Chapter 18 #2
When I come back to earth, I slide from her and help her to stand up.
We’re both breathing hard. She’s gorgeous, her entire body flushed from a combination of the hot water and fucking.
I help her with her hair one-handedly, and then she helps me with mine.
Neither of us says a word, but we don’t have to.
Everything between us shifted last night, and it’s even stronger by morning.
The Bratva may be going to war with us, but one thing is certain. Katya’s staying on this side of enemy lines. Sidorov forced this wedding, and she’s mine now. Pakhan can go fuck himself.
Katya
When we get out of the shower, I instantly take up a towel, winding it around me. Glancing in my husband’s direction, I realize Lorenzo—Enzo, as I’m coming to think of him—is bleeding again. The bandage I put on his wound last night is soaked from the water, and it should be replaced.
“You might need stitches,” I tell him, frowning at the sight of the oozing gash.
“Fuck stitches,” he dismisses, wrapping a towel around his waist. “I’ll be fine. I’ve had worse.”
“That’s a lot of blood.” I go back into the cabinet and pull out the first aid supplies I raided the night before.
He shrugs his uninjured shoulder. “You gonna bandage me back up again, wife?”
“Someone has to.”
Is it wrong that I like the way it sounds, him calling me his wife?
Probably.
But that doesn’t stop the feeling any more than it stopped me from practically throwing myself at him and begging him to fuck me both last night and this morning.
Not my finest moments. My willpower has clearly left the building along with my pride, and I can’t even blame what happened in the shower on lemon drops.
I was stone-cold sober, and the second he intruded on my shower, naked and sexy and demanding, pressing his erection into my ass and saying all the right filthy things, I was a goner. All I could think about was getting off the way I had before.
Had to have been a one-time deal, right?
Nope. Wrong, as it turned out.
Despite his dismissive attitude, he holds still as I clean him up again. The wound is deeper than I realized last night. I do my best to disinfect it anew before gently dressing it with antibiotic ointment and then covering it with another oversized bandage.
“There you go.” I glance up to see he’s watching me, intensity crackling in his too-blue eyes like downed electric lines, powerful and dangerous. “But I still think you should see a doctor.”
“It didn’t slow me down any, did it?”
Heat rolls through me, and I move away from his magnetic presence, needing a little distance for my own safety. “What if it gets infected?”
He slides his uninjured arm around my waist and pulls me into his body. “Katya, look at me.”
I tip up my chin, obliging him. He’s unfairly sexy, the stubble on his jaw even more pronounced, a lock of wet hair falling over his brow.
“Looking,” I mutter, annoyed with him for being so handsome and equally annoyed with myself for being so easily affected by him.
“You don’t have to worry about me.”
I open my mouth to deny that’s what I’m doing before I stop myself, because that so obviously is what I’m doing. And the reason for that is shocking.
I’m starting to care about him.
Starting to care about a man who kidnapped me and held me for ransom against my will, a man I was forced to marry. A cruel, callous Mafia enforcer whose reputation is as terrifying as Misha’s.
“This is new to me,” I say instead. “Marriage, a husband who disappears and then comes back with a gunshot wound…”
“A scratch. And besides, your brother is Pakhan, and your other brother is his right-hand man. You know what comes with the territory.”
Death and violence, he means. Unpredictability. I grew up in that world as a girl, but I left it behind when my father was killed and I went away with Svetlana. Yesterday was a blatant reminder, in case I’d forgotten, of what I’m in for.
I swallow and nod. “What happened yesterday?”
His expression changes, hardening in an instant as he releases me. “It’s not your concern.”
“Someone shot at you.”
“And for that reason, the less you know, the better.” He leaves the bathroom, the door open behind him, sending cool air to replace the heated steam.
Our escape from the outside world is officially over.
I leave the bathroom. “Exactly how much danger are you in?” I ask, wondering just what I’ve found myself wrapped up in.
Not that I had a choice in marrying him and getting caught up in the darkness surrounding him, but I would prefer not to be na?ve. Besides, if someone is going after him, then it’s not out of the realm of possibility that they would go after me.
“Don’t ask questions I can’t answer.” He drops his towel and pulls on a fresh pair of boxer briefs, giving me a fleeting glimpse of his cock. “Leave business to me.”
So that’s how this is going to be, then. I’m the na?ve wife who’s iced out of anything important, including her husband’s safety.
I pull out a pair of panties from my overnight bag and stuff my legs into them, shimmying until they’re in place under my towel. “I don’t need to be a part of your business to know if someone’s trying to kill you.”
“No one’s trying to kill me.” He steps into his trousers, wincing as he flexes his arm. “At the moment. Besides, if anyone wanted me dead, last night would have been a perfect opportunity. The bullet that hit me wasn’t meant for me.”
“Is that supposed to be reassuring?” I pull out a lacy bra and struggle with how I’m going to get it on without flashing him.
This conversation has left me feeling like I need to protect myself. Last night, I lowered my guard, and then again this morning. But that was clearly a mistake.
“I don’t do reassuring, cara. I do real life.”
I turn away from him and drop my towel to the floor, then hurry to loop my arms through the straps of my bra at record speed before tugging the lacy cups into place and reaching for the hooks at the back. But all I feel is his hands already there.
“I can do it myself,” I protest.
“Of course you can, but why not let me?” He drops a kiss on my bare shoulder as he slips the hooks into their eyes.
“Because I don’t need a man to fasten my bra any more than I need him to keep the truth from me. I’m a fucking grown-up, Andriani.”
“I won’t argue the point.” He slides his hands down to my waist, and he buries his face in the side of my neck. “You’ve got me now, Katya. Let me take care of you.”
I try not to melt, but his mouth is magical and so are his tatted hands. Not to mention his tongue and his massive cock…
“I don’t need you to take care of me. I need you to treat me like your equal. Like your partner. We’re stuck together for the next little while, so we’ve got no choice but to make this work.”
“Stuck together?” He straightens and spins me around to face him, then takes my hand and puts it over his rigid cock. “Does this feel like stuck together to you, cara mia?”
Damn.
Against my better judgment, I caress his length. “No.”
“Let me do this my way. You won’t be sorry.” He kisses me, taking his time.
And with any other man, I’d say the kiss was soft and sweet, but there’s nothing soft or sweet about Lorenzo Andriani. His lips on mine are firm and persuasive, hot and delicious. I could kiss him for an eternity and never grow tired of it.
But still, I break away, because I haven’t gotten the answer I want. “I mean it, Enzo,” I tell him. “Don’t keep me in the dark.”
“You’ll know what you need to know and no more, because that’s what’s best for you.” He cups my cheek. “Trust me, cara. You are my wife. Mine to protect.” He kisses me again. “Mine to fuck.”
His cock is getting even bigger under my hand. I know where this leads, and as much as my body is crying out for more, my mind knows we need to hit the brakes.
“You’ve already done plenty of that.” I reluctantly disentangle from him. “If we don’t get out of here soon, your brothers are going to come looking for us.”
He smirks. “Only if they have a death wish.”
We finish getting dressed and head downstairs to breakfast.