Chapter 14 Hailey
HAILEY
Still wearing my blood-soaked wedding gown, I speak my vows to Rafail as soon as he’s conscious.
Instead of being consecrated in an elegant church, our ceremony is performed by the priest who’s kept on staff to perform last rites.
I’m not religious so I don’t give a shit who deals with the formalities, as long as Rafail is alive and happy.
I was a fool to think I could live five minutes without him.
I didn’t intend to run out on our wedding.
I needed a moment alone to think. A breath of fresh air.
That’s when his enemies saw me. Not many people get married early in the morning as soon as they’ve satisfied the state of Maryland’s requirements for a legal union.
My dress was a dead giveaway. All they had to do was drive down the street and see me standing there like a cow waiting to be slaughtered.
Except that Rafail ran out to protect me. He took a bullet for me. How could I ever have doubted him?
The guilt is eating me. He’s resting again, but we’re about to move him to his home in New York, a four-hour drive. He’ll need to be kept comfortable during the trip—and alive. His second-in-command, Andrei, has warned me that I can’t take any more risks like the one I took yesterday.
I understand now. What he is. Who I have become. I would take a bullet for Rafail, too, if necessary. This doesn’t feel like the right time to tell him that, though.
Rafail blinks in the sunlight, groggy with pain medications, but moving under his own power to get into the bulletproof SUV.
His arm hangs in a sling. With the other, he snaps open sunglasses and slides them on.
My stomach sinks. I can’t tell if he’s angry with me, or what. Have I ruined everything?
“Where is your dress?” Rafail finally asks me when the doors are closed and we’re rolling out of the lot. Russian radio plays, drowning out our conversation. I glance down at my borrowed scrubs.
“It got blood on it.” I swallow hard. “A lot of blood. I’m afraid it was ruined. Like our whole wedding was. Because of me.”
He turns to me, but I can’t read his expression behind those dark glasses.
It’s bright out. I wish I had a pair, too.
That way, he wouldn’t see the tears welling in my eyes.
I breathe slowly and try to blink them away.
One rolls down my cheek. I swipe it away angrily.
This is my fault. I don’t get to cry about the problem I caused.
“What matters is that you are mine now,” he says, and that’s the end of our discussion for the next five hours. Traffic is a bitch. When we finally pull into the gated lot of an enormous Italianate mansion in Brooklyn, the tension is tearing me apart.
I help him out of the car, but Rafail is too proud to lean on me.
Instead, he pulls himself upright. We make quite a sight, me with smudged makeup and an updo that’s worse for wear, in ill-fitting scrubs over wedding lingerie, and my new husband in black trousers, a black shirt, wearing a sling.
He wraps his good arm around my shoulders and squeezes.
“Welcome home, boginya,” he says when Ludmila opens the door.
“I assume that means ‘brat’ or ‘life-threatening hazard of a wife’ in Russian.” My habitual retreat to snark and sarcasm returns with a vengeance.
“It means goddess. You’ve been upgraded.”
That shuts my mouth in a hurry. Embarrassment steams my face.
I guess opening your big mouth and sticking your blood-spattered high-heeled foot in it is one way to be a blushing bride.
Needless to say, Rafail doesn’t scoop me up to carry me over the threshold, which honestly, I’m grateful for.
As raw and ragged as this homecoming is for us, it feels true in a way that formality and tradition wouldn’t.
For the first time in my itinerant life, a sense of permanence settles over me. When I was a child, my mother and I moved often. Until Dmitri came along. The stability he brought proved to be an illusion. This won’t.
“What do you think?” Rafail asks, watching me look around like a hamster dropped into a new Habitrail.
“It’s beautiful.”
“Your belongings are here.” A smirk tugs at his lips. “Most of them. My men left your shitty IKEA furniture behind.”
“That’s the great thing about IKEA. I can move anywhere and buy almost exactly the same thing,” I deadpan. Avoiding the sling and his bandage, I pat his chest and grin up at him.
“Your cheap furniture days are over, boginya.”
Tears well when I find my old clothes—half of which I would have tossed if I had known I was moving—neatly stored in a walk-in closet as big as my old bedroom.
I search wildly until I find my old music box.
The one where I kept that passkey for five years while not knowing what it was… along with one other thing.
Quickly, I clean up and change out of the scrubs into a pair of jeans and a T-shirt. When I come out, I find Rafail lying on the enormous bed, shoes and all. Without the sunglasses, he looks exhausted. I suppose I’d be pretty beat if I’d been shot, too.
I crawl onto the bed and take off his shoes, tossing them heedlessly aside. Rafail’s eyebrow shoots up.
“The doctors advised against strenuous activity for a week.”
“Some honeymoon,” I grumble, scooting up and reaching for his belt. He doesn’t protest. “Don’t get too excited. I’m only making you comfortable so you can rest.”
“Too late.”
I part his trousers and find his hard cock trapped against his hip. “Poor baby didn’t get enough of a workout at the apartment, did he?” I croon.
“Brat.”
“You love it.” I wrest his pants off, but I’m stymied by his shirt. That will require moving his arm. He’ll just have to sleep in it for now. I lay sideways next to his good arm and take out the gift I’ve been hiding.
“What’s this?” he asks, taking the picture I’m holding.
“I don’t have a wedding gift for you,” I begin, feeling more than a little bit silly. “But I thought you might want to have this.”
He stares at the picture of us together from that night at my sweet sixteen party five years ago. I look so young and innocent. The way I’m looking up at him is the closest thing you’ll ever see to a human with actual heart eyes, despite the tiny furrow between my brows.
“We lost all the other pictures when we went into witness protection. This is all I have left to remember that night. I…” My throat closes around a clog of emotion. “I didn’t think I’d ever see you again.”
“Hailey,” he says softly, stroking my cheek.
“You should have known better. The way I was looking at you that night.” He huffs.
“Embarrassing. Look at this.” He pulls a smaller, slightly different version, one that has my mother and Dmitri grinning like fools while I stand there with a forced grin.
Slightly behind me, Rafail stares at me with open affection and a hint of exasperation.
I never saw the emotions before when I was selecting which photos to have printed. The composition is a little bit off. Yet he chose this one, out of all the better options, to carry with him. It’s bent in places, showing that he’s carried it with him for a long time.
I burst into tears and throw myself across his chest. Rafail grunts and embraces me as best he can. Our mouths meet in a clash that softens into the most romantic kiss I’ve ever had in my life. Sweet and sensual. When we part, I say, “Rafe?”
“Hm?”
“What if you just laid there while I give you an apology blowjob?”
The one arched eyebrow returns. I stretch one hand down to squeeze his cock. His skepticism relaxes. “I see no doctors here to stop us.”
I kiss my way down his cut abdomen, pushing his shirt up so that I can see more of his body. His erection springs free. I stroke its length and give him a naughty grin before applying my tongue to the underside. A low groan escapes him. He clutches my hair, tugging at the roots.
“Could you tolerate sex if I do all the work, or is that pushing it?” I ask when I can feel him getting close. I’m no longer sore and my pussy clenches around emptiness. I need him to fill me.
“I warned you not to throw yourself at men, printsesa.” He grins wolfishly. “But it’s alright for you to throw yourself at me.”
Quickly, I shed my jeans and straddle his hips. I sink down over his cock with a sigh.
“Shirt off, too, boginya. These should be free.” He squeezes my breast with his free hand. I’m quick to obey.
“It is nice to see you so accommodating for once.” His eyes darken.
“Don’t expect it to become a habit.” I toss my shirt aside and lift my hair, letting it spill across my shoulders and tits. “I’m sorry I left the church. I didn’t realize it would expose our location to your enemies.”
“Our enemies.”
“Yes, ours. I understand. All I wanted was a moment alone to think. You did kidnap me and say I had to marry you or die.”
“I haven’t a single regret,” he grits out.
“Yet,” I remind him. “It’s day two of our married life together and I’ve already gotten you shot.”
“You are worth dying for, troublesome woman. Although I hope I won’t have to.”
“I promise you won’t.” Need coils tighter and higher.
His fingers dig into my hip as I ride him ruthlessly, speeding toward climax.
Rafail’s dark eyes roam from my chest to my face, then down to the place where our bodies are joined.
I come with a shattering wail, bracing my palm on his good shoulder to take my fill of pleasure. He follows me into bliss.
After, he falls asleep the way I should have let him do from the beginning. I tuck us both beneath the blanket and rest my head on his shoulder.
“Rafe?”
“You know I don’t like that nickname, right?” He sighs.
“Yes, but I’m going to continue using it anyway.” I boop his nose. He makes a face, then relaxes.
“I can get used to it,” he murmurs right before we both fall asleep.