Chapter 24
Eyes On Me
Jade
The house had a wine room larger than my entire apartment.
Because of course it did.
While Alex made lunch, I wandered around and marveled at every corner, slowly padding my way through the hallways, rooms, and bathrooms.
There was a level below the first and when I descended the curved staircase, I noticed an indoor garage on the left and a wine cellar on the right. I turned right.
The smell of wine, chocolate, and something equally rich and unattainable hit me first, but also how soft the room felt.
There was a decent-sized couch covered in soft green fabric, a few sitting chairs, and wine fridges built into the walls.
Each bottle was carefully laid out in its place, the lighting muted and mysterious.
I dragged my fingers along the island, which I assumed was a tasting table, and ogled the bottles.
This whole house was something out of a fairy tale. Or maybe a gossip column. It was all drenched in luxury. Gold accents, marble, soft fabrics. The air was different here.
All financed with drug money.
Worse—Bratva money.
Alex and I were effectively playing house for the last week, but that’s not who he was. That’s not who he truly was.
I’d read about the Bratva. I was aware of who they were, what they did, and how ruthless they could be.
Inhumane, even. The Russians were involved in everything, but in the last few years, they had infiltrated the main US drug markets.
That’s how I’d heard about…The Tsar. A man who rose to the top of their ranks with astronomical speed and who everyone answered to. Alex too?
That all seemed like fantasy. A silly word—Tsar, so far removed from me. It was somewhere else—drugs, guns, death, blood money. But not anymore—I was in that world now, standing in a room directly paid for with blood money.
I peeked inside the wine fridge, reading the label and trying not to spiral. Because finding out that I was in love with a member of the Russian mafia wasn’t on my bingo card this year.
Don’t think the word. Don’t think the L-word.
“You want to try it?” A deep voice sounded near the entrance, my skin tingling at the thought of him. I felt him there—heard him come down the stairs. Alex strolled closer and held out his hand. I passed him the bottle, watching the small smile on his face.
The image of him on his knees earlier in the morning, begging to eat me out, was still burning inside me.
Alex approached the island and uncorked the wine, expertly pouring it into a decanter. It was a dark red.
Like blood.
“Cheers.” He clinked his glass with mine and grabbed my hand, leading me to the couch. We slumped down beside each other, like this was just our regular old life. I took a sip, immediately getting the urge to spit it out. Instead, I swallowed.
“What’s on your mind, Jade?”
God, I couldn’t get over how he pronounced my name.
I shrugged, internally shaking. He was so reserved again—so hesitant, like I was some dainty porcelain doll, threatening to shatter with a touch of a fingertip.
I shut down the thought that was screaming inside me: what was a Bratva man really like?
“How much is this bottle of wine?”
Alex swirled the liquid in his glass. “Maybe forty grand?”
“Forty thousand?! Dollars?!” I sat up as if electrocuted, my jaw dropping. “And you just…just opened it?! For no reason?”
“There’s a reason.” His tone was even, like we were chatting about a Snickers bar and not a forty-thousand-dollar bottle of wine. “You’re here and you wanted to try it.”
“No!” I shook my head. “You asked if I wanted to try it and then you just…just popped open a forty-thousand-dollar bottle of wine!”
Alex let out a quiet laugh and rested his arm along the back of the couch.
And then he narrowed his eyes on me. Like a predator. He stared, his gaze dark and intent in the dim light.
For the thousandth time, I looked over the tattoos on his forearm, every inch of him delicious to look at.
“Do you like it?” he asked.
I took another sip, noticing the way he observed me swallow. What was he thinking about? What was he really thinking about?
It fucking exploded inside me: I had absolutely no clue who he was, and I’d never seen the real version of him.
“You can be honest. It needs more time to breathe.”
I needed time to breathe.
“Was this wine purchased with drug money or theft money?” I settled into the couch at a deliberate distance from him. The question had the expected effect: there was no smile on his face, only ice in his eyes.
“Will it taste different to you if you know?”
I pondered the question. Fuck. Maybe?
There was some kind of metamorphosis happening inside me in this soft and quiet wine room. Like I was being decanted.
I jumped to my feet, slowly pacing the room, drinking the wine, and forcing myself to think. To feel. To figure out what was bothering me so deeply.
Alex watched me.
“Who are you, really?” I turned to him, wanting to know who he was immediately. Wanting to know the truth. “Why are you so fucking nice to me? You just told me you’re part of the Russian mafia. And then you went ahead and made lunch. I can’t…It’s not computing inside my head.”
I took another big gulp of my wine just as he abandoned his glass on the table, still sitting there like we were having a nice little chat.
Always pissing me off.
“I am who I am with you. I’m someone else when I do what I do.”
“Pffffft!” My reaction was instant, and so was my anger. “What a lame and evasive answer, Alex.” I scoffed, placing my glass beside his with a loud clink. “You’re either the guy who makes lunches for a girl he likes or blows brains out! So which one fucking is it? Because it’s not both!”
“I more than like you,” he answered quickly and heat burst onto my face at once. “And it is both. But that’s not what you want to know, is it?”
I shrugged and shook my head, having no clue what that meant.
“What you’re asking is…which version is the real one. Aren’t you?”
“Yes,” I responded right away, relieved that he understood me. Alex’s arms were folded over his chest, his tattooed biceps popping out of his white shirt. I tried not to notice. “I want to see the real version, not the curated Alex who says all the right things. Not the Alex who caters.”
That was the wrong thing to say; I’d figured that out immediately. Alex stood up so suddenly that I flinched. His eyes trained on me, he stepped closer. And closer. Until he was an inch away from me.
And there was no warmth from him.
“You think I’ve been lying to you,” he stated, confirming all my worst fears. “You think I’ve been playing a role? So I can, what? Fuck you?”
He waited for an answer patiently, pinning me to the wall with his gaze. I gulped, having no strength to admit anything.
“If you think I’ve been pretending… If you think I’m only the Bratva version, Jade…
I would have fucked you that first night.
” His tone turned light, even mocking. “But what you’re more scared of, Malyshka…
” My breath caught in my throat when his fingers pressed into my jaw, possessive like never before.
He leaned in and dropped his voice. “Is figuring out which version of Jade Moretti you are.”
Oh God. Oh God, oh God, oh God.
“The good girl? The attorney working away to bring justice to the world, or…” His hands—they were suddenly all over me. My thighs, my waist, my legs. “Or the one who fell for a criminal.”
Deny. Deny, deny, deny.
“You’re so full of yourself,” I breathed out and pressed my back against the wall, fruitlessly trying to steady my racing heart.
“And I didn’t fall for you.” That was a lie.
He knew it. I knew it. Instead of calling me out on my bullshit though, he chuckled, the sound sending a shiver down my spine.
“I’ve been doing what you’ve been doing: just having fun. ”
My own words cut me deep.
“Oh, really?” Amusement filled his eyes just as his chest pressed against mine. “We’re going to find out. Right. Fucking. Now.”
I closed my eyes from his touch—the way his hand trailed over my hip and right underneath my dress. The way his fingertips dragged on my inner thigh—slow and teasing.
“I’m going to reach underneath your dress,” he warned me quietly. I gulped, my eyes wide, the smell of him intoxicating. “And I’m going to feel how fucking wet you are for a guy you’re…just having fun with.”
His fingers barely brushed over me, but I gasped loudly, unable to control myself. He latched onto that.
“Mm-hmm, just as I thought.” His lips were right at my ear, whispering the dirty words, “Your pussy is fucking soaked through your flimsy little panties. But go ahead—lie to me again that this is just fun.”
My own body betrayed me. My arms clasped around his neck and my leg wrapped around his hip, offering him better access.
He didn’t wait for anything. He hooked his thumb into the lace of my panties and yanked them aside, his fingers sinking into me with ease.
My knees nearly buckled, but I managed to form a disjointed sentence.
“You’re…imagining things.”
Alex laughed in my ear—low and predatory.
I pushed my hips into him further.
“Am I? Because it seems that you like this version of me too, Malyshka,” Alex teased me, wrapping his free arm around me like a tentacle.
“You like the version that takes. You like the version that doesn’t wait for permission, hm?
You like the version that’s been salivating at the thought of ruining the good girl, yeah? ”
“Yes, yes, fuck, that feels so good, right there!” I cried out, turning into mush from the way Alex’s fingers fucked into me. “But also, f-fuck you!” My head thudded against the wall and my eyes were closed, just focusing on this all-encompassing moment.
Fuck him for reading me like a book!
“Right here?” He echoed the first night I laid my eyes on him. “You’re going to help me this time.”
I didn’t recognize myself—it was like something detonated inside me. I pulled on his shirt, hungrily watching the way his naked shoulders flexed. For me.