Chapter 46 Ivan
IVAN
I stare down at Gabriella where she’s asleep in my bed. The sheets are rumpled, and it seems she struggled to fall asleep.
I get it. I’ve been steering down this path so fast, I have doubts myself, but I can’t go back on my word now.
I have to lock Il Consiglio in. I have to take care of Milana in a way she’d care to be taken care of, and that’s getting out from under my roof.
Milana will have more freedom as a Scalera than she’ll ever have under my watch as long as Luca Scalera honors Il Consiglio’s vow: my sister never sets foot in Russia again.
I drag my hands through my hair, my gaze jumping to Irisha and Katya’s smaller bodies where they’re snuggled next to Gabriella.
Tonight, Yuri will look after them as we consummate our marriage.
Another reason why I can’t go back on my word now.
I’m thirsting for this woman. Maybe once I’ve finally had her, I’ll be able to breathe again.
As I look down at her, taking in every feature in the little light, my fingertips itch with the need to stroke the soft skin along her temple, her cheeks, the plumpness of her lips.
My mouth burns with the need to dip down to hers and wake her up with a slow, erotic kiss that I’ll trail down her body as I spread her legs, to finally taste her as I’ve been dreaming of for days.
I can already feel her sweet pussy quivering against my tongue—
I swallow and curse under my breath. She’s not wearing her usual modest pajamas, and it’s testing me. I need to get out of this room. Out of her space.
Check in with Papa. That will cure me.
It’s past midnight, but the old Pakhan isn’t really on any clock anymore. I haven’t introduced Gabriella to him yet, and now, it almost seems too late, as if it doesn’t matter. I’ll still check in with him before I go to bed.
As I walk toward the bedroom door, there’s a rustle behind me, followed by a gasp.
“Ivan?”
Gabriella’s voice is barely a whisper, but her fear lies shallow in my name.
“It’s me, moya ptichka,” I say softly as I turn toward her.
Something’s put her on edge, and I hope it isn’t me.
I’d rather hope me standing here, living a full-on sexual fantasy while staring down at her, would wake her up for another reason altogether…
wet between her thighs, as needy as I am right now.
“I was just checking in on you. Go back to sleep.”
Fuck. I suppress a grunt. She looks so fucking tempting.
This wasn’t the plan.
I was holding myself back these past few days, ignoring her on purpose.
Even like this, hair tousled as she sits up, her shoulder bare as her camisole’s strap slips to her arm, she’s too much of a temptation.
This might be an arranged marriage, but I need her, and every nerve in my body has been begging me to just take her and make her mine.
I’ve been staying away, wanting to do right by her, and it’s a novel feeling.
Somewhere between getting married to Darya and having girls of my own, watching my first wife derail, my mindset has shifted.
The coup has changed me. I want a fresh start with Gabriella, a relationship with her that grows out of trust.
The first step is to honor her religious convictions. Religion’s one thing that never stood in my way, but I will respect hers, and therefore the need to rush the wedding. My bride will be the virgin she’s promised God to be on our wedding night.
I could have given her more time to get used to me and the idea, but why bother.
Not when we both have desires that can be satiated in the marriage bed, hopefully making the sons I need to sire along the way.
I’m no idiot; sons aren’t guaranteed, but for her sake, I hope we’d be done in two rounds.
The idea makes my stomach fist. What if I can’t let her go?
“I thought you wouldn’t be here tonight.”
“Change of plans. I got enough work done the past few days so I can take some time off once we’re married.” I walk back to the bed and hold my hand out to her. We shouldn’t wake the girls, and now is as good a time as any. “Come with me.”
“Where to?” she asks but slips her hand into mine as she stands.
Trust. The foundation is already there.
“To meet my Papa, the old Pakhan.”
“He might be sleeping? It’s really late,” she whispers.
“Or early, whichever way you look at it.” I rake my gaze down her body.
Fuck.
That silk set is new, cream-colored with lace details and thin straps that makes a man want to bite and peel it off his wife’s body.
Little shorts so revealing, I won’t need to rip them off to get to her.
I could just widen her legs and push the crotch aside to lick that sweet pussy.
I suppress a grunt. “Did that set come with a robe?”
“Yes.”
In the dark, I can’t be sure, but I bet she’s blushing. What little light falls into the room from the corridor is enough to fuel my imagination, and now she’s pouring fuel on the fire as she slips a fingertip under the rogue strap and guides it back on her shoulder.
“Where is it? There’re guards everywhere, and they aren’t seeing you in that, understand?”
I bite down on my jaw, letting go of her hand to shove my hands into my pants’ pockets. Already, I’m standing here with a hardened cock, and now all I want is to show her how easily I could have her, right here, against the wall, if it weren’t for Irisha and Katya.
“It’s here,” she whispers with a nod. “I wasn’t planning to walk around…I wasn’t planning for you to be here.”
There’s a huskiness to her voice that makes me fucking harder. “Did Milana shop for you?”
“Yes. She doesn’t approve of my regular…
you know…” She trails off, shy, and turns to lean over for the matching robe that’s draped over the sofa in the room.
In the little light, I see her panty lines etched against her sweet ass.
Probably still period stuff. “I just wanted to try it out, feel how it feels...”
I bet it feels sensual and borderline erotic on her skin. The camisole perfectly accentuates the swell of her breasts, her nipples pressing invitingly against the thin fabric. Those shorts only draw my eyes to her legs that I want to spread open.
“You look very tempting, moya ptichka,” I murmur. Too fucking tempting.
She shoots me a bashful glance as she licks her bottom lip.
If I didn’t know better, it would read like an invitation to undress her, but I can’t.
Even if all I want is to make her come, like I did the other night, just have her wet in my hand, fucking her with my fingers until her release squirts and drenches my palm, I’ve made a vow the younger me would have laughed at.
Fuck my life. Tonight. I can count the hours.
I hiss in a breath. “Let’s go.”
“Are you okay?” she says as she ties the robe.
“Fine.” Perfectly fucking fine. I have my hand on her back, her skin’s heat radiating through the soft fabric to my fingertips. “Do you understand, Gabriella, you don’t ever walk around this house in only skimpy silk pajamas?”
She glances up at me, and in the light of the corridor, I see her properly for the first time. Above her blush-stained cheeks, dark circles weigh heavy under her eyes. She’s exhausted.
“What’s wrong, moya ptichka?” I ask as I stop her with a hand on her arm. “Why aren’t you sleeping?”
She looks up at me and there’s a flicker of panic in her eyes, but then she shrugs it away.
“It’s just the wedding rush, and the girls, trying to balance both.
And all this security—” She shoots a glance at the guard who is sitting at the top of the stairs.
“Hopefully, there won’t be a need for so much security once Milana is with Luca.
It makes me nervous, having guns around the girls. ”
Of course it would make her nervous. Her adopted parents were executed in front of her. “We’ll see.”
The guard averts his gaze, not daring to look at my fiancée, knowing what’s good for him.
We descend the stairs in silence, Gabriella probably digesting my ill-disguised threat of keeping her just as locked up as Milana, reprimanded for wearing something I only want to tear off her body.
I want her to feel feminine and desired, but I know how men’s heads work.
Nobody on my team would dare, but I don’t even want them to think of her.
I clear my throat as we reach the first floor.
“My dad is being looked after, but I don’t want you to be shocked when you see him,” I say, trying to divert my thoughts to something that kills all desire. “He suffered two strokes, and well… It is what it is. He might be sleeping. He might be awake. We’ll see.”
“I’m sorry,” she whispers, still so quiet even though we can talk normally now.
I get it; the Pakhan is a touchy, difficult subject. Even Milana and I avoid talking about him because what is there to say?
I take her hand, guiding her through the maze of passages in the house. She’s probably figured some of it out by now, but she won’t have gone down this particular wing. At the end of the corridor, I knock before I punch in the security code to open the panel.
A reading lamp throws a soft yellow glow from one corner of the room, and I lead Gabriella in, allowing our eyes to adjust to the dim light, the low hum of machines, the quiet of the sickroom.
Papa’s bed is turned to face the windows, and we have to round the bed.
The nurse stands from where she’s been sitting in the corner, reading a paperback.
“Pakhan,” she murmurs in greeting, then stares at Gabriella with interest.
A grunt comes from the bed, and I step closer. “Is he awake?”
“He’s been restless,” the nurse answers in Russian as I walk up to the head of the bed.
“Ivan,” Papa mumbles as he struggles to open his eyes, but I bet only I can decipher that.
“I’m here, Papa.” I let go of Gabriella’s hand to reach for his.
His fingers have become bony, the skin cold and almost translucent with age that’s descended on him like a fog, becoming ever denser. The tattoos on his hands stand out even more now, haunting marks of his youth in Russia, where he was just a cog in the Bratva.
He gives my hand a weak squeeze as I turn to Gabriella, reaching for her.
“Gabriella is here, too, Pakhan,” I say, as the nurse turns the light brighter. “I wanted you to meet her before the wedding.”
A grunt, and then I guide his hands to hers.
“Here,” I say in English. “He doesn’t speak much, but he can hold your hand to communicate.”
Gabriella edges closer to the bed, a lone tear sliding down her cheek as she swallows, clearly moved by my father’s circumstances.
Her gaze wanders over his face, taking in his drooping features and the lines that seem to cut deeper on the side with the weakened muscles, the way half of him has given up.
She gasps as her gaze drops to his hand where his weak fingers have circled two of her fingers.
The old Pakhan mumbles something even I can’t decipher, and Gabriella seems to be frozen in place, her white-knuckled fist to her mouth, her other hand trapped by the Pakhan’s grip. She tugs away, but his hold can be unconsciously strong sometimes.
His mumbling becomes even more disturbing, not words, just incoherent sounds spilling with drool from his mouth.
“Papa,” I say in Russian, placing my hand over theirs. “Let go of Gabriella’s hand.” To her, I murmur, under my breath, “It’s okay, he’s harmless. Most probably just excited to see you this close up. He’s been watching you with the girls. The windows have a view over the playground.”
She swallows and bites her bottom lip, clearly trying to contain her emotions as she finally manages to tug her hand from his. “I felt eyes on me all the time.”
She’s quivering, rattled.
“He’s delirious. This was a bad idea. Sorry, moya ptichka.
” What an idiot to bring my innocent fiancée to meet my half-dead father in the early morning hours.
Now she’s freaked out. “I’ll come again later, alone,” I say to the nurse, placing a hand on Gabriella’s shoulder to guide her out of the room.
Once outside in the corridor, she wipes at her cheeks with trembling fingers.
Blyad’. She’s visibly distraught.
I pull her into my arms, but she resists and pushes me away.
“Gabriella—”
“It’s okay, I’m okay. He just… He just reminds me of someone I met once, when I was younger. The tattoos, his eyes… I don’t know.” She glances up and down the corridor, trying to orient herself, but avoiding my eyes. “I should be in bed. Why am I not in bed? The girls…nobody is with the girls!”
With all the security in the house, she still doesn’t feel they’re safe? What triggered her this time round, and that with the Pakhan, too?
She rushes down the corridor, frazzled. I follow with wide strides in her wake, stunned that Papa reminded her of someone she met once before…what the fuck? Does she mean another Russian? Or an old man on the way to his grave?
I take the stairs two at a time, but she’s faster, running up the stairs, her robe dragging along.
By the time I’ve caught up with her, still chewing on her over-reaction, she’s at my bed, on her knees, deep in prayer, chest heaving with suppressed sobs as she clings to the golden cross necklace.
Fuck. And what the hell?
The girls are there, exactly as we’ve left them. I pad over, resting my hand gently on her head, wanting only to comfort her, but she rears away.
“No, please.”
She doesn’t look up. Doesn’t meet my eyes. She holds out a hand to ward me off.
And it breaks me. Doesn’t she trust me? Must be a serious bout of cold feet.
I get it, and it’s fine. Everything is so rushed.
Could be much more than that, but my head refuses to think with her like this, on her knees.
Trust. I want to build this thing on trust. We still have some way to go.
My little bird gets a few more hours.