34. Elena
ELENA
A drik lifted the dazzling ring toward me. The question of a lifetime showed on his face. Hopeful. Curious. Pleading, even.
I opened and closed my mouth, not exactly looking graceful at the moment.
So long as he was staring at me with such commitment and love in his dark eyes, though, I would be fine.
He wanted to marry me.
Me .
This sexy Mafia man wanted to marry me. The woman who was given to him as part of a punishment payment.
“I…”
He kissed me again, seeming too impatient to wait for my reply.
Snagging my hand behind his head and holding him close so I could sip at his lips and kiss him slowly, I gave in to the joy of finally letting go of all my fears.
Adrik Volkov wasn’t only choosing to care about me and want me. He was showing me that I mattered so much that he intended to marry me.
Slow smiles crossed my face, then his. Pecking soft kisses on each other, we snuggled close and stole each other’s breath. But I still hadn’t answered him.
“Will you marry me?” he repeated, holding the ring up to me.
He’d stunned me, but even if I couldn’t find the words, I could nod.
Before I finished dipping my head in the gesture two times, he growled and kissed me again. Hard. With hunger and need and such a possessive affection that I could scarcely believe this was happening.
“Yes, Adrik. I will marry you.”
He nodded, sliding the ring on my finger. The perfect fit surprised me, but I didn’t have long to admire the sapphires and diamonds set on the band.
He was back to devouring me, alternating between tender and rough touches of his mouth sealed to mine.
I clung to him and reveled in how wrong I had been. His proposal started out as that, with him claiming that he’d been wrong. Yet, as he dotted my face with kisses and followed me back down on the bed, I knew that I’d let my guesses and assumptions steer me in the wrong direction too.
I mattered.
He cared.
And he loved me.
I broke the kiss, feeling horrified that I hadn’t replied in kind yet. “I love you, too, Adrik.”
He smiled at me, lazy and slow as he stroked his hand down my side. The move served two purposes, both to caress me and to push me closer to him as we rolled on the bed.
Our arms and legs were entwined as we fought to clutch each other closer.
My pajamas were lost in the tangle of the sheets.
He was slower to get his suit off, but I helped him hurry so I could relish the full contact of his naked body against mine, flush and snug together under the sheets so the chill of the air conditioner wouldn’t get us.
“I love you so much,” he said as he crawled over me.
Finally naked, he presented me with all six and a quarter feet of his muscular body.
His biceps bulging as he braced himself over me.
His tattoos shifting as his arms moved. All down his chest, the ink waited for me to explore and trace it.
But right now, I was hooked on his dick, bare and pointing at me, long and thick, dripping a drop of pre-cum from the domed tip.
I licked my lips and scooted lower to try to get a taste first, but he caught my hands and held my arms above my head.
“I can’t believe it’s taken me this long to lower my guard to you.” He leaned down, kissing me deeply as he rubbed his dick along the seam of my thighs.
“I can’t believe… this is happening,” I admitted with a laugh. “That this is real.”
“Oh, it’s real. And it’s going to last, sweetheart.” He nudged my legs apart, and I wasn’t at all embarrassed at how wet and ready I was for him. Arousal never took long when it was him playing with me. When it was this man kissing me and robbing my thoughts.
I would always be putty in his hands, but with his dick sliding deep into me and stretching me so wide, I would always be his good girl, taking every inch he gave me.
“Oh, fuck, Elena.” He rested his brow against mine, catching his breath. “You feel too good. Too good for me.”
“Fuck me, Adrik,” I begged quietly.
He grinned, stealing a hard kiss before he set up a hard and fast rhythm of filling me over and over again. “You’re going to learn to always ask me for what you want. What you need.”
I nodded, too lost in how good I felt to carry on a conversation. The things he did to me…
His mouth on my nipples, sucking and licking and soothing the sting of how sensitive I was there.
His cock slipping in and out of me as he fucked me without faltering once.
His hands, one holding my wrists up and the other under my back so he could brace me where he wanted me.
His hard wall of muscles pushing me into the mattress as he ground against me.
“I just need you,” I whispered.
“You have me. All of me, Elena.”
He lost the ability to keep talking as steadily as he powered into me. Between the elation and happiness that he wanted to marry me and start a family with me and the exquisite force of him stuffing me with his long dick, I was too close to shattering.
From my toes to the tips of my hair, I felt the force of his desire and love in every fiber of my being.
My nerves were frayed. My skin felt singed.
And as the first waves of my orgasm started, I wrapped my legs around his waist and took the full brunt of his hard, muscled thighs smacking into my ass cheeks as he leaned up.
Gazing down at me as we made love, he brought his thumb to my clit.
I was already coming, exploding for him with the first orgasm he wanted me to experience. With his thumb rubbing insistent circles on that nub, I hurtled toward another, even stronger one.
“Oh, my God!” I tensed, clenching him and cinching my legs around his waist. “Adrik. Oh, fuck. Oh, Adrik!” Wheezing and gasping as I let the euphoria flood my system, I held on to him and savored how he couldn’t last for much longer after me.
My nipples felt raw, like pinpricks of a live charge.
My pussy clenched and spasmed around his dick as he thrust twice more into me until he came.
My toes felt numb. My arms were shaky. No air could fully get in my lungs as he slumped over me, catching his breath.
I was sizzled, frazzled, and so sweetly fucked, I never wanted to think about getting up and out of this bed.
At last, long moments later, when we were both breathing a little better, he lifted up and rolled so we were both on our sides, facing each other.
His big hand caressed my face while he shifted closer. His wet dick slipped out of me, but knowing that I was already pregnant and wouldn’t mind giving him more than one child, I smiled at how I’d never need or want to know what it was like with a condom in the way.
He whooshed out a deep exhale and kissed me. Staring deep into his warm, brown gaze, I felt like I’d finally been let in on the secret. That he wasn’t my owner or buyer or ruler. He was my soulmate.
One I never could’ve considered finding, not the way we had.
“How do you feel?” he asked.
I nuzzled my face against his chest, hugging him close. “Sticky.”
He pulled back, worried. “Sickly?”
I laughed. “Sticky.”
“We can fix that.” Before I could protest, he swooped me into his arms and lifted me out of the bed. He carried me into the bathroom and started a shower for both of us.
The last time he’d been in this specific stall hadn’t been a good day.
He’d killed my father before I slumped to sit on the floor in here while the water turned cold. I had processed that now, but as I thought back to him carrying me out of here that time, I realized that was the turning point.
He’d been gruff, but when wasn't he?
He’d been bossy and demanding, but when wasn’t he?
And he’d been mad that I’d suffered. Which I suspected he would never let happen again.
Looking back to all those times when I thought he’d been too commanding and maybe annoyed with me, I saw now how it was different.
He cared. He’d always cared. And I couldn’t wait for the rest of my life to show him how mutual that feeling and sentiment was.
“Come here,” he said, urging me to stand with him so he could soap me up.
Closing my eyes and welcoming the slippery feel of his hands on me as he moved the suds, I let out a contented sigh. He guided me to hold on to him so I wouldn’t fall, and I lazily leaned against him.
“What are you thinking?” he asked in a slightly playful and teasing tone as he rinsed me off.
“I’m almost too sleepy to think,” I joked.
“You’re welcome.”
I kissed him and kept one arm looped around his neck to ground myself.
“I’m thinking about how amazing it is to choose a new life.”
His responding look was a sober and intense stare. Like he was seeing through my soul.
“I didn’t have a choice to go with you in the beginning, but I do now. You asked me to marry you, and that’s a choice I made. One I’d make again a million times over.”
“Me too,” he admitted gruffly. “Once I could stop worrying about how loving you could be a distraction, I chose to live fully as I embrace all these changes going on.”
He kissed me like it was a promise, that we’d always choose each other mutually from here on.
“I already had, though,” I added. I hadn’t needed his proposal to convince me where my heart lay.
I’d been committed to him since the moment I declared that I was no longer John Morovov’s daughter.
“I chose you. I will choose you, Adrik, forever. Because I can’t imagine being with anyone else on this earth. You’re my family, the one I needed to accept.” I placed his hand on my still-flat stomach. “ Our family.”
He dipped me back for another deep kiss, and I felt like we were both signing our souls to each other as we finally saw eye-to-eye on how we could start a brand-new future together.