glanced at me. “What about Natalie and Maisie?” he asked.
“You could marry her,” Mikhail said. “That would show the world that she’s yours and anyone who targets her will pay tenfold.”
I shook my head, jarred from thinking about having her under me again. “I won’t marry her like that.”
“What, you want her to be in love?” My uncle scoffed. “Fuck that. She needs to stay alive first, right?”
For the longest time, he didn’t give a shit about love or “softer” emotions.
His first wife from an arranged marriage loathed him and was never present except to be knocked up for Andre and Anya to be born.
Mikhail’s views on love were twisted, but since he’d met and married Claire, it seemed that he was risking himself to be softer. Weaker.
“There’s time for her to learn you and love you later, Sergei.
” He rubbed his face. “But when it comes to the situation of our enemies trying to use her to distract us, it’s better to be one step ahead.
To eliminate that potential of a strike.
Marry her, love her when she’s ready to forgive you.
If she’s viewed as your wife, they’ll think twice about trying to target her. ”
“I’m… working on it.” It was the best reply I could think of for him right now.
I refused to push her, but with his stark warning, I wondered if she’d ever be ready to open up to me and accept me as her husband. Especially with the history of how I’d killed her first one.
Roman stayed to speak with Mikhail about something he was overseeing for him, and I saw myself out. Instead of leaving to handle some business, I walked back toward my building, eager to see Natalie. To check on Maisie.
I reached my building and realized I had been lost in my thoughts, daydreaming about a future and being a family with them for the entire return trip.
Wincing at the thought that I could be this vulnerable in love, this distracted, I vowed not to lose my edge and risk losing them before the rest of our lives could start.
Are you only allowing yourself to enjoy something physical with me, Natalie? Like I’m your fuck toy?
Or would you ever marry me?
And love me like I love you?