Chapter 8 #2
Leaning forward, he covers my hand with his big palm. “I’ll ask you one more time. Who did this to you? Why are you afraid of me?”
I stare at him. We’re married now. We share a name, and we’ll share children. I can’t tell him all of my secrets, not yet, but I’ll tell him the rest soon.
“I was at a party,” I say in a whisper. “Someone slipped something in my drink. I only remember bits and pieces.”
“You were assaulted,” he says in a voice I can’t quite decipher, but I’m reminded of a lion with velveted paws.
My mouth is dry, my voice hoarse. “Yes.”
He doesn’t speak for long minutes. Is he going to hurt me? I made a mistake telling him, I know I did. I know the consequences a mafia woman faces for losing her virginity. She’s damaged goods.
Miss High and Mighty.
Filthy piece of trash.
Fucking whore.
I’ve just revealed to Aleks that he was hoodwinked. He was tricked into marrying me, not knowing who I am or what I’ve done.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper. “I thought I could hide it. I didn’t want to tell you. If my mother knew I told you—”
He holds his hand up for me to stop. The words die on my lips.
“In your world, a woman’s virginity is her pride and joy.
It isn’t the same for us. And even if it was an expectation in my family, I wouldn’t fault you for being assaulted.
But I do have questions.” I’m shaking, unable to stop it.
Wordlessly, he closes his hand around mine.
The shaking stills. “Tell me. When your father found out, what was the blowback to your family for the justice he served? I need to know who our enemies are.”
I don’t quite understand the question at first. He thinks my father avenged me?
“Justice he served?”
Aleks’s lips are in a tight line. His eyes have gone black. “When he murdered the man who assaulted you, what happened?”
“He blamed me, Aleks. He never even looked for the man that assaulted me. We didn’t know who he was, and my father didn’t care.
” I shake my head. “You don’t know how shallow my family can be.
They didn’t care about me. They cared that one of their biggest bargaining chips was worthless.
” I shrug. “My brother wanted to get rid of me. He made a deal with your brother, and here I am.”
You aren’t worthless.
It isn’t your fault.
Aleks looks momentarily shocked. It’s the first time I’ve seen a look like that on his face, but I’ve heard shock is one of the expressions nearly impossible to hide. “Even your brother didn’t seek justice?”
I shake my head. “No.”
His brows snap together and his voice is as low as the underbelly of a snake when he responds. “I’ll fucking kill them.”
I shiver because it isn’t a figure of speech. He will.
“Who?” I whisper.
“All of them. Your father should’ve known better. Your brother should’ve burned the world down to defend your honor. Your mother should’ve hired someone to find out who assaulted you and made it her life’s mission to make them pay.”
He really, really doesn’t know my family.
“You can’t make up fear like this,” he says in a lower voice, when the first thunderous rage begins to ebb away. “You’re afraid of me because you were assaulted.”
He pushes himself off the bed and stalks away, pacing beside the bed before he finally shakes his head. “What to do with your family and our enemy will wait for another day. Tonight is about us.” He gives me a curious look. “Do you want me to leave for a little while? Do you need some time?”
How much time would he give me? There are rules in our families.
Who is this and what has he done with the grumpy Russian? I swallow. Think. Do I want him to leave me?
I shake my head. I remember this morning. The hope that flickered like the catch of fire. “No. I’m…willing to try. If you’ll listen if I say stop.”
“Of course I will. I’m not a monster.”
I nod. For the first time in my adult life, I feel like the choice is mine. And that’s everything.
Bending forward, Aleks touches his lips to mine. The kiss is so gentle it’s almost chaste.
“Keep the rest on, Harper. I want you to control this.”
He says that, but he’s the one giving the commands. I swallow the lump in my throat and nod. I can do it. I know I can.
I don’t want to be naked in front of him, though. I have the same fearful thoughts every day.
“Who else is in this house with us?” he asks.
I lick my lips. “No one.”
“That’s right. It’s just us. You, my wife. And me, your husband. I will not hurt you. And there’s no one telling us where and when to do anything. I married you and that’s all that matters right now.”
A small part of me wonders why I thought he hated me before. Are things different now that I’m his wife?
My hands come to rest on my thighs. I watch as Aleks stands up beside me and slowly strips out of his own clothing, his brow furrowed as if in concentration.
I saw him this morning in hardly anything at all, and I haven’t been able to get the thought of his golden skin, his muscled abs and toned biceps, the perfect planes of his shoulders, out of my mind.
Soon, we’re sitting before each other dressed like we were in the early quiet of morning.
This morning, there were only the two of us.
The two of us and a long day ahead. He barely touched me.
Now, it’s the same, only this time we have nowhere to go and not even the semblance of waiting until after the wedding to prevent us from doing anything.
Wordlessly, he leans toward me and kisses my bare shoulder. A shiver trickles down my spine, but I don’t move. Another kiss follows the first, as he makes his way down the length of my arm and back again.
A tremor runs through me.
For so long, I’ve felt like I was only an object to the people I knew, the people I loved. I didn’t feel I mattered to anyone beyond what I could do for them. Now, however… I shouldn’t let myself believe that I matter to him, but it’s hard to think otherwise when he’s looking at me that way.
Am I just romanticizing this? Romanticizing him? He chased me, forced me into the back of his car, and cuffed me.
But then we took vows. And maybe in this family…that means something’s changed.
“You’re beautiful,” he says in a low voice, as he makes his way to my other shoulder and kisses down the length of that arm, too. “Put your hands in your lap and don’t move them until I tell you.”
I couldn’t disobey a thing he said now if I tried. I’m putty in his hands, helpless to resist the pull of attraction between us. I’m floating somewhere in the atmosphere without the grounding force of gravity anymore.
So I do what he says. I lay my hands in my lap as he continues to worship me. A tentative kiss to the top of one breast. We’re like two long-lost lovers trying to remember the way toward each other.
“Lie down,” he whispers in my ear. “I want to taste you.”
With a shuddering breath, I obey. Wordlessly, he holds my wrists and pins them above my head. “Don’t move those hands.”
I keep them in place, but when he makes his way down the length of my body, I feel sick with nerves. When he kisses the vee at the top of my sex, my hips convulse but a sudden need to run flashes through me.
“No,” I whisper. “Don’t. Please, no.”
I’ve never had anyone do that for me before but it’s too intimate, too close, and we hardly know each other.
“Don’t what?”
“Don’t…do that. I’m not ready. Please, Aleks. I'm not comfortable with any of this.” As soon as I say it, I regret it. What's he going to do? He's my husband, and by all of the rules in both of our worlds, I belong to him now.
He looks thoughtful for a moment. “If you let me try, it will help prepare you. It’ll make it easier.”
“There must be like…other things we can do?”
“Yes, but we do have to consummate this marriage. You know that, and so do I. It's the rule for my family and for yours. We can wait, though.”