Chapter 5
DIMA
S he’s everything her father promised: beautiful and difficult.
She’s more than that, though, a whip-smart software engineer with a big mouth and a chip on her shoulder about being the daughter, not the heir.
A more seasoned woman would hide that resentment, but Karina revels in turning heads and shocking whoever’s watching.
I can’t decide whether it’s a bid for control or a thirst for attention; maybe it’s both.
And that dress. That silver, sinful dress.
The moment I saw her in it, before she even stretched for a high shelf and the hem hitched up to expose the taut curve of her high, firm ass, I knew she spelled trouble.
Too alluring by half, too calculating, too impossible to resist. No man, living or freshly dead, could look away from those endless legs or the neckline that fought to contain her bountiful cleavage.
One deep breath would send hot, heavy flesh spilling into the open.
My eyes were greedy; my hands, greedier.
It’s one thing to decide it’s practical to marry a woman who understands the life, a woman who grasps the delicate politics.
It’s another to realize I want her for far more than convenience.
I knew she was young, but so accomplished.
Now I’ve met her it’s obvious how young she is, fiery and impulsive, not good at covering her reactions or feelings.
She resents her dad but is trying to find a way to turn this to her advantage.
There is no way to do that. She’s a woman, a young one, in a rigged system that treats her as an asset.
Nothing about the way she looks or acts made me feel like I need to protect her although I’m sure that it’s one of her dad’s selling points, that I would keep her safe from other dangerous men by my very existence as her husband.
Just as he attempted to persuade me that she’d be an ideal breeder for my future heirs.
Nothing about her whispers motherly or nurturing.
She looks just as likely to explode and drive a knife into my back.
She wants the fight and dares me to call her wrong, too brash, too reckless.
She’s all of it. And balanced on that razor’s edge is desire, dark and sharp, as startling as it is inconvenient.
This marriage was supposed to be a logical move, the safe play.
I’d take a wife, flood her with my seed every night, and secure my heir.
Karina turns that plan into a gamble. She’ll either plot against me while smiling like a dutiful mob wife, or she’ll become the taste of a drug I’ll never quit, sweet and fatal at once.
Underestimating her is more dangerous than Russian roulette; on that I’m certain.
She’s entertaining, so energetic, so fierce, so damned determined.
Fascinating to watch, yet she leaves me with a pounding headache.
During the drive home I can’t steal a moment of peace.
My body still hums as though her presence injected cocaine straight into my veins.
My hands itch to turn around and haul her to my house tonight, no terms settled, no date set, no consent on paper.
A primitive part of me wants to drag her off and declare that she’s mine now, no waiting.
I ruled for nearly two decades without an heir, but the instant I saw Karina, all I could think about was plunging into her, filling her, making her scream my name.
Surely that last part isn’t required. She doesn’t have to cling to me, slick with sweat, tears sliding from the corners of her eyes in the weakness of utter satiation.
She doesn’t need to moan my name when I bury myself in her to the hilt.
And yet, for one searing heartbeat, I know I need exactly that.
I crave the primitive thrill of making her helpless, making her beg.
Tomorrow I’ll call Sergei. I wonder if I’ll have the patience to play hardball with him.
I’d rather agree to terms as swiftly as possible to get my hands on her.
Even though I know to my practical core she’s going to upend my life and make me insane.
I won’t know calm or quiet any longer. A decisive end to long empty nights spent working late or drinking with my oldest friends.
A Russian to the core, I still enjoy a smooth Irish whiskey from time to time.
She’ll learn that secret and so much more, including the small personal details.
I can’t say I like the idea of being known so well or rather observed so closely by a woman who will surely be as much my antagonist as my wife.
If I thought her a likely enemy, I’d never consider the union.
I expect her to be an annoyance, a ceaseless distraction as noisy and troublesome as she is delectable and clever.
Early the next day, I call my closest advisors to a closed-door discussion. I do not even have to name her or her father’s bratva to hear their unanimous support.
“You should have done it years ago, Dima,” Piotr says.
The handful of others echo him. Apparently, I deserve the comfort of a wife and the certainty of a dynasty.
I almost laugh aloud when they extol the solace of marriage, as though chaining myself body and soul to Karina Kozlova resembles peace.
When I finally shake my head, I can’t tell whether it’s amusement or foreboding.
One of my lawyers phones Kozlov and we come to terms within an hour.
There is much to be worked out about the merger of the bratvas, but the marriage contract is ready in no time.
We settle on a date for the engagement party, some extravagant event that Sergei deems necessary to announce the union to all his friends.
I keep myself from commenting that I’m not aware he has any friends as his closest confidantes have a way of drowning or committing suicide whenever they make the mistake of disagreeing with him, much like his wife did.
Considering I’m not an employee of his, I have nothing to worry about as far as respecting his imagined authority.
The authority he’s handing to me gladly just to be rid of his daughter.
It’s enough to make a man wonder how much of a thorn in his side she really is.