I LOVE IT WHEN YOU BRING ME COOLERS
FORTY-FIVE
Maxim: I’ll be home in an hour.
My jaw works as I stare at his message. Again.
I should have replied a half hour ago when I received it, but I’m annoyed.
Still.
When knocking sounds on my door, I ignore it. Even though Salome tries to jump off the couch to attack the person disturbing me.
“There’s a good puppy.” I scratch under his chin, laughing as he tries to lick my face.
My cell rings.
I ignore that too.
Petty? Sue me.
I turn up the volume on the YouTube video I’m watching then lower it when Salome whines.
Maxim: The guards say you aren’t answering the door
I turn up the volume a touch more.
Maxim: Just let them drive you home
Maxim: Please, korovka
This time, I don’t go into the message.
“Why’s your husband calling me?” Shay shouts from his bedroom.
“Because he’s a dick,” I holler back. “And I have no time for dicks.”
“Wow, it took getting married for you to figure that out?”
“Fuck off, Seamus!”
My cursing leads to his feet stomping on the staircase. Pausing in the doorway, he blinks at me.
“What?” I snipe.
“You called me Seamus.”
“It’s your name, isn’t it?” I snuggle up to Salome. “I’m watching TV. See aforementioned ‘I don’t have time for dicks.’”
He glances at the screen. “You’re watching some dude in the UK take the bus as far north as he possibly can?”
“For twenty quid.”
“I’m surprised you know what a quid is.”
“Pur-lease. I’ve heard you and Aela talking about your time in the UK before.” I sniff. “It’s interesting.”
“Looks like it,” he says dryly as he steps deeper into the room then falls back onto the couch.
The cushions gasp at his sudden weight, but he doesn’t say much else, just watches the vlog with me.
As it meanders to an end somewhere in Middlesbrough, wherever the hell that is, and I don’t play another video, just raw dog the algorithm, he tentatively inquires, “What happened?”
“Nothing.”
“Lies. You were looking for fuck furniture the other day. Now you don’t want to talk to him?”
“He pissed me off.”
“So… you’re going to ignore him?”
“Yes.”
“That doesn’t sound very healthy.”
“I don’t care if it is or isn’t. I’m not pouting—”
“You sure about that?” I flash him a warning look that has him raising his hands and blurting: “Truce!”
“Truce, my ass,” I grouch. “And I’m not. He’s the one who’s pouting and I refuse to deal with that bullshit. I’m the brat in our relationship. Not him.”
He barks out a laugh. “Well, at least you’re self-aware enough to understand your limits.”
I grab a throw pillow and use it for its intended purpose—throwing at him.
“Your violent tendencies are on the rise. I wonder if getting married has made you more bloodthirsty.”
“Yes. It has. So watch yourself,” I coo.
“Okay, okay. What happened, then? You guys have never been the best at communicating. You know, what with him always sending body parts to do the talking…”
I grimace because he’s not wrong. “Maybe that’s part of the problem. I’m just in no mood to take any of his shit.”
“I thought it’d be the opposite.”
“What? Why?”
“After you owned Alec, I figured you’d be humping him as soon as you set your sights on him.” His eyebrow waggle. “Even I found it hot, and it’s illegal to find my cousin/sister sexy.”
“Firstly, ew. Secondly, I do not hump.” At his smirk, I flip him the bird. “Thirdly, I didn’t appreciate his tone.”
“You spoke?”
“We texted.”
“Vicky, you can’t decipher tone in a text message. It’s literally text with zero nuance. Unless he uses emojis. He doesn’t seem the type… Does he use them?”
“Not really.”
“Well, then. How did you read into his tone when it’s literally words on a screen?”
“I just could.”
“Sounds rational to me.”
Swiping through the messages, I toss my phone at him. “There. You tell me what you think.”
He reads the texts and whistles. “Okay, yeah. I get why you’re mad.
Doesn’t seem like him. But then, he’s probably under a lot of pressure.
You getting married will have shaken things up, and then there’s the fact that he’s looking for whoever intercepted your dress and chasing down that fucker of a detective—”
“You will be defunding the police, won’t you?” I interject, grateful that I offloaded the (sanitized) deets about last weekend onto him.
“Definitely.” His smile’s sharklike. “Anyway, he has several douches to find.”
“I don’t care if he does. I’m his wife. Not his verbal punching bag.” I tip up my chin. “If I learned anything from your dad and uncles, it’s knowing how to be treated like a queen and accepting that anything less than that is not an option.”
Shay scratches his head. “That’s a lot to live up to.”
“Don’t I deserve it?”
“Of course. I’m just saying…”
“He won’t learn if I roll over.”
“Aaahh, so this is a teaching moment?”
“That and I’m plotting.”
“You are? Looked like you were watching random videos on YouTube to me.”
“Well, I wasn’t.” I turn to him as I switch off the TV, altering my hold on Salome because he’s ready to conk out. “I don’t like Derek Dyers.”
“Agreed. He’s a cuntwaffle and I thought that before the mess at Dopie’s. I still can’t believe he was going to hit Denver and Lex.”
“Why not? He raped a woman.”
He concedes that with a frown. “You’ll have to accept that the Veronians aren’t angels if you want to go ahead with this plan of yours.”
“I don’t want to work with angels. I never said that. But I have my limitations.”
“You didn’t before.”
“I did. I was just coming to terms with everything. Wynter and I already discussed our manifesto. Then Friday night happened…”
“It’s not like you can change anything. All you can do is drop out.”
“Ha. Since when do I drop out of anything? No. Now that Alec’s keeping quiet, there has to be a way to take them down from the inside out, one by one, and then use their demotions as a promotion for myself.”
Shay clucks his tongue. “When I hit the primaries, I need you to plan my campaign.”
“Of course. Katina and I have been talking about that for a long time.”
His brows lift. “Why doesn’t that surprise me?”
“Nothing should surprise you about us.” I waggle the remote at him. “Now, either watch something with me, go upstairs, or just be quiet. I’m percolating.”
“A watched pot never boils.”
“Bullshit. I have patience on my side as well as a human pitbull.”
“Who you’re not talking to…”
“I’m not talking to him right now,” I correct. “Negative reinforcement, Shay. Pick up a book and read about it.”
He groans. “Can’t you argue about this at your own place? I wanted to study—”
“You need to leave the house more.”
“So this is you doing me a favor?”
“Aren’t I a great friend? Go hang out at Wynter’s. You can get all cozy with her there.”
He bursts out laughing. “Please tell me you’re not implying what I think you’re implying.”
“She has a crush on you.”
“Um, no, she doesn’t. I don’t have one on her either. She’s in love with this dude who’s a priest.”
“An actual one?!”
He shrugs. “Says he took vows so they can’t be together.”
“Well, that’s tragic.” So, the brother in her dad’s MC is both a priest and called Priest? Huh.
“Depends if you’re the priest. He’s married, don’t you know?”
I pull a face. “To the church.”
“Why did you get a priest to marry you when you don’t believe in religion?”
“Seemed like something that’d make Maxim happy.”
He shakes his head. “I’ll never understand mobsters. Kill someone one morning, repent about it in the afternoon, go home, play with the kids, and eat dinner then watch a game in the evening. Rinse and repeat.”
“Your dad was the same,” I point out, “before the family made him clean up his act so things would be squeaky clean in time for you to hit thirty-five.”
Thirty-five being the age he can run for president.
“And we both know that I haven’t understood him for a long time.”
I know he’s teasing because he and Declan have a great relationship. He and his mom bump heads sometimes, but not too often.
“She told you that she has a crush on a priest. That’s more than she told me.”
“It came out during one of our classes.”
“Oh?”
“The interrogation of a priest in relation to the suspicious death of a parishioner who the cops later determined had abused his nephew.”
“An eye for an eye.”
“Just not according to the law of the land,” he counters.
“That’s why I don’t want to be a lawyer. I’ll pay Wynter when she graduates.”
He snorts, loud enough for Salome to yip in his sleep. “How very Veronian of you.”
“I thought so too. Anyway, whether or not your crush is mutual, one-sided, or nonexistent, I’m not going to the house.”
“I googled the property by the way.”
“Why?”
“You wouldn’t take me to it.”
“Are you mad about that?”
“Yes.”
“I told you I’d show you around when it was ready. There’s barely any furniture and it needs renovating. That has nothing to do with why I don’t want to go there tonight though.”
“Yes, you’re punishing him.”
“Precisely.”
With a grumble, Shay gets up and ambles around the back of the couch. “Just don’t punish him long enough that you start to punish yourself, Vick.” He presses a kiss to the crown of my head. “Right, I’ll go to Wynter’s. See you later?”
“Yeah, of course. Do you mind putting Salome in his crate?”
“Sure thing.”
I transfer ownership of the pup, smiling as Shay nuzzles his nose into his head before taking him into the dining room, where we have his bed set up.
Switching on the TV, I tuck my feet under my ass then hear the door close a few minutes later.
When the lock beeps ten minutes after that, I warn, “You better be called Maxim or you’re about to be torn apart by a team of guards.”
“Ignoring me, pchelka?”
“Hardly,” I dismiss, refusing to acknowledge the rush of pleasure his voice, hell, his presence, sends whirling through my system. “Did Conor give you the code?”
“He did.”
“I hope you had to pay through the nose for it.”
“What’s a favor among family?”
I grunt.
“I have a gift for you.”
“Is it your head on a platter?” I ask sweetly.
He clicks his tongue. “My head? So soon?”
“Better that than your dick, no?”
His chuckle has me fighting the quirking of my lips. “I admit I’ve been in a sour mood.”
“Being married to me is so hard?”
His Oxfords clip against the bare wood floor as he rounds the couch.
Unlike Shay, who splatted against the cushions, Maxim takes a seat almost neatly.
Then, he does that thing hot guys in suits tend to do—manspreads, one arm sliding along the back of the couch once he’s unfastened the few buttons on his sports coat.
Not that I’m looking at him.
At.
All.
“I reacted… petulantly.”
“To what?”
That’s the bitch of it! I don’t know what I did to annoy him. I wouldn’t have minded if it were intentional.
Jaw working, he scrapes a hand over his head. The signs of discomfort are so unusual to behold on a creature who perfected his mask before he reached the threshold of adulthood that I turn to face him.
When he mutters something in Latgalian, I grouse, “I’m going to learn that damn language just so you can’t say shit I don’t understand.”
“I believe you, kotik.”
“Is it so bad?” My voice drops, hurt leaching into the words.
“No.” He glances at the TV. “Yes. Not in the way you’re imagining.” Before I can prod him, he retrieves a cooler from the side of the couch. “Here.”
“Who?”
A smile dances on his lips. “Bordeau.”
Eagerly, more eagerly than I should considering I’m still pissed at him, I hold out my arms for the box.
Tugging on the bow, I lift the lid and come face-to-face with a pair of hands. The ragged edges make my stomach twist, but the satisfaction of that bastard’s suffering immediately appeases any guilt I may feel.
I suck in a sharp breath when I see the other contents.
A penis.
“Is he still alive?”
“For the moment.”
There’s a small patch of skin beside one of the hands with a crown branded into it. “A Veronian?”
“Yes.”
“Not just someone who does their bidding?”
“According to him, no.”
“Did they want to partner me up with him?”
“Yes. You were to be his vero.”
I file that information away.
Vero.
Hatred flushes through me as I stare at his work. Relief follows it. Then gratitude.
Maxim always delivers on his promises.
Of course, that’s when I’m reminded of what Shay said.
How he communicates through the gifting of body parts…
I stare at Bordeau’s bits, visible proof of that, and I sigh.
“What is it, zaya?”
“Just something Shay mentioned.” When his expression blanks even more, I reason, “He said that until now, we’ve only ever communicated through these gift boxes of yours…”
“Not true. You could always text me if you needed me. Or call.”
And I did.
Had.
Often.
Just… not as often as I’d like.
You know, everyday often.
Twice-a-day often.
“We still skipped a bunch of steps.”
“It pains me to agree with an O’Donnelly, but I suppose he’s correct.”
“They’re annoyed you got to Bordeau first?”
His smile’s placid. “Yes.”
Replacing the lid on the cooler, I huff out a laugh.
“No wonder I associate limbs with your love language.” His sudden tension snags my attention.
“I went from you holding me and then suffocating me in blankets, because God forbid a maid sees so much as my shoulders, and then—” I pause. Gape at him. Gasp: “No. Maxim. No.”
His jaw works again.
“It is, isn’t it?”
He grits his teeth.
“IT IS!”
The lightbulb flaring to life over my head would illuminate the state.
His nostrils flare.
“You’re sulking because I told the maid I’d love her forever!”
“You haven’t called me love in Russian, Victoria.” His hands flare wide in an explosion of movement that stuns me more than his words. “And there you goddamn are, telling the goddamn maid that you’ll goddamn love her forever because she said she’d make your sister decaf goddamn tea!”
My mouth gapes wider.
The urge to tip my head back and burst out laughing is immense.
But he…
Oh, fuck.
I scramble over the couch and hurl myself onto his lap. “Dorogoy.”
He stiffens. “Don’t just say it. You have to mean—”
“You haven’t said it to me either. You call me kitten and hare and everything in between but not that.” I keep my tone gentle. Kind. Because as bewildering as this may be, I sense his hurt is genuine.
Not just that, but confused.
And if I think about it, really think about it, I understand.
Maxim’s life hasn’t been full of love. Despite his years on the street, he knew love. Has known it. Recognizes it. Feels it. His parents and grandmother assured that. But it’s not exactly something he’s been allowed to embrace during his years in the mob.
I cup his cheek and, holding his jaw in place, I press a kiss to those lips that have given me such pleasure and, against them, I mewl, “Dorogoy.”
“Lyubov moya.”
And as he breathes those words, words that are almost poetic, not informal but evocative and oddly archaic, I don’t even have the chance to explode with joy.
Or to shower his face with kisses.
Because—