12. Carina
CARINA
Maksim stared at me for a long moment after he parked at the house.
That drive was nothing but an excuse to get me out of the large residence. I knew it. He knew it. But I couldn’t tell if he’d done it strictly to test me about what I knew in regard to the intricate business of smuggling or if he had wanted me out of his home so they could more fully bug it.
While he was gone, I went to the gym. I’d multitasked while I was there, though, texting my brother to see if he’d reply.
When I got nothing from him, no replies, no emails, not even a means to leave him a voicemail since his inbox was turned off, I wondered if it was because all outgoing contact was traced in Maksim’s network.
We’d done that sometimes, when a guest would stay at the villa and I thought it would be wise to have our cyber team set up a firewall to see what they were saying.
No measures had been put in place to see what I was doing. No layers of protection showed up when I investigated through my settings on my phone. I even hopped on the laptop that I’d found in another room that seemed to be an unused study. No arranged protection halted me.
It couldn’t be true, though. From all I’d seen so far, the Volkovs didn’t take chances with security. There had to be a catch somewhere, and I feared for a second that his taking me for a drive was the excuse for his tech people to install more recording devices or bugs.
He’d made this little drive more like a chance to talk, though. Although I was the one doing all the talking, answering what I’d do in his test of a scenario, it felt different.
Alone, without guests at a wedding or any of his brothers or cousins around, it seemed like a strange attempt at getting to know me.
Intimate, with him seeming interested in me for more than sex.
I swallowed hard, trying not to let it get to me.
He doesn’t care.
This means nothing to him.
We’re not a couple.
It’s an arrangement and nothing more.
“Pass?” He lowered his hand from the steering wheel and let out a light huff of laughter.
“Don’t tell me that wasn’t a test.” I’d shown my hand this morning, scolding him and educating him about how his route plans wouldn’t have worked.
“Oh, it was.” He got out and rounded the car to open my door. I didn’t need him to play gentleman with me. I opened the passenger door myself and stood, determined to cling to any scrap of independence I could have.
He didn’t allow me any space. Coming right up toward me and nearly caging me to the side of the car, he raked his gaze over me. “After the hint of your knowledge this morning, I wanted to see how you’d approach a problem.”
I raised my brows, pleased that he wouldn’t lie and tell me that it hadn’t been a deliberate exercise.
“You didn’t pass.” He almost smiled as he met my gaze. “You fucking blew through that without a doubt.”
I dragged my teeth over my lower lip. I hoped it would remind me not to smile. Not to show this man—my husband—any sign of weakness.
Because that was all I felt.
Weak in the knees. Vulnerable as my heart raced. Thrilled by his praise.
Yet, I refused to accept it.
“You’re not bluffing,” he said, taking my hand and leading me into the house, perhaps realizing that I was sticking with hiding behind a mask and not replying to him.
“You’re not faking it.”
I was supposed to be faking my willingness to see myself as his wife, as his woman, but the admiration he showed me would be my kryptonite.
“You really are familiar with how this side of the business is run,” he said, glancing at me as he led me inside the house.
“Why wouldn’t I be?” I hated how good his hand felt, his strong fingers wrapped around mine.
It made no sense. I didn’t need him to secure me as if I were a flight risk.
I wouldn’t get lost if he didn’t physically steer me up the staircase.
“I grew up in the Cartel. The same as you grew up in your Bratva.”
He scoffed. “I did. But even I wouldn’t be treated to the same details of smuggling routes and complications like you have. I supervise. I delegate. You… You act as though you’ve personally handled and planned runs yourself.”
Not quite.
Hearing him acknowledge my skillset was a rarity I was afraid to be swayed by. Thanking him for the praise seemed unrealistic. It was too ingrained in me that I wasn’t supposed to know anything at all. Not compared to my brother.
“My father didn’t mind showing me how the business works,” I said instead.
“It seems more like he was training you to be his protégé.”
I rolled my eyes as we reached the corridor where our rooms were. To my right was the guest room I’d been living in. To my left was his master suite. He hadn’t released my hand yet, guiding toward the left. “Is this your attempt at flattering me?”
“I’m simply giving praise where it’s due.”
I huffed, determined to appear unimpressed by his words.
Because if I didn’t stop holding these walls and guards up against him, I’d be too gullible.
My heart raced at the implication of him leading me toward his room, not mine.
My pussy ached at the images of what he could do in his bed, not mine. “There’s no point.”
“To acknowledge that you’re smart and insightful about smuggling routes and planning?”
“There’s no point in flattering me.” I stepped over the threshold of his bedroom door. All details blurred to nothing as I grounded myself on the pressure of his hand in mine, the lock of his smoldering gaze on mine. “We’ve already consummated this marriage.”
He spun me so quickly that I wasn’t expecting it. Pinning me to the door, he braced one hand on the surface and banded his other arm around my back. Flush to the wall of muscles that made up his chest and the rigid solidity of the door, I was sandwiched with nowhere to go.
“Oh, really?” he asked, lowering his hot gaze to my lips.
Fuck. There’s not enough air in here. I swallowed hard. “Yeah. We did. Last night.” Several times. “Or have you already forgotten?”
“I’ll never forget how perfectly your tight little cunt sucked my cock in.”
Oh, God.
“Perhaps you’ve forgotten that even though this marriage was arranged, you are my wife.
” He nuzzled the side of my face, bringing his lips toward mine but not kissing them as he held me in place.
Our breath mingled. Our chests lifted against each other faster.
Yet he didn’t dive at me. He waited and kept me aching and impatient for him to close the tiny distance that remained between us.
“I’ll admit that I didn’t want you.” He kissed just below my ear as he spoke words that should’ve been insulting.
“I didn’t want a wife at all.” He sucked on my earlobe as he lowered his arm until he filled his big hand with my ass cheek.
“I wasn’t even thinking about marrying.”
He kissed the corner of my mouth. I turned to meet him and seal my lips to his, hungry for a deeper kiss and none of this teasing. But he avoided me and lowered his head.
“I have no clue how to deal with having to appease a wife.” He pulled his hand around my side, caressing me until he grabbed my skirt and flipped it up. His fingers beelined for my pussy, dragging back and forth and spreading my arousal that already dripped so freely for him.
“You might be…” I tried to claim his mouth again, but he avoided kissing me fully. Sticking with lazy, drugging suctions on my neck, he kept me panting for more. “You might be a fast learner in that regard.”
I felt his cheeks rise in a smile. “I don’t have the time and patience to figure out what to do with a wife.” The blunt tips of his fingers slipped into me, massaging me as I whined and parted my legs more.
“I think you figured out this wife.” Resting my weight on his hand, I tried to ride it for the most friction.
The dark and dirty chuckle he responded with heated my blood. “Only one I need.”
Anything said while he was slowly finger fucking me and sucking on my neck wouldn’t be true. Said in the heat of the moment as I tried to kiss him while tearing his clothes off, it was all just nonsensical whatever.
Speaking felt like a waste of energy.
Thinking straight wasn’t an option.
Humping his hand as we frantically stripped from our clothes, I hoped to make this last.
Because it couldn’t. It wasn’t supposed to.
Sooner or later, I would come to my senses and remember this was an arrangement and nothing more.
But right now, it felt too raw and gritty, too good and sensual, to stop.
He dropped lower, going to his knees as I stood there slumping against the door without him pinning me in place with his chest. “I didn’t know what to expect by having to take a wife now.
” His throat flexed as he watched the path of his possessive hands streaking over my body while he sank to his knees.
“I didn’t expect to have a smuggling and transportation expert.” He didn’t take his eyes off me as he lifted my thigh and encouraged me to drape it over his shoulder.
Oh, fuck.
This is?—
My God.
Eyes on me, he pressed a kiss to my clit.
“Fuck.” It whooshed out of me as I put my hands on his head.
“I didn’t expect to find a virgin ready for me to claim.” He followed up by stroking his tongue over my slit. From my taint to my clit, he swiped his hot, velvety tongue and ended with a gentle suck on my bud of nerves.
“Oh, fuck. Maksim, I—” I tightened my fingers in his hair as he devoured me. His tongue on my clit. His lips sucking at me so hard. His fingers in my pussy.
It consumed me. All the sensations of pleasure swarmed over me and pushed me too soon to a shattering orgasm. I cried out, still holding his head and realizing belatedly that I’d fucked his face as he kept me there at the door.
“I didn’t expect to find this,” he growled as I still shook and trembled, coming down from the high of coming so quickly.
He stood and grabbed me in the same motion, pulling me down to the plush rug on the floor.
Before I was fully on my back, he was pushing his cockhead into me.
The doomed tip stretched me, but with how I still rode the waves of my orgasm, I moaned at the extra and prolonged torture of feeling him where I needed him.
I wrapped my arms around him as he covered me, blanketing me over the rug. His heavy body locked in place over mine as he set up a quick and rough rhythm of fucking me hard and fast.
“I didn’t expect this,” he said gruffly again as he set his mouth against mine in a greedy kiss.
No explanation was needed. He meant this.
How we clicked and snapped into insta-lust for each other.
How our bodies betrayed our mutual distrust of each other.
How we fit and made sense as he pushed me to another and stronger climax.
I milked him dry as he came with me, groaning and cursing and crushing me to the floor.
As I lay there and tried to catch my breath, welcoming the security of his weight over me, I kept my arms around him and held on to him tightly.
All while I tried to ignore that this was supposed to be nothing but an arrangement.
Nothing like this deep sense of contentment and peace as I relaxed from the intensity of what this man could do to me.