CHAPTER 9
MAXIM
Oaklynn is quiet as I drive us home.
I’m a little surprised she didn’t put up more of a fight about going back home.
Most women would be talking about how she needs clothes and face care or whatever shit women need to live their lives.
Not our woman.
She hasn’t mentioned it, and I don’t get the feeling it’s because she knows we’ll take care of her.
I have no doubt Kirill has already contacted his personal shopper, but Oaklynn doesn’t know that.
My curiosity gets the better of me along with the silent tension between us.
“Why aren’t you worried about going and getting some of your things?”
She turns toward me, giving me her full attention.
My body hums with awareness having her eyes on me and I have to bite back a groan.
I’m not sure what kind of magic this woman wields, but it’s something I’ve never experienced before.
How does she do this?
“I have the most important things with me,” she whispers.
When I arch an eyebrow, my eyes still on the road, she lets out a sigh.
“I have my laptop and tablet in my bag. The only piece of jewelry I’ve ever cared about is around my neck.” She pulls the pendent out of the blouse slightly and whispers, “It was my mom’s necklace.”
“Don’t women need more than that?”
She scoffs and chuckles softly.
“I’m sure there are a lot of women and men,” she adds those words pointedly, “who need more. What are we really talking about? Clothes? I’m wearing my favorite heels. I’ve never had clothes that are my choice anyway, not since my mom died and my father couldn’t be bothered. He’s had a personal shopper picking out my clothes ever since, all to his specifications. Why would I want to bring any of it with me?”
I swallow down a growl as my hands tighten on the steering wheel.
Everything in me demands to turn the car around, head over to where she’s grown up, and beat the hell out of Chambers.
Even though I shouldn’t be surprised with her confession, I am.
Then I realize I just thought about Kirill using his personal shopper to deck out our woman and cringe.
“Kirill has probably already contacted our shopper to get you whatever you need.”
The sigh that comes out of her has me hitting a button on the screen of the car.
It only rings once before Kirill answers the phone, his voice tense, “Is everything okay? I know you haven’t made it home yet.”
“Did you consider that Oaklynn hasn’t been able to pick out her own clothes for years?”
The silence on the other end of the line tells me everything I need to know.
I expect Oaklynn’s face to fall with disappointment, but instead her bright laughter fills the car.
It’s a beautiful sound.
“Your brother mentioned you probably already contacted your personal shopper after he asked me why I wasn’t worried about picking up any of my things. I told him I have everything I need and everything else can be left behind.”
“The only job I gave them was to give you enough to make you comfortable,” Kirill admits.
“I want you to feel like you can make our house a home, including in the closet. Everything else you can shop for however you want without a limit.”
Oaklynn shakes her head.
“I’m not destitute. While I haven’t been working since graduation, I have worked in my life, and I have no intention of being a kept woman.”
“But you are,” Kirill growls, “you’re our kept woman. When we buy you things, it’s not about keeping a tally or molding you into someone you’re not. It’s about taking care of you.”
“As long as our woman is able to have her own style,” I insist.
“Of course,” he agrees immediately.
I hang up without saying goodbye knowing I interrupted him in the first place.
Now that Oaklynn has shown up at the office, all of his focus will be on making sure she’s safe from everyone including her father.
I’m not going to interrupt him more than I need to.
Oaklynn huffs, a sound of annoyance and frustration.
“I don’t want to be a burden.”
“You’re the farthest thing from a burden,” I grit out through my teeth.
I’m not mad at her.
I’m pissed at anyone who has ever made her feel that way.
Chambers is at the top of the list.
When I’m given the green light, I’ll be gutting that man.
“Chambers deserves to bleed out slowly,” I mutter under my breath.
“Sounds messy,” Oaklynn chirps.
I panic a little because she heard me even though I didn’t mean for it to happen.
Out of the corner of my eye, I watch Oaklynn wince as she adjusts her position in the seat and the thought of being covered in her father’s blood is almost too much temptation.
Before I can say anything, our woman’s soft voice is filled with reluctance, “I don’t mean to sound ungrateful, you know. It’s not like the clothes the shopper picked out were even all that bad. I liked a lot of them. My father did keep a roof over my head, food in my belly, and clothed me.”
“That’s the fucking minimum a parent is supposed to provide,” I growl the words.
The fact that she feels like she needs to defend or make excuses for her piss poor father makes me see red.
“True,” she concedes.
“I’m just pointing out that not being able to pick out my clothes wasn’t the worst thing in the world.”
I see her point, but her words do nothing to temper my anger.
We fall into silence tinged with awkwardness.
As we stop at the gate to our home, I quickly scan the card to let us in and start up the drive.
Out of the corner of my eye, I watch Oaklynn’s face as we get closer to home.
Her mouth falls open and her eyes widen.
“Holy shit,” she breathes out, “this place is huge.”
I chuckle and nod.
“While the size is partially about status, it’s also about having the room for all of us. We also left room for if we ever found the right woman to be the woman of the house and started a family.”
Knowing we’re a step closer to that reality with Oaklynn in our lives is terrifying.
It’s also exhilarating.
The thought of our woman round with our baby has my cock throbbing.
Being around this woman is dangerous.
It’s hard to concentrate on anything other than burying myself inside of her tight, wet heat.
I have no doubt that her sweet cunt would squeeze me just right and milk all the cum from my balls.
I desperately want to feel that.
“What, like kids?”
When I park and look over, her eyes are wide, but it’s not from fear.
The hope and longing coming off her has my heart pounding.
“Of course. We desperately want kids,” I admit.
“Wow,” she breathes out before she looks at me askance.
“Like how many are we talking about here?”
I bark out a laugh and shake my head before turning toward her, gripping her chin, and turning her head so our gazes lock.
“As many as you want,” I tell her honestly.
She blows out a breath and whispers, “Okay.”
The strength of this woman is astounding.
She has no idea how unbreakable she is.
“Let me show you around,” I nod toward the house as I let go of her.
“I think you’ll need to draw me a map,” she jokes, a hint of awe in her tone as she looks at the house again.
With a chuckle, I step out of the car and head around to her side.
She has the door open before I can get there and I glare at our woman as I offer her a hand.
The breath she sucks in when she takes my hand and gets out of the car is sharp.
Knowing that she’s in pain because of her father has me clenching my jaw.
When she’s standing, I gently push her back against the car while being mindful of her ribs.
“Let me open your door for you,” I insist, surprising myself.
I’ve never cared about a woman opening her own door or not, not with the feeling of ferocity I’m barely able to contain at the moment.
If I could convince her to never lift a finger again, I would but I know she’ll never agree to that.
Oaklynn’s brown eyes become molten.
She pats my chest and gives me a small smile.
“Next time,” she placates me.
With a huff and a roll of my eyes, I grip her hand in mine and step away from her to lead her away from the car.
Using my fingerprint, I unlock the front door, and we enter a large foyer with vaulted ceilings which opens up to a huge living room with a huge sectional that looks like a cloud.
I can easily see Oaklynn on the couch with her legs tucked underneath her and a book in her hand.
If she were pregnant, it would be an even better mental image.
Fuck.
This woman’s magic is something else.
I have never looked at any woman, in my life, and imagined her round with my baby.
It certainly has never turned me on like this.
“Woah. That couch looks comfortable.”
My chest puffs up with pride.
“Would you like a tour?”
“I’d love one.” The smile on our woman’s face is pure fucking joy.
While I lead our woman around, starting in the kitchen and the open concept dining room, I keep an eye on her face.
There’s something wonderful about watching her reactions.
It’s like being able to see the house for the first time because I’m now looking at it through her eyes.
Even though we’ve tried to bring some life into the space, it’s clear there are things missing here and there.
I think, whether we realized it or not, we were leaving room for the woman who would make us whole.
This was always the way it was going to be.
Her eyes light up when we go downstairs where the gym and theater are located.
The small ring in the middle of the gym seems to catch her eye.
The grin she gets on her face makes me wonder what she’s thinking, but I don’t ask.
I have a feeling I’ll find out soon enough.
When we head back to the ground floor, I lead her into the library.
“Ohh,” she breathes out, “I could spend a lot of time in here.”
Everything about the room is warm and cozy.
The walls are lined with books, some of them first editions because Kirill has a deep love of literature.
That doesn’t mean all the books are classics.
Not long ago, Baker got into reading romance novels, and the library now houses its own section.
It was difficult not to make fun of the man for a while there, but now it’s just the norm when we find him reading a book with a half-naked man on the cover.
He just argues that it makes him a renaissance man whenever we see him with one of them.
There is a mixture of textures and rich colors throughout the room with more than one place to sit and relax.
I can just imagine her adding pillows and throws everywhere.
Her steps are tentative when we head upstairs.
The way she peeks into each room without stepping fully inside is adorable.
It’s as if she doesn’t want to invade anyone’s privacy.
What she doesn’t realize is that she’s welcome in every single room without question.
Hell, she wouldn’t even be required to knock before coming in.
The primary bedroom is almost twice the size of every other bedroom and includes a gigantic walk-in closet and an ensuite where everything is made for five people to use.
No expenses were spared in creating a space for a future we weren’t even sure would happen.
It felt like we were putting the cart way ahead of the horse.
Now Oaklynn is looking around the room with big eyes while taking everything in.
There isn’t much in the room, but it’s not stark.
Everything is done in jewel tones with hints of luxury.
The bed is huge, but it would have to be.
There is only one way to get a bed big enough for everyone and that’s getting it made custom.
Until we can all join her in here, which I’m not sure she’ll be ready for right away, our woman could easily get lost in the monstrosity.
Oaklynn is quiet, almost too quiet, as we step out of the primary bedroom.
I can see the wheels in her head turning.
She better not be talking herself out of being here with us.
Now that I’ve seen her take up space in the rooms of our house, making it feel more like home with only her presence, I can’t imagine her not being here.
This is where she’s meant to be.
Hopefully, she can see it.
If she doesn’t right now, we’ll be taking advantage of any opportunity to show her.
Before we can head back down the stairs, I grip our woman’s wrist lightly and pull her back to me.
She looks up at me, her brown eyes filled with lust and need.
I very carefully press her against the wall, my forearms resting on either side of her head to cage her in.
“Maxim,” she whispers when I press my body flush against hers.
She sucks in a shaky breath and the worry that I’ve caused her additional pain has my muscles bunching to take a step back.
Before I can, her hands grip the sides of my suit jacket, her fingers tightening around the fabric as if she never wants to let go.
Her body melts against mine, her eyes pleading for something she’s not ready to name.
I run the tip of my nose up her neck, loving the way her breath hitches with the contact.
“The first moment I saw you, I was entranced,” I admit.
“I didn’t know where to look when the four of you walked into the room,” there’s a shyness to her voice which does nothing to temper the raging need inside of me.
The chuckle that comes out of me is depraved.
Images of the four of us surrounding her, of her begging for the pleasure our bodies can give her, invade my mind.
A low groan rumbles from my chest, and I murmur, “As much as I want to lift you in my arms, press you against the wall and bury myself inside of you, I have a much more important question to ask you.”
When I pull back enough to look into her eyes, there is a wariness there which tells me we have work to do before we earn our woman’s complete trust.
It’s nothing less than I would expect, but that doesn’t mean I have to like it.
Why would she trust us when her own father didn’t protect her from the darkness he willingly surrounded himself with?
The thought of her being promised to Mikhail, even though she never knew his name, has me wanting to burn the city down to bring that piece of shit out of whatever hole he’s hiding in.
I’ll have his blood on my hands soon enough.
But he’s not the biggest threat to deal with right now.
No, first we have to deal with Chambers and the fucked-up plan he put in motion which he roped his daughter into.
He did so without thinking about her safety and well-being.
It was sheer luck on his part that we’re enamored with his daughter.
If it had been any other woman sitting at the table, the other night or walking into the office today, things would have turned out very differently.
Though my bloodlust would have been satisfied already.
“What question is that?” Oaklynn’s question is hesitant, testing.
“What do you want for dinner?”
She blinks her big brown eyes a few times as if she’s replaying my words in her head to make sure she heard them correctly.
I grin down at her, loving the way she fits against my body even though I won’t be admitting that sappy shit out loud any time soon.
“Dinner?” She squeaks, her head tilting to the side.
“Yeah, dinner. It’s a meal enjoyed in the late afternoon or evening, depending on schedules. Meant as the last meal of the day even though I’ve always been partial to desert or even a late-night snack.”
“You cook?” She sounds surprised and I smirk.
“If a man can’t cook, how does he feed himself?” My question is a challenge.
She glances over my shoulder and takes in the opulence surrounding her.
We spared no expense on our home, needing a place away from the chaos to be a real home for us.
It’s not sterile, but it sure as fuck isn’t cheap either.
“I would think men like you would hire someone with your busy lives and schedules.”
I make a humming sound and shrug one shoulder as if to say we could have gone that route but didn’t.
It wasn’t for lack of means, that’s for damn sure, but the thought of having anyone in our house other than us wasn’t something we were willing to entertain.
“Can you make stuffed chicken? Maybe with something to go with sundried tomatoes?”
Unable to take it anymore, I brush my lips across hers.
It’s not the kiss I want to take from her, but it’s enough.
For now.
Her breath hitches and a blush creeps up her neck as her eyes widen and her lips part.
She wants me and, fuck, it’s the sexiest thing I’ve ever experienced.
I wink at her before stepping back and heading down the stairs with a spring in my step.
The sound of her panting breaths follows me, but I don’t adjust my rigid length until I step into the kitchen knowing I won’t be sinking inside of her yet.
I don’t know how long I’ll be able to wait, but being able to focus on feeding her, hoping to help her feel welcome in her new home, is enough for now.
I’m sure Kirill has a plan for how to deal with her father and when to make her ours completely.
Hopefully, we don’t have to wait too long.