Chapter 15 Roman
ROMAN
Sleeping with Amber shifted things between us.
She was no longer exclusively the nanny of my children.
Now, she was also the woman I wanted again.
She wasn’t just a friend who helped me with fatherhood.
She was a source of goodness who rewarded me with the most addicting kisses and intoxicating touches.
I wanted her again, even though I’d just rubbed one out in the shower.
Dressed and joining her in the kitchen as she set up Emily and Henry in their swings, I bit back a growl at the sight of her ass as she bent over to get something out of the dishwasher.
Fuck, I’ve got it bad.
“I need to go talk with Sergei,” I told her, wrapping my arm around her waist and bringing her flush to me.
She fit with me so perfectly, not only with her cunt wrapped around my dick, but like this, too.
Short enough to lean against me, her hands smaller than mine so that our fingers slotted together in an easy union.
She nodded, turning her head to face me as much as she could. “About… last night?”
I nodded, glad but not surprised that Lorne and my brother had made sure to remove the bodies from here. Not a single thing looked out of place or disturbed. But I worried that Amber would be skittish anyway. “I asked Anya to come over, though, to keep you company.”
She huffed. “Company. I’m never alone.”
Emily babbled a sound as if to prove it.
“I know. Humor me, though. I don’t like the idea of your being worried if you were to think back to what happened last night.”
She shyly smiled. “The break-in? Or…”
I grinned before kissing her and dipping her back slightly until I had enough of a taste of her for now. “Definitely no worries about that.” I backed up before I’d lose my control. “The only worry we can have about that is how soon I can be free to fuck your greedy pussy again.”
I left her like that, her cheeks flaming almost as red as her hair.
Smiling as I headed to my brother’s building, I shook my head and knew I was pushing it, maybe taking it too far with her already. Amber was so young. Na?ve. Yet not sheltered, if that made sense. Flirting with her the morning after might have been too much.
“Gotta take this slow,” I mumbled to myself.
“What’s that?” Lorne asked, entering the elevator as it pinged open at his floor in the building.
I shook my head, perturbed that I’d even said it to myself.
Take it slow? As in this is going to last?
I couldn’t see Amber not being in my life. She was too good with the twins, too perfectly enmeshed in my home and in my bed.
But was I really admitting it now? That I wanted an actual relationship with her? I didn’t do relationships. Commitments weren’t part of my repertoire. Now wasn’t the time to think about it, either.
“Who were they?” I asked him.
“Unidentified. Andre’s still got some men looking into them,” he replied. “Or, he was. Didn’t you hear?”
I shook my head. I didn’t want to know what else happened last night. Two men breaking into my home was bad enough. And finally having sex with my nanny was life-altering as it was.
Now what?
He yawned, suggesting he’d been up all night. “Sofia’s got some issues going on with the baby. Andre asked Oleg to handle looking into the bodies we brought down to the basement.”
I had a fleeting thought of how Amber had asked if the police would be contacted. No, they would not. The pair of morons who broke in here would receive the Orlov brand of law and order—an in-house one.
“I know we’re going to address that break-in,” Lorne said, “but today’s already shaping up to be a clusterfuck.
Claire’s helping Sofia and running interference with the Ob-gyn.
Natalie’s watching Owen for Claire. And Anya is trying to help with Rose and Maisie.
Mikhail’s following a developing incident with one of the clubs—”
“What’s going on there?” I asked, getting my phone out and texting Anya with the suggestion to take Maisie over to my place. Amber could probably help preoccupy her. It was one of those village moments.
“Some cops giving us a hard time.” Lorne rolled his eyes. “Planting drugs and shit there.”
I narrowed my eyes.
“Like I said, Mikhail’s looking into it.”
Finished with texting Amber and Anya, I shoved my phone into my pocket. “Busy day,” I agreed. But I had to look into that break-in first.
Sergei was there with Uncle Mikhail, and I saw how Natalie was struggling to keep Maisie happy while Rose and Owen played.
“Let’s go see Emily and Henry!” Anya said as I arrived. She shot me a woe-is-me look. Daria was there too, convincing the young girl to be a helper with the babies.
“There’s too many babies around here!” Maisie complained with a stomp.
I smirked, amused by her blunt comment.
Lorne leaned over to mutter to me, “That’s not a promising comment with her new sister due soon…”
“She’ll come around. And it’ll be a while before Claire will be due.” I shrugged. “Pacing it out is probably smart.”
He scoffed. “And it’s not like you’ll be in a rush to have more. Hell, you hadn’t planned to have any in the first place.”
His comment caught me by a chokehold. I froze, going numb to the reminder of how Amber had felt last night.
Smooth, tight, so wet and greedy for me as she sucked my dick so deep inside her.
My bare dick.
It hadn’t even crossed my mind to use a condom, and that had never, ever happened before. I bagged up every time. Even that one-night stand with Rebecca that resulted in my son and daughter, I’d used a condom.
How in the hell…
I blinked, furrowing my brow at how I could’ve been so careless. How it hadn’t even entered my mind to be extra-cautious with Amber. I’d been suspecting that she was a virgin with how na?ve and shy she was, how young she was, too, but she wasn’t a virgin, after all.
She’s on the pill, though.
I knew she was. Claire had helped to get her a new pack when Amber admitted she was having issues with a pharmacy refilling it.
It wasn’t panic that hit me, though. I wasn’t freaking out that I could’ve knocked her up last night. Yes, I was surprised that it slipped my mind. But I wasn’t alarmed.
Maybe it’s because the shock of that is dead now.
I had a son and daughter. It wasn’t like I had the same mindset of avoiding becoming a father now—because I was one.
“Sorry, Roman,” Sergei said, addressing me. “I can’t tell who might have sent those men last night.”
I shoved my hands in my pockets and nodded to show him I wasn’t pissed at him. “You find out anything?” I asked.
He explained what they uncovered. How they’d been nearby and seeming to wait for the power to go out.
They couldn’t have planned it, but they’d taken advantage of the slight gap between the power to the elevator being switched to the generator’s power.
Surveillance footage showed them coming up through the service elevator shaft.
“It’s got to be connected to the fucking Popovs,” Mikhail growled. “This is the same shit they tried with you,” he said to Sergei. “By taking Maisie.”
George stepped closer. “I thought the same thing. Trying to get the twins and make you pay attention to their demands to renegotiate boundaries.”
I shook my head. “It can’t be public knowledge,” I argued. Ivan saw that bottle and Amber’s phone in my office that one time, but that couldn’t be enough to have them jump to accurate conclusions.
“What about Amber?” Sergei asked. “Could they have been coming for her?”
I shook my head. “She’s got no one,” I said. But then I frowned, recalling what she’d said.
“What?” Mikhail asked.
“She was scared after the break-in. But when she asked me about what would happen, she assumed that the police would be contacted. She seemed to regret asking me that and quickly said never mind, no cops.”
“What’s she hiding?” Sergei asked.
I shook my head. “Nothing as far as I know.”
“Did you ask her what she meant? Talk about it?” he asked.
I glanced at Mikhail and cringed slightly. “We, uh, we didn’t prioritize talking for long…”
He rolled his eyes. “What the hell is with you guys? Andre sleeping with his maid. Now you having feelings for the nanny—”
“No. No. It was just sex. Nothing more.”
Both of them stared me down.
“Amber’s the nanny and we just took the edge off.” I frowned, awkward to have to explain anything. I’d never had to explain myself like this before. And I shouldn’t have had to at all.
It was just sex.
A good fuck. To distract her.
I wasn’t sure if I was trying to convince them or myself. Because I hadn’t lost this nagging desire for her that prompted me to plan on having her in my bed as soon as I could.
Mikhail ran his hand over his head while Owen fought with Rose. He cringed, but he didn’t go to intervene. He was a very involved father, but right now, he was in boss mode. He was the Pakhan, and we had to deal with all the chaos together.
“I’m more inclined to think that that break-in last night has more to do with whoever is messing with us at that club. Niko Popov can’t be so stupid as to try to kidnap any other child from our family.” He scowled. “Not so soon.”
I liked the way he thought. Sure, those negotiations that Ivan was pestering me to have were fresh on my mind, but it wasn’t so easy to correlate his requests with a break-in at my residence. Not yet. The club being under fire was a more direct attack on the family.
That was the nature of being a member of this family. Danger waited at every turn from multiple enemies. Always.
But with Amber staying with the twins, I felt ready to devote more of my time and energy into helping my uncle with handling it all.
Sergei and I agreed to oversee the investigation of what was going on at the club. Meanwhile, we delegated George and Lorne to look into why my home had been broken into and what kind of threats were coming too close for comfort.
I grabbed my phone as I headed out with Sergei.
Roman: In case it’s not implied, no leaving the building.
She replied immediately.
Amber: Wouldn’t dream of it.
She sent a selfie of her on the couch, Emily and Henry both leaning propped against her and seeming to smile for the camera.
Fuck. I smiled and sighed, struck with the intense feeling that she was looking a lot like the dream I never knew I’d wanted.