Chapter 13 #2
My chest grows tight. "What did you do, Volkov?
" Tears stream down my face and mix with the sweat from the run.
My voice cracks through the morning air.
"Mind sharing how long I have to live before the cleaners arrive?
" Finally rooted in reality and putting my heart back in my chest instead of on my sleeve, I glare at the man who is calmly waiting for me…
“What? What are you waiting for? Oh, you played me well, Russian.” I wind my arms around my middle and force my stomach to stop rebelling against me. “Was this a game you and your son cooked up?” I bite out.
He absorbs my words in silence and catches my wrist in his hand.
Then the other one. His grip is firm, not hard.
He shuffles his hold on me to one hand while he uses the other and strokes the pad of his thumb over the edge of my jaw.
He pulls back blood on the edge of his thumb and then proceeds to lick it off.
“This has gone on long enough. You are going to hurt yourself. Twenty more feet that way and there is a sudden drop off you’d never see before you are flying off the edge.”
I form a mock face of surprise. “Oh, sorry. I wouldn’t want that to happen and steal the pleasure of offing me from you and whatever sicko you have coming.” It’s fair to say I’m feeling a little bitter and I’m not trying to hide it. Why should I?
I thrash and buck against his hold on me, but his grip doesn’t loosen.
"Cora. Settle down."
I tip my head back and glare up at him. "Don't.
" I twist against his grip. My knee comes up and he shifts, takes it on his thigh instead of where I aimed.
"Don't say my name like you care about me while you're on the phone talking about getting rid of problems." I shake my head to suggest air quotes since my hands are currently being held hostage.
"Listen to me."
“Don’t you go trying to sound all cool, calm and collected.
” I laser hate at the man and wish my eyes could shoot daggers.
"I gave you everything." My voice shatters on the word and the debris cuts both of us.
"I gave you everything and you're on the phone talking about disposal like I’m trash.
" The tears return and burn a path down both of my cheeks. “I guess happily ever after isn’t real after all. And here I was thinking I could not be any happier than I was last night and this morning waking up in your arms. Joke is on me, huh?”
Wide blue eyes stare at me. A few pine needles stick out of his hair. There’s a scratch across his cheek where my nail caught him. Dirt smeared on his jaw from my fist. Those ice-blue eyes hold steady, unbothered by the blows, undisturbed by the blood on his lip where my ring caught skin.
Then he laughs.
The mother fucker actually laughs! I’m about to take a one way trip to heaven or hell and this Russian prick wants to laugh?
Rowan Volkov laughs so hard his shoulders shake and his head drops forward and the sound fills the forest canopy.
Birds scatter from the branches above us.
Lines I have never seen before crinkle at the corners of his eyes.
His mouth stretches wide and his whole face restructures around the joy of it.
He releases me and I stand there with tears on my face watching the Bratva man lose his composure.
"Mulch," he says.
When he looks at me like that, like I hang the freaking sun in the sky every morning, I don’t know if I want to punch him in the kisser or…kiss him.
My brain stutters.
Mulch. I cross my arms over my chest and huff out my frustration. The word doesn't compute. I run it through my brain twice and it still doesn't compute. "What?"
I swallow deeply as he steps toward me. The lump of embarrassment stuck in my throat is big enough to do me in and I hope it’s a quick death.
"Da. Mulch, Cora." He is still laughing, the words coming through breaks in the sound. "The north side of the cabin. The mulch has been rotting for three weeks. Drainage problems. Mold. You name it." He releases one of my wrists to swipe the blood from his lip. "I was calling my groundskeeper."
I blink up at him. Yeah, it’s starting to add up, but I don’t let the scowl on my face retreat. Not yet.
"The disposal site is the county composting facility. The problem is fungal growth on decomposing cedar bark. The thing that needs to be dealt with is a pile of mulch."
I stare at him some more as he tries to explain in more detail.
I glance down at myself for the first time since leaving the compound.
His shirt and how I mis-buttoned the thing.
Black cotton hangs off one shoulder and there’s mud smeared down the front.
My bare legs are covered in goosebumps and a scratch from a branch I don't remember hitting has formed droplets of blood along the surface. Then there’s my gardening boots, tons of pine needles sticking out of everywhere…
just ugh. I look like the before photo in a survival guide.
I raise my eyes back to his face and he still has the audacity to stand there smiling.
I swear if he comes a step closer I might just slap him.
He pushes his luck when he cups my face between the palms of his hands and smiles down at me like I am his sole source of entertainment. There’s so much freaking joy glowing in his eyes it kinda takes away the urge to slap the man.
He seems to pause for a minute as if he knows I’m on the edge of either losing or laughing myself.
"You ran through the woods because you thought I was going to off you, but I was only speaking of mulch."
“Yeah. I get that now.” I frown and let out a deep sigh. “And I did it in no underwear, I might add.”
His chest rumbles with a laugh that has me warming from inside out.
I step out of his touch, stumble and land on my knees. This is as good a time as any to just give up.
“Cora, my sunshine, are you okay?”
He steps up to me and places a heavy hand on my shoulder.
Facing away from him, I hold a hand up. “Gimme a minute please.” Mortification is not something I thought I’d be experiencing at high noon in the middle of a forest, yet here I am turning the color of a tomato. Heat rises from the soles of my feet and blooms upward until my face burns.
The way I see it, I have two options. Die of embarrassment or kill the man. There's plenty of land out here to hide a body and all I’d have to do is plant endangered plants over the body.
I choose a third option.
I whirl, grab the front of his shirt with both fists and drag him down to me.
The kiss is different from every kiss before it.
The anger hasn't left, but the fear has, and what remains is adrenaline, relief and the raw voltage of believing you lost everything and getting it back in five minutes flat.
His hands find my waist and lift me. My legs wrap around him as we roll in a bed of oak leaves and pine needles.
He rolls over me and we lock gazes. "I hate you," I say against his mouth and sink my teeth into flesh. His growl is instant.
"Da." He kisses me harder. His hands grip my thighs, spread them wider, pull me tighter against the length of him already hard through his sweatpants. "I know."
He steals a kiss.
I thump his chest. "I'm serious. I actually hate you right now."
"If it makes you feel better, you bit my lip." His mouth drops to my neck and his teeth scrape the spot below my ear that turns my spine to liquid. "I'm wounded and bleeding. I’ve been punished."
He pulls back and shows me his lip and you know what…
"Good."
He laughs again as he dips his mouth to kiss my neck again.
The vibration travels through my body and reaches deep inside me.
His hands slide under my shirt. His touch is deliciously rough and the cold morning air hits every place his fingers leave warm.
The contrast makes me gasp against his mouth.
"Take me, Rowan," I whisper into his neck where he holds me close. I spread my thighs around his hips. The weight of his cock between us is a torment because I need him in the worst way possible but there’s a barrier between us.
I slip my fingers into the band of his sweats and pull. His cock springs free, thick, flushed dark, the head swollen with the same urgency that has my hands shaking against his skin.
He raises his head. Those ice eyes turn sharp and bright against the morning forest behind him.
"Now." He groans as his tongue swirls over mine. His large hands touch every part of me the shirt isn’t touching.
“This is a problem.” He takes the lapels of my shirt and pops the buttons with one hard pull. The shirt falls open and his eyes immediately fall to my hard nipples. His mouth follows.
“Problem solved,” I husk, totally smitten with the way he ravishes me.
I arch into him, bury my hands into his hair and hold him tight.
He reaches between us and guides his massive cock to my entrance. I’m already dripping wet for the man so when he presses the swollen head to my entrance I’m ready.
Better yet…
I press a hand to his shoulders and he follows my signals to roll on his back.
“Good boy,” I wink at him and the animalistic growl that he gives has another wave of hot liquid wetting my thighs. I climb over him and brace my palms against his chest, his heartbeat slamming into my palms.
I sink down onto him and his eyes flash with a hunger so wild and raw, I feel it in my soul.
My pussy clenches around him as I take his full length inside me. My world narrows to only us and a bolt of heat lashes through me. My core throbs with a need to feel him deeper.
The stretch is still new, still overwhelming. The angle is deeper from here, gravity adding pressure that pulls a deep moan from my throat.
Rowan’s hands grip my hips, guiding and steadying me, but he doesn't take over. He lets me set the pace. I can read it in his hands, in the way he holds instead of grips. His fingers are loose enough to follow wherever I lead.
He’s giving me control and I take it.