16. Emily
16
EMILY
“ Marry you?” I work the word around in my mouth. It tastes nice, but the longer I let it linger on my tongue, the dirtier it sounds. “I’m not marrying you.”
“You don’t have any choice.” Konstantin doesn’t look surprised by my reaction. “Not anymore.”
“Like hell I don’t.” The loud roar of the engines warming up makes my ears ache. The plane begins to roll over the tarmac, sending me rocking to one side. I lose my balance. Konstantin catches me, his hands supporting my shoulders.
“Buckle in, Kitty Cat,” he says.
I pull away like he’s burned me. Ignoring his advice, I reach for the cockpit door. “I’m telling the pilot to turn around.”
“Door’s locked,” he says. “Not that it’ll do you any good. He only listens to me.”
“Then tell him to stop!”
Konstantin drops into one of the large, luxurious-looking seats by a window. The light coming through dances over his elegant face. His skin is perfect—except where I cut him.
“Sit. We need to discuss the terms of this marriage.”
“Discuss? There’s nothing to discuss here!” Scowling until my jaw hurts, I test the cockpit door again. It doesn’t budge. “I’m not marrying you!”
“Sit down before you hurt yourself.”
The jet scream grows louder. Gravity shifts, and I feel the cabin shudder as the plane lofts itself into the air. Konstantin gives me a pointed look. I hold my head high to show that my spirit isn’t broken, and that I’m only listening because I don’t want to snap my neck.
Still, I choose to sit as far from him as possible, which is proving very difficult given that there’s only four seats in the entire jet.
“This marriage,” Konstantin starts. “Only has to seem real.”
My eyes pop wide. The bluntness of his answer hurts me more than I care to admit.
The jet lurches forward, sending my stomach into a dizzying spin that lasts a few minutes. We level out, and through the window, I watch in despair as the ground below turns into a patchwork of fields and farms.
Unless I find a parachute, I’m not getting away from him.
So much for parachuting into a hot stranger’s bed.
“Tell me why,” I demand. “Don’t I deserve to know?”
He lifts a hand, rubbing the beauty mark by his eye, almost as if he’s trying to figure out whether it’s a good idea or not to tell me the truth.
“You’re going to help me secure my inheritance from my grandmother,” he says. “She won’t release it to me until I’m married.”
“And why do you need that inheritance?”
“Because my enemies have kidnapped my sister.” He leans forward. “They tried to kill me so that the inheritance will pass to her upon my death. This is my way of breaking up their plans.”
“Enemies …” I breathe. “You talk like you’re some kind of mob boss.”
“Oh, Kitty Cat.” The corner of his lips curls up in a smile, and my breath hitches in my throat. “You have no idea just how accurate you are.”
Suddenly, everything about the past few days start making sense.
How could I be so blind?
Who else can just show up to a new place and immediately buy a Lamborghini on a whim?
Who else refuses to answer the question of what he does for work?
Who else can inspire fear from strangers in a club with a simple gesture?
The signs were all there, and I ignored them all.
Worse.
I went with him on my own accord.
I told him what I was doing in Italy.
I was one hundred percent ready to fuck him.
“But … if you’re a mob boss.” I take a shaky breath. “Why do you need to be married to get your inheritance? Can’t you just demand it from your grandmother?”
“There are so many things you don’t understand about my world.” He steeples his fingers together. “And things are rarely as simple as you think.”
“This marriage.” I swallow. “It just has to seem real?”
“That’s exactly what I said.”
He says it with such seriousness that I’m reminded of what he said to me just before we parted ways in Italy: Don’t misunderstand me. I will be back.
Konstantin has the aura of a man who takes his promises to the grave. Or you’re being naive and he’s going to toss you into a shallow grave once he’s had his fun.
“And once you get what you want by having me pretend to be your wife, you’ll let me go?” I ask. “You’re not lying to me?”
“You have my word.”
I close my eyes. I know what he’s doing to me. It’s no different than what almost every person in my life, other than Nadia and my sister, has done to me – from my parents to Phil to every failed relationship I’ve ever had.
Use me for their own selfish reasons, and caring about me only when I have any use for them.
“And what do I get out of this?” I finally find my voice and ask him softly.
“Whatever your heart desires,” he replies.
“What do you mean whatever my heart desires?” I press. “Like you’ll pay me?”
“If that’s what you want, yes.”
“I’m not a whore,” I say before I can stop myself.
“And I have no intention of treating you like one, Kitty Cat,” he replies, and his eyes flash as if he’s insulted that I might think that. “By doing this, you’ll be doing me a favor. I would be in your debt, and I’m a man who pays his debts with interest.”
My hands clench and unclench. “But you’d still be using me.”
“If that’s the way you intend on seeing it, yes,” he says.
I thought I had steeled myself for his answer. But no amount of mental preparation can stop my heart from splitting at hearing him say it so matter-of-factly, so bluntly, as if he’s talking about the weather.
“I will make you a promise,” he continues. “When this is all over, you can have whatever you want. All you have to do is ask, and if it is within my power to grant, I will give it to you. Tell me, what is the one thing in the world that you want?”
The only thing I want in this world, I think sadly , is to have my sister back. But you can’t bring back the dead.
“I don’t know yet,” I lie to him. “But I know it’s not money. I’m not a whore.”
“You don’t have to tell me twice,” he says. “And you don’t have to tell me what you want just yet. We can discuss that at the end of this arrangement.”
Arrangement …
I want to scream at him. I want to shout that this isn’t fair, that he doesn’t get to just use me like this. I am a person, a human being with my own wants and feelings, not a tool that he can use and discard.
But I don’t. Instead, all I hear is a tiny little voice in the back of my head. At least he’s upfront about it with you, it says. At least this way, you know what you’re getting yourself into before he breaks your heart like every other man.
I gulp down one breath after another until my heartbeat returns to something on the edge of a normal cadence. Konstantin just sits there, looking at me and waiting for me to say something.
“Why me?” I finally ask. “You could’ve asked anyone else. Why did it have to be me?”
He looks at me and his hand lifts form his armrest to scrub his jaw. The silence drags on for another heartbeat, and then he finally answers.
“Because I couldn’t stop thinking about you.”
Warmth balloons up in my chest and I close my eyes at his answer. I try to tell myself that he’s lying, that he’s just telling me what I want to hear. But I can’t help believe—like a fool—that maybe, just maybe, he might actually give a damn about me.
As the plane levels out in the air, I feel my eyelids growing heavy. The past forty-eight hours have left me utterly exhausted. Unable to suppress my yawn, I try to get comfortable in my seat in an attempt to catch some sleep until we arrive at wherever the hell it is we’re going.
When he sees me yawn, Konstantin rises from his seat. “You should rest before we arrive. It’s a long flight.”
“That’s exactly what I’m doing.”
He extends his hand at me again, and I can’t help recall the moment when he first helped me up from the floor of the airport.
“Wouldn’t you prefer something more comfortable?”
I want to tell him no, but I’m so tired that I place my hand in his. Instantly, the warmth that I felt during our first meeting returns, and I rise to follow him.
The jet didn’t look big from the outside, so I’m surprised when he opens the door at the rear of the plane to expose a large suite with a bathroom in the rear.
And a single king-sized bed.
I have to squeeze by him to reach it. Our bodies brush just slightly, and a tremor of excitement rushes through me again. I force myself to hold my breath as his tantalizing scent of soap and aftershave wafts over.
I turn towards him, and in this confined space, I can’t help but drink in every detail of his handsome face again. Slowly, his hand rises up and cups my cheek. I close my eyes, parting my lips, and feel his mouth gently press against mine.
Unlike our kisses in Italy, this one is gentle. For a brief dizzying moment, I allow myself to forget everything that had just taken place and what I just agreed to.
A soft moan pours forth from my nose as he deepens the kiss, and in the doorframe of the suite, my trembling fingers reach forward to feel his hard body. Almost as if I’m trying to beg him through touch to not break my heart when this is over.
Even though I know that he will.
They always do.
Slowly, my hands make their way down, until I feel the throbbing hard heat between his legs. The space between us is shrinking by the second, and I feel him slowly guiding my body effortlessly towards the bed until we’re falling into it.
He drives apart my knees and I feel my pussy clenching in response to the closeness of his throbbing cock. My hands move up and down its length, and a shiver runs down my spine as I finally have a chance to feel just how big it is.
I mean, I’ve put my hands around my fair share of penises before, but this?
This is a cock .
Just the word itself sends a burst of wetness gushing to the entrance of my pussy. The swollen girth feels impossibly huge in my hands. It feels so big that I know I’ll need both of my hands to handle it.
It feels so big that I shiver at the thought of it entering me.
A massive hand circles around my waist tracing up the curves of my body until it encloses around my ass. Konstantin squeezes, and all thoughts and doubts are chased away from my mind. A light gasp tumbles from my lips and he swallows it as his tongue sweeps into my mouth.
I grab at his pants, and just as I finally manage to take hold of his belt, I hear someone clearing his throat.
With a snarl of frustration, Konstantin breaks the kiss and withdraws his hand.
I almost beg him to come back.
“Sleep well, Kitty Cat.” His deep voice rumbles just above my ear. “You’re going to need your strength when we arrive.”
I shiver.
He walks out to rejoin the driver who’s waiting for him outside in the cabin, and closes the door behind him to leave me alone by my thoughts and unfulfilled frustration.
Stretching out on the bed, I cross my ankles, gazing at the low ceiling. But all I can think about is how massive his cock felt in my hand. How good it felt for him to squeeze my ass.
I wonder how hard he can make me scream.
I’m fucked. I am so fucked.
Feeling more alone by the second, I try to soothe my brain at the unknown waiting for me when we land. I fantasized about Konstantin ever since I walked away from that patio in the Amalfi Coast.
Now he has finally returned to my life.
And it’s nothing like my fantasies.
It’s so much more.
I don’t know where he’s taking me. I don’t know when this will end.
But none of those thoughts remain within my head as I sink into the bed. Instead, all I can think about are the same questions running through my mind on that patio after he left.
Will he wake me with kisses? Will he keep calling me Kitty Cat when he fucks me?
Just then, a new question enters my mind, one that has been brewing under the surface ever since he shoved me inside of his car.
Will he ever let me go?
And how pathetic am I for knowing that I’ll be disappointed if he does?