Chapter 18 - Gavril
I canceled all my meetings for that day. Maybe I could have carried on with my regular schedule with no sleep if I hadn’t had to deal with Lilia’s failed escape attempt. Now I had my wife cuffed to the bed, and hell would freeze over before I let her out of my sight any time soon.
As soon as I set her free, she cowered in the bathroom for almost an hour.
No amount of exhaustion would have let me close my eyes until she returned and knew where she belonged.
The sight of her in my robe, three sizes too big and gaping open in front, no matter how she tried to keep it tugged around her, woke me up again in a hurry.
She was as determined as ever to pretend I didn’t exist after her feeble attempt to defy me.
Once she knew my bed was her bed now, she got in, but as far away as possible without rolling onto the floor.
Eventually, she fell asleep, stubbornly refusing to get under the covers, so I put a spare blanket over her huddled form.
My hand just happened to slide down her body of its own accord.
Sleeping next to her was hell, and it remained that way for the next several days. I wanted her more and more, but my wife was still skittish. I needed her to be the one to tear my clothes off, not the other way around, and she still viewed me as an enemy.
Wasn’t I just that? Could the marriage I forced her into ever be real? For some reason I couldn’t understand, I wouldn’t mind if it was. I couldn’t name that reason, because she was absolutely more trouble than she was worth.
Or, was she?
I was still having problems with Luigi and his underlings and had taken to organizing secret meetings with the men I would stake my life on being loyal to me.
I called more over from Russia, and soon I would have the numbers on my side.
Luigi might be the one thinking he was arranging a takeover, but he’d be surprised when he was the one on the wrong side of the gun.
If a coup had to happen, I’d be leading it. And I’d win.
When I wasn’t taking secret meetings and doing shady deals to either dismantle or rebuild the Collective, which I was starting to view as a bigger annoyance than my bride, I was spending all the time I could with my biggest and most beautiful problem.
Strategic? Maybe. I couldn’t name a reason why.
She infuriated me half the time, but I still went back for more, making sure we ate every possible meal together, listening to her talk about books, and dragging her into the theater every evening to watch more of those adaptations she loved so much.
A waste of time, all of them, but somehow still fascinating when she was beside me.
First night: another seemingly endless movie based on some classic novel, that, when it did finally end, was terrible. And Lilia was crying her eyes out over it, her shoulders actually shaking, as the tears flowed so hard.
“Are you kidding me?” I asked. “Unless you’re crying because you wasted all that time.”
She gasped in outrage, wiping her tear-stained cheeks. “I’m crying because it’s a beautiful, tragic love story.”
“You’ve got the tragic part right. But a love story? Every one of those people was completely dysfunctional. And I would have smacked that morose little shit Heathcliff into the next county for what he did.”
“He was insane with grief.”
“He was a piece of garbage.”
She looked very much like she wanted to tell me it takes one to know one. “How are you so…” she never finished, so I still didn’t know what she thought I was.
Second night: I got to choose the movie, and being the gentleman that I am, chose one I thought she would like. Funny, lighthearted, nobody jumped under a train or destroyed generations of a family.
She hated it.
“What even was that?” she asked.
“You didn’t like anything about it?”
She made a sound like she might throw up, looking adorable in a big sweater over her snug pajamas. Seriously, did the woman ever wear real clothes? I couldn’t complain since I wasn’t letting her out of the house, and she looked sexy as hell in most of them.
“I guess I appreciated that it was only an hour and a half long.”
“So you hate comedy?” I asked, trying hard not to smile at how pretty she was when she was offended.
“Fart jokes aren’t comedy.”
“It had a happy ending where the family all came together.”
She sighed, long and hard, her soft, warm breath caressing my cheek. It took all my willpower not to slide a strand of wayward blonde hair behind her ear.
“I guess that part was nice. Sort of,” she said, like it pained her to admit it.
“Don’t strain yourself,” I told her. “You can torture me again tomorrow night with another movie that ends with all the main characters dead or miserable.”
She stuck out her lower lip. Dangerous move. I wanted to kiss that pout away. “Tomorrow I’ll pick one with a happy ending,” she promised.
I couldn’t stop smiling, which made her scowl harder. It meant she was already looking forward to the next night. But she still remained huddled on the far side of the bed at night, her back to me, while I simmered with pent-up desire for my gorgeous wife.
Third night: “This is based on my all-time favorite book,” she said. “I won’t make you watch the five-hour miniseries—”
“God bless you,” I groaned.
She was right that it had a happy ending, but I would be hard-pressed to understand why she loved it so much that she was actually clasping her hands together, her face wreathed with smiles as it ended.
“So did she actually love him or did she just want his money?” I asked. She looked like she might implode, so I hurried to laugh, reaching to take her hand. “I’m teasing,” I lied to keep the peace. “I get it. I’m sorry I couldn’t give you a proposal like that guy.”
Lilia blushed, actually looking touched. I dug deep and thought of something I didn’t hate about the movie. “I liked how he took care of that… that scoundrel who ran off with her sister.”
“Oh, yes, I love that part, too.”
She continued to yammer about things that were cut from the movie, and it looked like the five-hour series was in my future.
And I didn’t care. I looked forward to it because it meant five hours with Lilia.
The passion that bubbled up from her when she talked about something she loved so deeply, was hotter than any sexy dance in lingerie.
What the hell was happening to me?
Lilia was happening. As she talked, she leaned closer, looking up at me with wide eyes after finishing an impassioned speech about true, perfect love. All she wanted, was something I couldn’t give her. The stab I felt made me wince, and she grabbed my hand.
“Are you okay?”
I shook my head, sliding my hand behind her neck, my fingers moving through her silky hair. She didn’t recoil, but kept gazing at me, and then licked her lips.
My mouth was on hers in an instant, as if no time passed at all to drag her onto my lap.
With a sigh, she parted her lips to the sweep of my tongue, holding onto my shoulders as she rose up on her knees to straddle me.
I tugged on her hair, tilting her head back so I could taste the warm flesh of her throat.
She murmured something, maybe my name. It sounded like a plea, but not to stop. Not with her fingers roaming through my hair as I licked a trail down the side of her neck. She shivered when I licked my way back up, and turned her face to claim another kiss.
Her hot little body pushed down on my lap. With a squeak of surprise at the hard bulge that met her, she bounced a little, driving me to a frenzy.
“Lilia,” I growled. “You taste like honey. Sweeter.”
She nodded, pushing harder, pulling away from the heated kiss to look at me.
Wild eyes, full of lust, stared into mine, and she groaned as she pushed down hard again.
Then she kissed me, clumsily, our teeth knocking together.
I ran my hands up her sides to feel the heavy globes of her perfect breasts under her soft top.
I needed more to feel her skin. Would it be burning for me? Moving my hands back down to grip her hips, I slid them under her top, smiling against her eager mouth as she arched her back.
“I want to see you,” I said, pushing the fabric up.
Heavy-lidded eyes blinked at me, and she nodded once, chest heaving as I rolled my thumbs over her taut nipples.
I had the pajama top pushed up under her arms, finally revealing those sweet tits.
Holding onto her around her ribcage, I shifted her body backwards, needing to wrap my lips around those peachy nipples.
What sound would she make when I teased her with my tongue?
Buzz. Buzz. Buzz.
Lilia jolted, as if my phone vibrating in my pocket had electrocuted her. Damn it. Not many people would dare to call me after hours unless it was an emergency. I ignored it, leaning down to finally taste her.
The fucking phone buzzed again, and I grabbed it out of my pocket, about to toss it across the room.
It was my second in command. Not Luigi, who held that position in name only, but my main guy who followed me from Russia, Benedikt.
He really wouldn’t call me unless something big was about to go down.
Lilia pulled her shirt down as I answered. When I started swearing at the news, she scrambled off my lap.
“Sorry, boss,” Benedikt said. “I figured you’d want to know.”
I didn’t want to, but I had to know that Luigi was planning yet another unauthorized attack on one of the Petrovs’ holdings. They decided it was a good idea to intercept a shipment of guns from a warehouse that my own men had determined was impenetrable.
Should I let them get killed? Fewer men who stood against me. It would certainly serve them right, and I didn’t hate the idea of being rid of them. But it made the Collective look weak, which meant I looked weak.
“I’ll be right there,” I said after Benedikt gave me all the pertinent information.
Talk about a boner killer. Lilia sat in her own chair again, head down, her fingers twisting together in her lap.
I had just spent the last three minutes snarling and swearing, and I had been so pissed off and wrapped up in a quick decision that I couldn’t remember if I uttered her family’s name aloud.
If not, she surely had to know something was going on that involved them. I swore again, inwardly this time, and tipped up her chin, trying not to look like an angry bull about to charge.
“I have to go out for a little while,” I said. Tell her it’s to stop an attack on her family. I ignored the intrusive thought. She’d never believe me, and I was only stopping it because the attack would serve no purpose to help my cause.
Which, ultimately, was to bring her family to their knees. Somehow, kissing her made me forget that.
“I kind of figured,” she said, voice as quiet as a mouse, tinged with worry.
I would have preferred she attacked me and tried to scratch my eyes out. Instead, she only thought of her cousins. Once again, I had half a mind to let Luigi’s fools get themselves slaughtered and take the damn hit.
That wasn’t like me at all. I hated insubordination as much as I hated losing. It was time to go crack some heads, once again, those of my own people. Men who were plotting my demise when they weren’t disobeying my direct orders. Who would happily take Lilia and dangle her as bait once I was dead.
Not happening. No one was taking her from me, not my own people or hers. Anyone who tried was in for a fight. Which meant I had more enemies than ever before.
I found myself asking the same question again. Was Lilia worth it?