Chapter 27
RANSOME
“Why are they stopping in Dallas?”
My day has been a trainwreck. Not that that’s Amara’s fault.
The scheduling was perfect, everything as it should be, the meetings on time, not going over.
Apex is running like a well-oiled machine—no pun intended—but the problem is with El Paso.
The northbound trucks are stalled in Dallas, Texas of all places.
“A check point from the looks of it,” Maverick tells me as we walk into the warehouse, where two of our trucks just shipped out to Nashville.
“We don’t have a fucking checkpoint in Dallas,” I bark out. “El Paso to Las Cruces to Nashville and home. The fact we even have one stop at all between point A and point B is insane.”
“I agree,” Maverick says as we go into the office and look at the map on the desktop screen.
“I have two trucks headed to Nashville now. And two trucks that are supposed to meet them in Nashville at the same time. But they’re in Dallas. Stalled. Why?”
“Could just be a fluke,” Baron says, always trying to be the bright-side guy. “Sometimes trucks get randomly flagged. They could be running every 5-axel through there.”
“They’re engineered well enough,” Maverick adds casually. “I doubt some minimum-wager in Big D is going to figure out that there’s a loaded, hidden cargo bay.”
“I’ve got close to a ton of powder between those trucks!” I growl. “I can’t ride on your assumption that security is having an off day. I need to know why my trucks are at a standstill in the middle of fucking Texas.”
I rake my hands through my hair, holding them on my head for a moment before looking back at the screen. I hit refresh but no change. They really aren’t moving. At all.
Fuck.
“I hate to bring up the obvious,” Barons starts in, and I cut him off.
“Then don’t.”
“But what do you think the odds are that Tristan is behind it?”
I can literally feel the pounding of a headache forming behind my eyes.
Maverick grunts. “I mean, that’s where my head went. Why else would they be stuck at an unknown checkpoint hours after loading up in Las Cruces?”
“You think they’re unloading?” Baron asks.
My stomach goes sour.
“Unloading into what?” Maverick asks.
“Chadovich trucks?” Baron suggests.
I turn around, sick of looking at the screen. Sick of talking to them. “If that is the case, and Tristan was smart enough to hijack our shipment, we will know soon enough when the trucks are running again and we get correspondence from the drivers.”
“You’re assuming they’re alive.”
Mav phrases it as a joke, but I know he’s actually serious. Because if Tristan is behind this and did send in men to cut off my trucks, I would be shocked to find my drivers still breathing.
“What’s the plan, boss?” Maverick asks.
“Do we have men in Dallas?” Baron asks.
“I have men everywhere,” I say.
“So we check it out. Easy.” Maverick says.
“No.” I shake my head. “We do that and we fall into trap number two.”
“So what? We just wait? And in the meantime the Chadovichs swipe eight-hundred pounds of blow from us? You’ve got to be jok—”
“Tristan wants us to make a sudden move. And if he is behind this, which I don’t doubt that he is, hijacking two of our trucks is only half our problem.
He’s focusing our attention elsewhere.” I clench my fists at my sides.
I hate this most of all—sitting still, doing nothing—but we can’t be losing our heads.
Not when it’s exactly what Tristan is banking on.
“So we wait. We don’t react. Let the pieces fall together so we can see all of his movements. And then, when we know the full scope—”
Maverick grins. “We crush them.”
Baron lets out a low whistle and I suck the inside of my cheek. Annihilate was the word I was thinking of.
But yes. That.
I have no interest in going home. The last thing I need right now is to get into a senseless heated argument with Jenica. If I’m being honest, I have no interest in talking to anyone with Chadovich blood running through their veins.
The alternative is paying Amara a visit.
I let myself in and immediately my nerves settle in my skin a little.
She’s been here for a few weeks, but already the place feels like her.
Smells like her. It’s quiet and clean, unlike the home I’m obligated to go back to every night.
Jenica is always blaring something, either loud music or the latest reality TV show where people are usually screaming at each other.
She’s also a mess, leaving shoes and clothes scattered around the place and makeup splayed out over the surface of every goddamn bathroom counter.
Amara is tidy, in every sense of the word.
Speaking of… where is she?
The kitchen is empty, lit only by the under-cabinet lighting. The TV is off in the living room.
I head towards the stairs to see if she’s in her room, possibly already asleep. Or if I’m lucky, maybe she’s in the shower. But as I pass the office, I notice the door is cracked, a soft glow peeking through.
“Amara?” I ask softly, pressing the door open further.
“Oh!” She jumps slightly. “What are you doing here?”
“I think I should be asking you the same thing,” I tell her, my eyes sweeping over the laptop and an array of organized papers in front of her.
“I’m just catching up on some work,” she says as she continues to type, studying one of the papers.
“What work?” I ask, stepping fully into the room.
“No offense, but since I left, it seems a lot of things in the Apex system are a bit… messy.”
“Oh, I’m aware. That’s why I hired you again. But that doesn’t mean you are permitted to work overtime. In fact,” I say, closing the laptop, “I forbid it.”
Amara gives me a sassy look. “I’m just trying to keep things organized. It will make my job easier, which will make your job run more smoothly and—”
“The only thing I care about right now is you getting some rest. You worked all day. And if I had to guess, it was a long day.”
“You have no idea,” she mutters, and it occurs to me that there’s some angst hiding in that remark.
“What’s going on?” I ask. “Did something happen? Something that upset you?”
Amara bites her lip and her eyes refuse to meet mine. That in itself tells me something is up. She’s hiding something. And after today, I’m hardly in the mood for secrets.
“Dorogoya…” I layer the word with as much syrup as one can with a Russian accent. Honestly, I think she likes that Russian is rough. By the way it makes her shift in her seat, she prefers it.
“I had a visitor at the office today while you were in a meeting,” she admits.
I frown. “Same visitor as last time?”
“Yep.”
I let out a frustrated breath. “And what did she want this time? To rub it in your face that I’m legally bound to her?”
“No. She did a thorough enough job of that the day she stopped by the house. Today was more of a threat to stay in my own lane. That I might work for you, but she is your wife.”
I wince at the word. What is it with Chadovichs and their little threats? “Don’t worry about her,” I say.
“Kind of hard not to when she keeps showing up all the time,” I mutter.
“It won’t happen again. But in the meantime, don’t overthink anything. She’s just jealous.”
“She’s married to you. She gets to go to all the parties and charity events and she’s in all the photos with you and living in your real house and—”
“She does not own me,” I cut her off. Then I close the space between us, pulling her up from the office chair and right up against me. “All of that is a facade. Trust me, dorogoya, the last person you need to worry about is Jenica. Because she is not mine. You are mine.”
Before she can say anything else, I cover her mouth in a kiss. It sucks the breath clean out of her and leaves her like putty against my body.
Amara moans into my mouth. The world around us fades away, taking all of today’s frustrations and problems with it, setting them on a temporary back-burner. All I want to think about, all I care about, is this moment and fucking her.
Amara seems to need a constant reminder that she belongs to me. That she is the only one. And if making her come so hard her knees shake is the only way to do it, then I guess that’s a burden I’ll just have to live with.
Pregnant sex isn’t as easy as regular sex. I can’t just pick her up and toss her on top of my desk. I can, however, pull her up the stairs to the bedroom and have my way with her gorgeously ever-changing body in the moonlight that pours through the windowed walls of the master suite.
Halfway up the stairs, though, I stop.
“What is it?” she gasps, her cheeks already flushed with arousal.
“Nothing,” I tell her. Then, “Get on your knees.”
“What?” she asks with both confusion and amusement in her voice.
“No offense, dorogoya, you are stunning with my baby growing inside of you. But it does make things a little trickier. I think these stairs would give us the perfect angle…”
Her lips quirk in the corners and excitement gleam in her dark eyes. “The perfect angle for what?” she asks.
I press my forehead to hers, my eyes locking hard on her eyes. “Fucking you so hard you can’t remember your own name.”
Amara gets on her knees, leaning her hands forward on the next couple steps.
Meanwhile, I unbuckle my slacks and pull my hard, throbbing dick loose, stroking myself several times for natural lubricant.
Not that we really need it. I can already see—already smell, practically taste—her dripping down her leg under the skirt.
And speaking of the skirt.
I hike it up to her hips, exposing her perfect, tight ass. “A thong?” I ask, hooking my finger inside the lacey, black string. “You’re a bad little girl, aren’t you?”
“Sorry. I never know when my boss is going to want me to perform… extra tasks…”
“Mmh. Always thinking of him, aren’t you?”
“Every day since I met him. Most nights too.”
I snap the string in half and then slap her on the ass, making her yelp. Then I kneel on the steps behind her, reach around, and toy with her clit for a moment. Make her shudder and moan and beg. She drips into my hand, her pussy open and throbbing and needing more.
So I drive myself inside of her.
Both of us groan. I grab the railing of the stairs so I don’t fall back. She’s so tight, so warm, so deliciously fucking wet, that it nearly knocks the wind out of me.
But I can’t let that distract me. She needs to come. She needs to rest assured that no one can take me from her. She needs to be filled with my seed again and again.
She is mine.
“Ransome…” she quivers as my hips grind against her perfectly plump ass.
“Do you like that, baby?” I ask. The angle is actually perfect. I don’t know why I didn’t think of this before.
“Yes,” she murmurs. “Oh God, yes. Please… don’t stop.”
“I won’t stop until you come,” I say, thrusting myself deeper inside of her. “Again… and again… and again…”
“Fuck,” she cries, her entire body quivering with pleasure as I slide in and out of her, over and over again. Harder and harder.
“Come for me, dorogoya. Come for me right fucking now.”
I pick up the pace and fuck her until the room around me blurs at the edges, until a white light takes my senses completely.
“Oh fuck!” she cries out and the orgasm rips through both of us, wave after electric wave. Until she nearly collapses on the stares in front of me.
When my knees are capable of bearing weight, I pull myself to my feet. Then I bend down, pick her up, and carry her to the bedroom.
I undress her gently and run a bath. The scent of lavender and vanilla fills the air in aromatic swirls, and I help her into the warm, bubbly water.
“You relax,” I tell her, kissing her on the forehead.
“Oh, trust me,” she purrs with a content sigh. “I am very relaxed.”
“I mean it. No more working off the clock. No more concerning yourself with things that can wait. And no more worrying about Jenica.” I tip her chin up to bring her eyes to mine. “Ty moya…” I tell her before kissing her again.
As I make my way out of the bathroom she sighs. “I really need to learn Russian.”
Don’t worry, kotyonek.
I’ll teach you everything.