Chapter 26 - Raya #2
I look at Yakov. He looks down at me, giving me a solitary, encouraging nod. The secret is over; after everything that’s happened, there’s no point hiding this from them now. I look at the crowded room, at my whole ridiculous, enormous, dangerous family, and clear my throat.
“I’m pregnant,” I announce, the words ringing clear against the high ceilings. “I need to go to the hospital this afternoon for a scan to make sure everything is alright with the baby.”
For a single heartbeat, the room drops into an absolute, stunned silence.
Then, it explodes.
Sofie lets out a loud, high-pitched gasp, her bruised face lighting up as she immediately reaches across the sofa to grab my arm.
Selene bursts into fresh tears, clapping her hands over her mouth.
The brothers erupt into a chaotic, roaring wall of sound—congratulations, heavy curses of disbelief, and the sudden, violent scraping of boots against the floorboards.
But through the sudden wall of noise, a low, murderous voice cuts through the chaos, clear as a bell. Simon, obviously, the one of my brothers I’ve always been closest to. His jaw is rigid, his eyes fixed on the wall with an intensity that could burn brick.
“I am going to kill that motherfucker,” Simon hisses, his hands curling into white-knuckled fists.
Yakov’s head snaps around, his eyes narrowing instantly into an icy, lethal glare as he locks eyes with my brother. The possessive, protective nature in him bristled at the remark.
Simon catches the look, lets out a dark, rough laugh, and shakes his head. “Not you, Mykros. Your fuck of a father.”
Yakov’s posture relaxes, his shoulders dropping as a satisfied glimmer returns to his eyes. “Not if I get there first.”
And then the room descends into pure, beautiful noise and chaos. The brothers are clapping Yakov on the back, Sofie is beaming and trying her best not to grimace through her swelling, and I find myself laughing and crying simultaneously—which I blame on the hormones.
In the middle of the noise and chatter, I reach out and find Yakov’s hand again. I squeeze his fingers hard, leaning in close until my lips brush his ear.
“Take me upstairs?” I whisper.
He looks down at me and nods. “Of course, malysh.”
I look out at the room, raising my voice enough to cut through Egor and Adrian’s shouting. “We’re going upstairs. We’ll be back down when we’re ready to go to the hospital.”
Nobody listens. They are already debating security protocols and arguing over baby names.
Yakov doesn’t give them a second chance to notice.
He hooks his arm around my waist, lifting me from the sofa, and guides me toward the staircase.
We walk up the steps together, leaving the heavy noise of downstairs, so it’s just the two of us.
The second the heavy oak door of our bedroom clicks shut, the weight of the afternoon finally begins to lift.
Yakov snaps the lock into place, sealing us away from the world.
He turns to me and cradles my face in his large, warm hands, his eyes searching mine with such tenderness it makes my throat ache.
He presses a soft, lingering kiss to my forehead, his breath hot against my skin.
“Let’s get the day washed off you, moya rados’t,” he murmurs, his voice low and soothing.
I nod, wrapping my fingers around his wrist as he guides me into the bathroom. The room quickly fills with a heavy blanket of steam as he turns on the shower, setting the water to a perfect, comforting heat.
Then, he turns back to me. His movements are agonizingly slow, stripped of the violence he unleashed only hours ago.
He reaches for the hem of my ruined sweater, lifting it gently over my head and tossing it aside.
He unbuttons my jeans and slides them, along with my panties, down my legs too.
When I’m standing naked in front of him, he steps back to undress himself, his presence filling the small space of the steam-filled room.
He takes my hand and leads me under the spray.
As the hot water hits my skin, I let out a long, shaky breath, leaning my forehead against his chest as the warmth floods over us.
Yakov reaches for the shampoo. His fingers gently work the lather into my hair, massaging my scalp, washing away the lingering, phantom scent of the clinic parking lot and the terrors of the afternoon.
He rinses the suds away, his hands smoothing down my neck, over my shoulders, and down my back, stroking me with a slow, possessive rhythm.
Then, his palms slide around to the front of my body, flattening over my lower abdomen.
He curves his fingers over the slight, flat warmth of my belly, his chest heaving against my back as he presses his palm against the place where our baby is growing.
“I can’t believe it,” he groans against the shell of my ear, his grip tightening enough to pull me back against him. “Our baby. Ours, Raya.”
I tilt my head back, looking up at him through the cascading water, a sudden wave of vulnerability hitting me. “Are you sure you’ll still love me when I’m all big and round?”
A low, guttural sound rips from the back of his throat. He turns me around in his arms, pinning my back gently against the wet tile wall, his eyes darkening, thick with intense, unbridled devotion.
“Malysh, you have no fucking idea what you do to me,” he murmurs, his hands moving to cup my face before sliding down to hold me close.
He speaks low and intense, his words a promise of total adoration for the changes my body will go through.
He leans down, his mouth meeting mine in a hot, possessive kiss that tastes of clean water and deep surrender.
He kisses his way down my jaw, down the line of my throat, his lips finding the skin over my womb in a gesture of profound worship.
He looks up at me, his eyes black with a ruthless, protective heat. He lifts me effortlessly, my legs wrapping tight around his waist as he holds me against the wall under the falling water.
He cups the back of my head, forcing me to look directly into his eyes.
“The only touch I want you to remember from this day is mine,” his voice is a fierce, heavy command. “Only me, Raya. Do you understand?”
“Only you,” I sob against his lips. “Yakov, please.”
He pushes into me, a slow, deep, agonizingly perfect stretch that makes a broken gasp of pleasure escape my lips, my fingers clawing into the muscles of his shoulders as he fills me, reclaiming every inch of me as his own.
He moves with a steady, relentless rhythm; in each heavy stroke I feel his promise of protection to me and our baby.
He kisses the tears from my cheeks, his whispers a fiercely romantic litany of Russian endearments against my skin and mouth, moving down to my breast, which he takes in his mouth, sucking and pulling on my nipple.
The sensation sends an electric jolt straight to my core.
Yakov senses it, lifts his head to meet my gaze, and growls, “Eyes on me when you come, malysh,” as he continues to hold me against the wall, his free hand continuing to tug at my nipple while he thrusts into me.
When I come, I lock my eyes onto him, allowing him to see what he does to me.
The sight must do something to him too, as a second later he falls over the edge with me, the feel of him spilling into me, the intensity of his gaze sending secondary ripples of pleasure through me as my walls continue to clamp down onto him, milking every last drop out of him.
“I love you, Yakov,” I say, breathless from his making love to me in the shower. “I’m yours, we’re yours. Forever.”
He looks into my eyes, his wet dark hair tumbled over his forehead, his chest heaving against mine. His hands slide down to cup my butt cheeks, keeping me pinned and spread against the wall with a raw, dominant strength that makes my whole body quiver, wanting more.
“Say it again,” he commands, his voice thick and rough. “Look at me and say it again, Raya.”
I lock my dark eyes onto his, my fingers curling into his hair to hold him still. “I love you,” I confess, the words a fierce, unwavering truth between us. “I love you, Yakov Mykros. I love our baby. Never let me go.”
A low, primal sound rips from the back of his throat—a mixture of pure adoration and unadulterated desire.
His mouth crashes onto mine, stealing the remaining air from my lungs.
His fingers grip into my ass as he steps us out of the shower, keeping himself firmly inside of me, carrying us out, soaking, to the bed.
He lays me down gently, kissing me once before he says, “I need you to be comfortable for what I’m about to do to you, malysh. ”